Thinkpads Forum

Hi there!

New to the forum here.

I recently bought a ThinkPad T61, used, good general condition, I learned about the graphics card issue and I'm coming to terms with that... I'll enjoy it as much as I can, I'll install Debian 11.6. The battery is dead.

I want to install the Middleton BIOS upgrade so as to have 8Gb or RAM, a simple 120/240Gb SSD and possibly upgrade the processor, but as I was going to flash the BIOS through Windows, the battery did not meet the required charge. Battery -as said- is dead.

Is there a workaround to this? Such as typing something like "risky" for Asus laptops without batteries while flashing bios upgrades?

My T61 is a FRU 41W1489, which is for what I can see a very early model.

Anyhow, thanks for your comments!

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=133271
https://superuser.com/questions/913449/ ... the-way-to

Welcome to the forum!
You don't need to flash the Middleton BIOS to do those things you've listed, except probably you'll have to press the ESC key on startup if you put in a penryn CPU. The charged battery requirement is a safety measure, if you overide it take precautions.

Thank you so much for the replies!

Indeed, right after opening this thread I googled how to upgrade with a dead battery and found the steps for doing so.

Fortunately I connected to a UPS, I wasn't quite ready to face all the emotion of flashing the BIOS comando style.

I did disassemble the laptop for a fan cleaning and oiling as it was making lots of noise and it felt way too hot for comfort. I put it back together this morning with fresh thermal paste and thermal pads and it's fixed. What a beautiful machine.

After booting and arriving to the desktop I saw that there was no wifi. Of course, being my truly first vintage ThinkPad, the wifi switch was off - relief! as I thought I had somehow broken it.