Identifying faulty NVS 140M GPUS? (Warning: Picture)

[Garlic Bread]

Hi!

I have found a 15.4" T61 mobo for sale, but the seller does not say if the GPU is of the revised kind or not. The production date is 08-2008, so it is right on the revision cutoff. Is there any other markings that can reveal if the GPU is pre or post revision?

Picture of the GPU in question:



The FRU of the board itself is 42W7876, which as far as I can tell was only manufactured in 2008. Is this board worth getting?

Thanks.

[RealBlackStuff]

The 0808A2 line tells it was made in Year 2008/Week 08, which is before the new revision date.
Year08
Week..08 (end February/early March)
So unfortunately it's an old version.
Up to you if you want to take the risk, after it has made it till today...

[kfzhu1229]

Is the black tape around the chip severely warped in any way?
If it is, then the chip might also be "reflowed" with a heat gun before and in that case you absolutely wanna avoid this board!
But yeah, you want a datecode on the chip saying 0831 or greater

[Garlic Bread]

Same chip, top down view:



The tape is definitely not perfect, but I wouldn't say that it was severely warped. It could have been reflowed in an oven, but it does not look like someone took a heat gun to it. It could also just be 13 years old and be a little weathered from use and handling.

I feel tempted to just YOLO this one and give it a try.

How long does a reflowed GPU live? Hours? Days? More?

[atagunov]

How long does a reflowed GPU live? Hours? Days? More?

You mean "reflowing" in a kitchen oven? If somebody is baking a motherboard in a food stove this is surely a last-ditch attempt to revive a piece of hardware that is on its way out. I'd say the results are unpredictable. Should we expect such a motherboard to last months even in the very best case?.. But then I don't think it's particularly common to do this. I'd expect people just to throw away their hardware rather than put it into ovens..

I would have thought the right way to "bake" a board is first to remove all the black sheets and then somehow stick them back on, possibly with a double-sided sticky tape. Would the black tape survive baking if it was not removed? Don't think so.

P.S. This 42W7876 according to https://thinkpads.com/t61/ this is a 15.4 widescreen motherboard. If you're looking at that and you're considering motherboards with chips out of safe dates range why not look for a board with nVidia fx570m? These are the only T61 ones to have 256mb of video RAM next to the chip. All nvs140m boards have got only 128Mb next to them on T61-s. I heard it makes a difference under later versions of Windows. That page I linked to gives the FRU-s for such boards. You generally don't care if it's Merom or Merom/Penryn board - I understand a BIOS update makes every Merom board capable of running a Penryn.

[kfzhu1229]

I feel tempted to just YOLO this one and give it a try.

How long does a reflowed GPU live? Hours? Days? More?

From my experiences, if you are lucky it might live for two years, if you are not lucky and the cooling on the chip is very bad, then it will last maybe a week.
I have done such successful "reflow" with an oven before and for those boards I would take maximum amount of care to make sure the chip is extra properly cooled down.
But well since you are on a widescreen T61 anyway, why not just move on to a T500 which doesn't have any of these issues (and many parts are interchangable)?

[Garlic Bread]

Mostly because I already have the T61 in my possession, and modding it seemed like less of a hassle. And the reason I am looking for NVS 140M versions is that I am unsure of whether it will fit my T61 non-p case and cooler.

I have never really considered the W500. Does it by chance use the same keyboard as the T61?

[atagunov]

I have never really considered the W500. Does it by chance use the same keyboard as the T61?

Ebay listings typically list the same keyboard as fitting all of T60 T61 T500 and W500, I believe the keyboards are indeed interchangeable.

BTW if you like T61 keyboard you may be reasonably happy with keyboards up until *20 generation. Minute details are different but as for the feel of keyboards.. I was using T60 for a while and now I have X220 and T520 - and I like *20 keyboard better. It's subjective of course. I'm a big fan of T520 and two of them are in at home. I'm using one now - maxed out to 16Gb of RAM with a nice SSD and Win10 running in a virtual machine in Linux with acceptable performance. All on a T520 with a humble i5-2520m *20 keyboards can be fitted onto *30 with some hassle - which apparently you're not afraid of. So also T530/W530/T430 to consider. Unfortunately the ability to upgrade to really nice screens starts with T440p (or T440?.. but p is nicer in any case!) that's the generation when they switched to modern eDP connectors. *20 and *30 still have LVDS display connectors like T61.

Anything newer than T61 btw allows you to save money if you want above 4Gb of RAM. DDR3 is way cheaper than DDR2 when the size is above 2Gb per RAM stick.
I guess W500 might be a bit more rare and expensive compared to T500?

[kfzhu1229]

Mostly because I already have the T61 in my possession, and modding it seemed like less of a hassle. And the reason I am looking for NVS 140M versions is that I am unsure of whether it will fit my T61 non-p case and cooler.

I have never really considered the W500. Does it by chance use the same keyboard as the T61?

