Thinkpads Forum

I apologize in advance for the topic in this sub forum, but it doesn't perfectly fit anywhere, and likely here is the closest appropriate spot for it. Moderators move if needed.

Well, i looked quite a bit and didn't find anything really on this subject, and all the talk of the virtues of the frankenpad here were quite compelling thanks to the good folks here, so I decided to go for it using what i had on hand. Thus I present to you the R60 frankenpad.

This is a 15" R60 4:3 type 9461-52U originally.

Original specs:
T2500 Core Duo
1Gb Ram
SATA hard drive (unknown-came without)
Intel 3965 Wifi
1440 x 1050 SXGA+ screen (non-IPS)
ATI x1400 graphics
CR-D/DVD ultrabay enhanced

Cost to me - $32 (ebay)

Current specs:
T7500 Core2Duo
4 Gb Ram
SATA SSD Micron C400 - primary drive
SATA HDD 1Tb WD - Ultrabay adapter
T61 planar
Nvidia NVS140M graphics
T61 fan (modified)
LG IPS screen - SXGA+ (beautiful)
Modified chassis

Cost for the T61 planar (whole chassis actually) - $10 (ebay, yes you read that right)

Had to pay for the IPS screen, Ram, HDD, Interposer, SSD, ultrabay adapter and a drive cage / cover.
Also purchased a spare lower chassis and bottom cover to modify while off the machine so i could continue to use it while modifying.
If i had to estimate, total cost of this frankenpad was around $300

Now to get down to photos of the conversion.
I'd guess that the basic modifications of the chassis closely parallel the T60 conversions.
Primary differences will be in the fan area, due to the R60 fan exits being narrow due to a larger
hinge area and the firewire port on the left side.

First a comparison between R60 planar and T61:
R60:
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... a6fb85.jpg

T61:
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... 40a967.jpg

Notice the R60 is wider, it eliminates an interposer card. Not sure why they did this, but they did.

You need to perform the usual modifications to the modem card area of the R60 chassis due to the modem connector and hole mismatch. As near as i can tell, this is the same as the T60 chassis.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... fe3f1d.jpg

I filed down the rear post to fit near the connector and ground off the bottom of both posts so they didn't contact the planar. Also clipped the firewire connections due to no place to put the connector.
Added tape to the planar to prevent any possible shorts.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... e61ebf.jpg

Next area of concern was the cmos battery connection. I had to file a bit away to allow the connector to push through the chassis.

There's an inductor rearward of the cmos connector that hits the R60 chassis, i filed that area away as well.

By far the largest work needed on the chassis was the fan area.
That is shown here:
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... bffa44.jpg

The rear port was not possible to modify in my opinion, due to the structure. the left side was modified by taking out the firewire port area, grinding down the mounting post, taking out the divider between fan and firewire and generally opening this area up.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... 6a5b1f.jpg

Also had to remove the little protrusions on the top of the rail with the foam conductor shown in the lower portion of the photo to the left of the fan area. The fan interferes with those.

I decided to make the T61 fan work due to the better design and used on T61 already. I used 42w2028.
The fan needed to be modified to fit the area.
I started with removing fins on the rear port to match the width of the opening. These pull off very easily by inserting a screwdriver or pick in between the fins and removing them one at a time until the desired width is reached.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... e88e79.jpg

The corner will need clipped to fit next to the hinge area.

Next remove a fin next to the firewire port to narrow it a hair.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... 22bb7b.jpg

Removed the rightmost area of the fan over the graphics heatsink, the tab needs to be removed to prevent collision with the chassis.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... 1d4951.jpg


Testing the die / fan contact showed that this area needed ground flat.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... 667426.jpg

Put the fan back together, and used foil HVAC tape to re seal the fan.
Installed into the machine and tested die / fan contact with Artic silver 5. Continue to tweak until good contact.
It's necessary to bend the heat pipe for the GPU until proper contact achieved.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... c29af4.jpg

Install the heatsink with a fresh coat of arctic silver 5.

The bracket across the GPU i modified by cutting a slot into the left area and bending it upward.
The remainder stays pressing down on the GPU.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... e5a7ff.jpg

At this point, button everything up and power on.
Installed middleton bios, installed into advanced dock and installed Linux Mint LMDE Cinnamon.

Final result:
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg12 ... e46723.jpg

Note: There are more photos in that directory on photobucket.

IDLE temps running around 35C - Core 1, Core2
GPU temps running around 50-53C IDLE

Further plans include a T9300, an Intel 6200 or Atheros 9280 Wifi, and a Broadcom crystalHD in slot2.

I cannot overemphasize how much better the nVidia chip works with Linux. ATI really drops the ball with the planned obsolescence.

With the SSD, Core2Duo and more ram, performance is really quite good. I can see this being my laptop of choice for several years at least.

I hope you enjoyed this project.
Thanks again to everyone who helped on this project.

Mark

Interesting stuff, and a nice job!
Q: was it really necessary to remove so many fins from the 'top' part of the fan?

Thanks!

Yes, I probably had to remove 6 fins on the (back/top) of the fan cooler so it would fit between the left hinge and the power jack. I used an iterative process to minimize the mods. Take off a few, and see if it would drop in. I stopped when I didn't have to shove it in with a lot of force. It's wall to wall now.

I don't think it had a large impact on the fan because i believe my temps have been pretty good, although I probably won't know how high it goes until summer and under a load.

Although i don't game much so i figured i probably wouldn't subject the fan to too much abuse.

