Thinkpads Forum

hey guys,
so i'm kind of a novice at frankenpadding but am trying to set up a 15" t60 to t61 machine. i purchased a good-condition t61 mobo (42w7648) and was gonna install a t8300, but i only noticed after the fact that this board apparently can't natively support penryn cpu's (doh! my bad) i was planning to change the bios to the middleton version (via bootable usb) *after* installing the board on the fpad. so here's my main question: would i have to first install a merom cpu to do this bios change, or will this work with the t8300 installed right away? guess what i'm asking is, i read about the false thermal sensor problem at wikispaces, but will the board recognize the cpu at all without middleton, or is there no way around having to do the bios change using a merom cpu first??? thanks in advance for any replies.

oh i should add one more thing, i have a spare t7600 lying around. would that do the trick (if the bios needs to be changed first) or is it not compatible with the 42w7648 board because of the different (lower) fsb?

fanoftp wrote:oh i should add one more thing, i have a spare t7600 lying around. would that do the trick (if the bios needs to be changed first) or is it not compatible with the 42w7648 board because of the different (lower) fsb?

T7600 won't do it.

You need a T7100/7300/7500/7700 to flash the BIOS, and some of these can be had for a few bucks nowadays.

ok thanks a lot, that's what i feared.
so then just out of curiosity, does anyone know what would happen if one were to try installing a penryn cpu on this board without having the middleton bios first? would it simply not start up, or is there a risk of board damage?? i'm not planning to do this of course, at this point i'm just curious what would have happened if i hadn't realized my mismatch error.

It won't boot, period.

fanoftp wrote: does anyone know what would happen if one were to try installing a penryn cpu on this board without having the middleton bios first? .

Actually you can get it to boot if you hit the escape key just after the thermal sensing error appears, this should do long enough to get the bios flashed, or if you like I can send you a merom cpu for the cost of postage.

TuuS wrote:
Actually you can get it to boot if you hit the escape key just after the thermal sensing error appears, this should do long enough to get the bios flashed, or if you like I can send you a merom cpu for the cost of postage.

This might depend on the current BIOS version that the board is running. If it's a very early BIOS, it might not boot at all. I believe that after 2.11 or something along those lines you'll get the warning.

Having said that, I wouldn't play with it at all...install a cheap Merom, flash the BIOS and call it a day.

I agree a merom chip is the way to go. I have close to 100 of them that I'll eventually salvage for gold if no one wants to buy them and the slower ones I'm happy to donate to members who are painted into a corner like this.

As for the T7600, I've never tried it and wouldn't recommend it. The worse case is you fry the cpu and board, the best case is you end up overclocking the cpu to 2.8ghz which even if it doesn't fry the cpu it will likely overheat and cause thermal shutdown during a bios update and your board will never boot again (bricked).

TuuS wrote:As for the T7600, I've never tried it and wouldn't recommend it. The worse case is you fry the cpu and board, the best case is you end up overclocking the cpu to 2.8ghz which even if it doesn't fry the cpu it will likely overheat and cause thermal shutdown during a bios update and your board will never boot again (bricked).

that's very good to know!
man, i would've been in a real bind if i tried that just for fun. big thanks to all you guys for your posts, guess i'll hold off on the risky experimenting.

tuus, thanks a bunch for the offer to provide a merom cpu for cheap. i have a local buddy who should be able to donate or at least lend me one for this, so i probably won't need to bug you for yours (but if that doesn't happen for whatever reason, i might take you up on your offer!)