Thinkpads Forum

Okay so my R61 transplant will begin soon into my dead T61, could one install a ULV 800 FSB Core 2 Duo. I was looking at a SU9600 PGA online, and its soldered onto a PGA PCB. Do you have to flash Middleton's BIOS to get Penryn support as there were some T61 were T8100/T8300 so the BIOS has the microcode for Penryn, does that open the floodgate for any 800 FSB Core 2 Duo?

Check the date on the bottom of the machine and the FRU # of the board. Some are Penryn-ready and the others are not.

No clue on whether that CPU will work, though.

Huh so the R61 has a date of 08/09 and the dead T61 has 08/05, I would assume those are late manufacture date _61 series laptops?

Yeah those should be Penryn-ready.

Good luck with that ULV...

The SU9600 ex-factory is a BGA chip, i.e. is put on the motherboard with hundreds of tiny solder balls.
If someone put it on a special PGA adapter, you run several extra risks:
1) loose solder ball(s)
2) bent/broken pin(s)
3) engineering sample
4) shoddy job
5) too thick to fit properly under the CPU-cooler
There are UNmodified Penryn CPUs available in PGA for your T61/R61, the above-mentioned T8100/T8300, as well as T9300/T9500 (plus the X9000).
In any case, I would apply Middleton's BIOS.
And you can always undervolt the CPU...

Well I had a friend who ordered an SU9300 PGA mod from Ebay like 4 years ago with no issues, it's not that expensive to the point it's like 500 dollars, it was like ~60 dollars news.

does that open the floodgate for any 800 FSB Core 2 Duo?

800 FSB Core 2 Duos and Pentium Dual Cores that were introduced with the Intel Montevina platform (GM45 chipset) will not be compatible with the T61/R61.

Here's one such case: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 82&start=0

Which means that the SU9600 is not likely to work with your T61/R61.

It would be nice if it did though.

Tsunade wrote:Okay so my R61 transplant will begin soon into my dead T61..

A side track: So the motherboard from a R61 will physically fit in a T61? I asked this question in the R-forum, but I was told it wouldn't fit. The reason I asked is that I have a banged up Intel'ed R61i lying around, and if I ever come across a T61 with a dead nVidia, I would like to fit the R61 motherboard there. A T-series is a bit classier looking, and anyway better looking than the scratched shell of this R61i. I assume there will be just more and more dead T61s as time pass by, so they can be had for cheap.

Norway Pad wrote:

Tsunade wrote:Okay so my R61 transplant will begin soon into my dead T61..

A side track: So the motherboard from a R61 will physically fit in a T61? I asked this question in the R-forum, but I was told it wouldn't fit. The reason I asked is that I have a banged up Intel'ed R61i lying around, and if I ever come across a T61 with a dead nVidia, I would like to fit the R61 motherboard there. A T-series is a bit classier looking, and anyway better looking than the scratched shell of this R61i. I assume there will be just more and more dead T61s as time pass by, so they can be had for cheap.

I'll see, worst case I can do a little modding or swap stuff to the R61 chassis. Doesn't matter to me, the T61 has a bad X3100 mobo.

axur-delmeria wrote:

does that open the floodgate for any 800 FSB Core 2 Duo?

800 FSB Core 2 Duos and Pentium Dual Cores that were introduced with the Intel Montevina platform (GM45 chipset) will not be compatible with the T61/R61.

Here's one such case: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 82&start=0

Which means that the SU9600 is not likely to work with your T61/R61.

It would be nice if it did though.

It actually works on 965 chipset, it's 800 FSB and Penryn. My friend's SU9300 works in 965 chipset Dell laptops, he used it for testing purposes. Of course...it's not uber powerful, my only plans were to get the lowest TDP processor that would still make the laptop usable for normal tasks. The only thing I could see is Lenovo is more picky about CPU microcode vs Dell. My friend never tested that SU9300 in a ThinkPad so I guess maybe I can guinea pig it tomorrow.

Ok. I thought you had already investigated and knew for sure that it could be done, and that the information I got was wrong. I have always seen the R61 and T61 as so closely related, that I assumed the motherboards were the same, and that difference was just a cheaper shell for the R61. So I was surprised when I was told that the motherboards couldn't be swapped.

But let me know how it turns out. If the R61 motherboard fits directly into the T61 shell, or if anything (And if so: What?) needs to be modified in order to make it fit.

Norway Pad wrote: If the R61 motherboard fits directly into the T61 shell, or if anything (And if so: What?) needs to be modified in order to make it fit.

My understanding it that it's a direct swap on 14" widescreen units, and a no-go on all the others...

Yeah apparently its only the same for the 14.1" Widescreen models. I think the R61 barebone is coming in next week and I'll report on how it goes.

So the R61 is supposed to come in tomorrow, though with the massive snow expected for the tri-state area, who knows if it will actually come, I will post if the R61 into T61 14.1" WS transplant will actually work..