Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I have searched whole internet, and twice, and I found many different information about it.

Is T61 4:3 intel board fully swappable with 15,1" R61/i board?
Is there any FRU information that may suggest these boards are native penryn - supported?

The T61 14.1" 4:3 planar is based on the equivalent T60 one, which is why you can slot it into the T60 interposer board and use it in a 15.0" T60 to create the common frankenpad with minor modification of the T60 structure frame. Here you re-use the interposer bosses (the threaded protrusions) on the structure frame.

The R61(i) 15.0" planar uses a single continuous PCB instead of the two-piece construction of the 15.0" T60. If you use this planar in a T60 structure frame you have to remove the obstructing interposer bosses. See Peak2Peak. Search the forum properly once instead of the whole internet twice.
Doing the reverse, putting a T61 14.1" planar + interposer board in a 15.0" R60/1 would require the missing bosses.

The fans and surrounding regions are different.

In decreasing order of "fully swappable" if you have a 15.0" R61(i) planar just put it in a 15.0" R60; if you have a 14.1" 4:3 T61 planar put it in a 15.0" T60. You can swap over most parts if your motivation is repairing a machine.

Presumably your last question is whether any 15.0" R61(i) board will run as-is with a penryn CPU. The answer is no. It is a harder BIOS limitation than with the T61 but Peak2Peak provided a workaround.

I don't see the point in putting a 15" R61 board in a 15" R60 unless 15" R61 motherboards are, for some reason, easier to find than complete 15" R61s.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:44 pm

I don't see the point in putting a 15" R61 board in a 15" R60 unless 15" R61 motherboards are, for some reason, easier to find than complete 15" R61s.

It's easier to buy a complete unit in a decent shape. Not to mention I simply have a couple of mobos + two dead R60s ^^

unixed wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 10, 2017 7:19 am

The R61(i) 15.0" planar uses a single continuous PCB instead of the two-piece construction of the 15.0" T60

And here is the answer I was looking for.

I have built numerous frankies, but never done a R61 board swap. Since I own ~10 working 4:3 T61 boards I was wondering whether these are reasonably swappable with R61s. I just never had the need to do so. However, I killed one unit lately (didn't notice the battery was in there while plugging LCD) and now have the need to swap the board.

Thank you guys, that was big help and lots of time spared!