If your T61 is working and just has a integrated graphics or something, you can just get a T500 and sell off the T61 since the T500 really isn't worth a whole lot of money these days. Plus you get much cheaper (price to performance) processor upgrades and RAM upgrades.

[RealBlackStuff]

Any 15.4" motherboard will fit in any 15.4" T61 or T61p.
The only difference is in the fan for either integrated or dedicated graphics.

[Garlic Bread]

I don't actually need the 15.4" T61 for anything, I just happen to like retro PCs and as two perfectly serviceable 15.4" T61s with integrated graphics fell into my lap as I was searching for a nice 14" 4:3 specimen I thought that I might as well turn at least one of them into a hobby project and upgrade it. I never really considered a W500 as I already had a literal pile of T61s in my office, but they do seem very nice indeed. I especially like that most of the used W500s I can find for sale has the nice 1920x1200 screen while almost all 15.4" T61 (including mine) has the ghetto spec 1280x800 TN displays. Also regarding the keyboard, it is not a matter of preference. I use the Danish keyboard layout on all of my PCs, and apart from the addition of the æ, ø and å keys it shuffles around all of the non-letter symbols, so if I buy a W500 I'll have to be able to transplant a Danish T61 keyboard to it or I am not going to have a very good time.

As for the mobo in the OP, I placed a cheeky offer and got it. If it dies it dies, but if it is a surviving piece of original hardware it gets to live on in my collection for the time being.

[atagunov]

I just happen to like retro PCs and as two perfectly serviceable 15.4" T61s with integrated graphics fell into my lap
I thought that I might as well turn at least one of them into a hobby project and upgrade it.

Good luck with that! RAM prices are going to sting, otherwise hell, yeah!

I especially like that most of the used W500s I can find for sale has the nice 1920x1200 screen while almost all 15.4" T61 (including mine) has the ghetto spec 1280x800 TN displays

I noticed you're persistently referring to W500 not T500 series here. Now I'm seeing why - 1920x1200 screen decides it for you. Interestingly W520/W530 come with 1920x1080 screens which are also TN but the consensus seems to be they are probably the nicest TN-s on the planet somewhat rivaling IPS. I got one, it's nice. So I'm not sure if those screens on W500 are IPS but they should be good. I'm using 1920x1200 now on a 27" desktop monitor and I agree that 16:10 is a nicer ratio compared to 16:9. The only concern would be that on a used W500 the screen could have gone a bit dim with years.

Also regarding the keyboard, it is not a matter of preference. I use the Danish keyboard layout on all of my PCs, and apart from the addition of the æ, ø and å keys it shuffles around all of the non-letter symbols, so if I buy a W500 I'll have to be able to transplant a Danish T61 keyboard to it or I am not going to have a very good time.

Understood. In fairness one should be able to find a Danish layout keyboard for more modern Thinkpads as well, but there will be a cost..
Update: you're in Denmark, there should be those on your local ebay! BTW be cautious about "new" ones with generic photos.. Used ones may be a safer buy - not fakes.

As for the mobo in the OP, I placed a cheeky offer and got it. If it dies it dies, but if it is a surviving piece of original hardware it gets to live on in my collection for the time being.

If it dies you still got your integrated graphics motherboard as a backup, right? Be mindful of that HDD compartment being 9mm while your modern SSD-s will be 7mm.... but certainly fit it with an SSD though to give it a new life! And you're aware of "middleton" BIOS right? Running SSD without this "upgrade" to SATA-II will be unfair to the machine. The docking stations should be pretty cheap, a spare power adapter you'd need for the docking station should be cheap too, are you going to put something like a "Greencell" battery in? Or are you going to use it mostly plugged in?

[RealBlackStuff]

The Sharp 1920x1200 screens, that I've been recommending over the years, fit in all 15.4" T60, T61, T500 and W500.
As do all the T6x keyboards.

[kfzhu1229]

Well if the T500 board fits in your T61 too (you need a different DVD drive that has a SATA connector), then I would say putting a T500 board is a better option.
2x4GB of DDR2 RAM sticks are gonna be so much more prohibitively expensive over the same for DDR3 RAM that you can use that money to buy a T500 motherboard and 2x4GB DDR3.
And yeah I also agree that the Sharp branded screens are quite good, specifically the LQ154M1LW02 or LQ154M1LW02A (this one is Dell OEM and requires you to strip off the mounting ears and inverter bracket). Somehow these Sharp screens have a greenish hue to them compared to my LG and Samsung panels but you will get used to it.
I would say the 16:9 screens can be much brighter with a LED backlight over the CCFL ones and are much more immune to backlight problems, but is it possible to have native WUXGA LED screen support on a T500 rather than modding it?

[unixed]

The T500 planar won't fit in the 15.4" T61, see the threads asking about fitting it in the 15.0" T60 for all the reasons but the video cable placement is a problem.
No IPS options either, but fortunately there are some good quality TN screens available.