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Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:55 pm
by thinkpadcollection
Does work but one piece bracket require some cutting to clear the LCD harness connector.

The poorly designed 2 piece brackets can done away without. Picture will come in shortly, keyboard will not bow upwards.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/jpero/thinkpad ... nkT612.jpg
Cheers, thinkpadcollection.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 10:13 pm
by TuuS
Personally I prefer the T61p fan, it has a larger gpu heatsink designed to cool the more powerful nVidia graphics. Sometimes newer doesn't mean better, and it requires little modification to be used on any t6x.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 8:15 pm
by thinkpadcollection
Actually T500 heatsink were made to cool much hotter GPU also plus 35W CPUs if used. Same heatsink was used in W500 which I consider cheesy due to much fiery fireGL GPU.
Even more annoyingly, there is a heatsink used in R61 that is aluminum fins hybrid with plate stamped formed that to clear a inductor under it to cool northbridge. And even more extremely annoying is there are 2 revisions of R61 15.4" motherboards where said inductor is relocated everywhere else and used a copper fin heatsink with copper flat northbridge plate. These board usually comes with no SD reader but does have solder spots and one missing retangular ethernet chip next to square ethernet chip. That type of all copper R61 heatsink is not found on ebay, but can be found on google but finding that better heatsink is little harder.
Ebay seller have no need to say a heatsink is actually from a T61p. Many say it is for T61 and T61p which is incorrect.
Cheers, thinkpadcollection
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:05 pm
by Pete B
Just nearly finished my 601 Frankenpad and I found that only the T60 cover would fit well. Is the full cover bracket a T500 part, or where is it normally found? Interesting post.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:28 pm
by ajkula66
thinkpadcollection wrote:Actually T500 heatsink were made to cool much hotter GPU also plus 35W CPUs if used. Same heatsink was used in W500 which I consider cheesy due to much fiery fireGL GPU.
I wouldn't be so certain about FireGL running hotter than the 256MB version of FX570. At all.
Even more annoyingly, there is a heatsink used in R61 that is aluminum fins hybrid with plate stamped formed that to clear a inductor under it to cool northbridge. And even more extremely annoying is there are 2 revisions of R61 15.4" motherboards where said inductor is relocated everywhere else and used a copper fin heatsink with copper flat northbridge plate. These board usually comes with no SD reader but does have solder spots and one missing retangular ethernet chip next to square ethernet chip. That type of all copper R61 heatsink is not found on ebay, but can be found on google but finding that better heatsink is little harder.
This post brought to you courtesy of a 15.4" R61 with nVidia graphics and T61p heatsink.
Pete B wrote:Just nearly finished my 601 Frankenpad and I found that only the T60 cover would fit well. Is the full cover bracket a T500 part, or where is it normally found? Interesting post.
Honestly, I'm 10001% with
TuuS on this particular issue, and he wrote:
TuuS wrote:Personally I prefer the T61p fan, it has a larger gpu heatsink designed to cool the more powerful nVidia graphics. Sometimes newer doesn't mean better, and it requires little modification to be used on any T6x.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 1:07 am
by Pete B
I'm not following, my question was about the cover, I used the T61p (42W2028) heatsink, and the original T60 cover over the GPU/Northbridge but the cover shown here is much bigger. Which cover do you and TuuS suggest?
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:26 am
by RealBlackStuff
They (and I) mean this bracket
26R9633 from a T60/p.

It gets a small corner cut out/filed away to fit flat on a T61p heatsink.
The T500/W500 use these brackets:
45N5367 T/W500 KBD support bracket for Intel model, 2 pieces
45N5368 T/W500 KBD support bracket for Hybrid model, 2 pieces
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:38 am
by Pete B
Thanks RBS that looks like, from memory, what I used but I didn't have to cut it. The chassis, I did cut in two places as expected.
Edit: I see now that the OP was installing the T500 cover in a T61/R61 not a T60
chassis so now it makes more sense.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:06 am
by RealBlackStuff
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:49 am
by Pete B
Thanks very much RBS, for all the help.
Oh I remember seeing that picture now, not sure why I didn't have to cut, maybe I have the T60 non-P type bracket. The keyboard is perfectly flat. I will open it soon to take a look.
Re: Fitting of T500 heatsink with full cover bracket into T61/R61
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 10:49 am
by TuuS
Thanks for replying RBS, and if you don't do the small modification on the heatsink retainer, not only will the keyboard be slightly lifted and potentially impact the keys on the screen, but also can apply too much pressure on the heatsink causing your motherboard to flex, and over time this can damage the board.
As for cooling, the ATI graphics tend to run much cooler than any of the nVidia. Those who have experienced extremely hot ATI equipped machines should take a look at your heatsink and you'll notice that the grey thermal pad used is likely burned and not cooling at all which is why they stopped using them. If you switch to the T61p style heatsink and use thermal paste on your GPU instead of the pad, your ATI graphics will run cooler than nVidia. I'll also mention for those interested, I still have a few of these new NOS nVidia fans as well as the new NOS nVidia motherboards.