Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

I want to confirm, that 8889-26G t61 14" 4:3 board "kind of" fits into 15" t60p body.

I found 14" 4:3 t61 with T9300 cpu on auction long time ago. I purchased it because I was thinking about Frankenpad before, but after it was delivered I was too lazy to mess up with 2 working laptops to just swap boards. I was working on t61 for few months (without FlexView - blah!, but T9300 is almost twice as fast than T2500 from my t60p). I was thinking about new ThinkPad t440p or t540p with i7.

However I saw t540 with that huge nonsense touchpad, diffrent keyboard layout, no volume buttons and... next day I disassembled my 2 fully functional laptops and made one Frankenpad, because I want real touchpad buttons, separate mute button and perfect keyboard layout used by IBM for 15 or more years. I don't like where Lenovo is going and... Ill try to avoid their "improvements" for one more year. If they do something dumb with next generation of T-series - I'm gonna buy Dell Precision (blah?).

So, I have now:

- removed/broken two little pieces of metal motherboard frame because board was not identical
- T9300 2.5GHz (2.7GHz with IDA)
- NVS 140M - no heat problems!
- 4GB RAM
- 15" FlexView with CCFL - no LED... normal FlexView is good enough for me
- Intel SSD 520 120GB internal bay (about 260MB read and write, before Middleton BIOS it was 130MB/s)
- WD Caviar Black 500GB ultrabay (about 90MB/s read, about 60MB/s write - weird)

I observed few things while modyfying and upgrading my laptop:

1. Ultrabay HDD port is slower than internal port. Even my WD Caviar Black works slower in Ultrabay. I double checked this - about 110MB/s read in internal bay, about 90MB/s read in Ultrabay. SSD in Ultrabay works slow too (90MB/s).

2. My WD Caviar Black always works in 3.0Gbit mode, no matter where I put it. My Intel SSD works in 1.5GBit mode in Ultrabay and 3.0GBit mode in internal bay. Weird.

3. Before I disassembled t61 I was using it for 2 months. It was running on suprisingly low temperatures. After I put motherboard with everything including cooler into my t60p - I have a bit higher temperatures. I applied paste properly - trust me! im an engineer Anyone else observed something like that after motherboard swap?

4. T60p has much better hinges (I mean hinge parts inside LCD). I was unable to break T60p hinges for 8 years of intensive use, and T61 hinges cracked for no reason, because there are magnesium or some other alloy parts, like in dell laptops (blah).

Ultrabay HDD port is slower than internal port. Even my WD Caviar Black works slower in Ultrabay. I double checked this - about 110MB/s read in internal bay, about 90MB/s read in Ultrabay. SSD in Ultrabay works slow too (90MB/s).

This is expected, since the T4x/T6x Ultrabay is an IDE/ATA port that maxes out at 133MB/s.

The Ultrabay SATA HDD caddy has an IDE-to-SATA bridge chip inside. This chip adds some overhead, as a result the maximum transfer speed is reduced.

Before I disassembled t61 I was using it for 2 months. It was running on suprisingly low temperatures. After I put motherboard with everything including cooler into my t60p - I have a bit higher temperatures. I applied paste properly - trust me! im an engineer Anyone else observed something like that after motherboard swap?

There have been some reports that the flashing Middleton BIOS results in higher system temperatures. I don't have any idea if this is truly the case.

It's also possible that there are subtle differences between the T61 and T60p chassis which can affect the airflow and cooling.

Hello!
I have T61 with Middltone BIOS, in internal bay have SSD 60 GB OCZ Vertex 3. But the max speed is 170 mb/s.
How cay you do 260 mb/s?
And in Ultrabay is also 70mb/s, not 90 . WD Black 500gb/