It's probably not sufficient for an X9000 though.

I have an R60 that I wanted to do a similar mod with as well!!
The only thing I saw was the fan, I would not trust the R60 fan for cooling the T61... even if it was the discrete graphics one.
I wanted to just cut the frame, but it would probably be too much work and be at the cost of rigidity.
Your mod is nice!! Definitely going to check up on your steps while doing this mod.

I think there's a palmrest without touchpad for the R60. It would be very nice to combine this with a T61p motherboard.

How about a name for this, RT61?

Saucey wrote:I have an R60 that I wanted to do a similar mod with as well!!
The only thing I saw was the fan, I would not trust the R60 fan for cooling the T61... even if it was the discrete graphics one.
I wanted to just cut the frame, but it would probably be too much work and be at the cost of rigidity.
Your mod is nice!! Definitely going to check up on your steps while doing this mod.

No, i wouldn't trust the R60 fan either. I have the old one right here. It's clearly not as beefy.
Definitely don't cut all the structure out. It's the only thing holding the left hinge. In fact mine has the broken
rib that all of these things get, i'm going to add the strengthening bar eventually that I think came from emeraldgirl08.

Definitely go for it! This is a sweet performing laptop. I think the R60 bigger case keeps the temps down. It's been pretty cool even with the T7500.

PowerPC wrote:I think there's a palmrest without touchpad for the R60. It would be very nice to combine this with a T61p motherboard.

How about a name for this, RT61?

Hmm. 41W5190 maybe?

A name would be good i think to differentiate from normal frankenpads. I have heard frankies called T601,

Maybe R601? anyone have a preference?

R506 would be better. 5=15", 06 would be the "model".

You mentioned that your current configuration is using a hard disk in an Ultrabay adapter.

R50 has an Ultrabay Enhanced, instead of the Slim in a T61. How did you connect it?

The Ultrabay CD-connectors are the same on R5x/T4x/T6x.
Only the internal height of the Ultrabay itself is different.

Maybe this machine should be called an Artee instead of a Frankie?
As a variant of R2-D2 you could call this Artee R6-T6, or perhaps RT601.
Plain R601 as mentioned above would probably be interpreted as an ArfArfie or R60/R61 combo.

To listen to what Yoda or R2-D2 would call this, enter your own preferred 'title' here: http://www.r2d2translator.com/

86turbodsl wrote:

PowerPC wrote:I think there's a palmrest without touchpad for the R60.

Hmm. 41W5190 maybe?

I looked for information on this for several hours and it seems that FRU 41W5190 (IBM logo) or FRU 42W3152 (ThinkPad logo) would be the only options available for 15", but they are for R6x models. On R6x, there are two pieces, palmrest and keyboard bezel, but in the R50 they are a single piece. Now the problem is, would they be compatible? Taking the R50 route for a T61 motherboard would be useful for something I'm planning to try, because of the larger Ultrabay, compared to a T60 shell.

Unfortunately, I think that no T61 planar will fit inside an R61 15" 4:3 shell. That would be my primary option if it was possible.

You're a little confused. This machine is based on an R60, not an R50.

As far as what we should call it, I'll defer to whatever the majority thinks we should call it.

86turbodsl wrote:You're a little confused. This machine is based on an R60, not an R50.

Oops. Well, this makes things so much easier, thanks for pointing it out.

You are welcome sir.

86turbodsl - Very impressive work - Great to see another ThinkPad hybrid enter into the "FrankenPad" arena! -

EDIT:
Just spotted my mistake and have correct my post above -

No no, 86turbodsl made it.

Great job

Do you feel the R60 frame is stronger and more durable than the T60?

My overall feeling is that the amount of work to get the discrete T61 fan to work looks a bit extreme, but perhaps with an Intel board there may be other alternatives to streamline the build. It would be a nice alternative considering the price and availability of the R60 units. It's also interesting that they didn't use a separate interposer on the 15" R60. It looks like the "R" series designers didn't seem to care about making parts interchangeable like on the T series where all the 4:3 boards have the same footprint.

Thank you for the contribution to the community

Thanks. Well, i haven't had a T60 completely apart yet as my son's hasn't needed anything more than a fan clean.

Speaking purely as a mechanical engineer, the R60 is a thicker machine, so theoretically if the inner magnesium cage is taller than the T-series, it should have more torsional rigidity. But frankly speaking, i haven't measured any of the section thicknesses on the frames, so there may be no benefit. You'd probably need an FEA to determine its any better.

What I *am* sure of is that the R60 seems like a cheaper machine to buy. So this may be a cheap way to get into a frankenpad.

They're out there. I just picked up another T61 for $10.50. Willingness to gamble a bit has it's advantages.

Yes, i was a bit surprised to find no interposer card on the 15" R60. Didn't seem like making 2 widths of R60 boards would have made any sense if the interposer for the t60 was available. Maybe FR4 material is cheaper than connectors. Who knows.

That is a deal on the T61, I spent twice on that for a R61, hopefully the beep codes is just no ram installed.

No interposer card is a drag, but it does have that extra connector the T60 doesn't.
It would of been quite funny if Lenovo daisy chained interposers to make a 4:3 mobo into a 14" Widescreen one.

I think R60s are cheaper because they are seen as big ugly machines compared to the T60 to recyclers/sellers.
But they don't come with IPS screens, yet I doubt some of the sellers care much about that.
Its just another PC in their eyes.

yeah, they're definitely not as sexy as the T series, but in a family with kids, maybe that's not a bad thing for a while...