Thinkpads Forum

Hello, for some time now I've been wondering on what to do when the day of my Quadro 140m demise will unfortunately come.
Originally I had resoldering/swapping out for another Quadro 140m yet recently while just being bored I discovered that there exist a much powerful GPU on the 140m "socket". Quadro shares "socket" (or rather ball grid array) with GeForce GT 610. GT's TDP compared to Quadro's is higher by 19 Watts. Now, as I'm not that well versed in electronics, yet is a mod like that even possible? Or will it just fry the Mobo?
PS. I have another question unrelated to this topic in any way, yet as I don't want to spam the main page with new threads every time I have a question I'll just ask here. Is anyone reading this in the possession of knowledge of what are T61 docking station individual pins responsible for? If possible I have in plans to create a docking station capable of carrying pcie, and ultrabay signals.

There is a dock that has an x16 slot. Expresscard eGPUS are also an option.

huohuo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 4:17 pm

Now, as I'm not that well versed in electronics, yet is a mod like that even possible? Or will it just fry the Mobo?

Would likely require changes to other components on the board, even if one ignores the difficulty of desoldering and resoldering BGA chips.

huohuo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 4:17 pm

Is anyone reading this in the possession of knowledge of what are T61 docking station individual pins responsible for? If possible I have in plans to create a docking station capable of carrying pcie, and ultrabay signals.

Search for T60/T61 schematics. The dock pinout is there.

SAIYAN48 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 5:04 pm

There is a dock that has an x16 slot. Expresscard eGPUS are also an option.

Oh of course there are advanced docks available for purchase, even as we speak. My problem is this that the 2505 is rather expensive, on top of that it's bulky. What I want to do is to make a X61-esque dock, which would only increase T61 in it's height.

dr_st wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 5:33 pm

huohuo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 4:17 pm

Now, as I'm not that well versed in electronics, yet is a mod like that even possible? Or will it just fry the Mobo?

Would likely require changes to other components on the board, even if one ignores the difficulty of desoldering and resoldering BGA chips.

huohuo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 26, 2025 4:17 pm

Is anyone reading this in the possession of knowledge of what are T61 docking station individual pins responsible for? If possible I have in plans to create a docking station capable of carrying pcie, and ultrabay signals.

Search for T60/T61 schematics. The dock pinout is there.

Would the potential changes be more on the power side (for example, the fact that gt610 requires additional 19 watts)? Or the more "technical" side (the fact that 610 has a clock running 410mhz faster, and 1gb of memory)? I am sorry if my questions come out as nonsensical. Yet as I said previously, my understanding of electronics is not that bad, yet it's still rather shallow.
Also, thank you for the help with schematics, I was convinced that one has to look for schematics of the dock itself, not the T61.

i'd spend a little money on a powerful server and VNC or Parsec over to it from any T61 if i wanted real graphics power from the i/o of a T61 or other slow classic.

Originally I had resoldering/swapping out for another Quadro 140m yet recently while just being bored I discovered that there exist a much powerful GPU on the 140m "socket". Quadro shares "socket" (or rather ball grid array) with GeForce GT 610. GT's TDP compared to Quadro's is higher by 19 Watts. Now, as I'm not that well versed in electronics, yet is a mod like that even possible? Or will it just fry the Mobo?

AFAIK, I don't think it's ever been really tried. I've actually asked around about this sort of thing too, my idea was just simply using another G86 chip from the time but for a completely different card, maybe even lower power card like the NVS 130M chip as it uses half the VRAM and maybe the BIOS can be modded to just tell the GPU to ignore the other half of the VRAM on startup. Getting a completely different chip working in the motherboard, I can hardly imagine how dicey of an endeavor that would be, but I imagine if you had a Type 2503 dock you absolutely could just BGA solder the new GPU on you want to try, and then just leave the lower half of the laptop plonked on the dock to display video by default to the Dock's PCIe GPU until you get the laptop's new dGPU working. Of course, that's not considering the BIOS having hard-coded no-start conditions (black screen, unresponsive) from starting with an incorrect GPU soldered to it, or not having the microcode to initialize it. The more I think about it the more I think there's a good reason no one's ever tried it. But I don't plan on telling you not to try if you really want to

GT 610 seems to be a GF116S, which has a wattage rating of 25-30W. The NVS 140M does have a 10W cap, yes, but the T61 is also engineered from factory to fit the Quadro FX 570M, which is rated at 35W. So power delivery to a GF116S on a T61 motherboard (in theory) shouldn't be an issue at all.

If possible I have in plans to create a docking station capable of carrying pcie, and ultrabay signals.

I'd also be interested to see how far you get with this, because Dock 2503 is the only dock that has a PCIe slot and it would be super cool if someone somehow made something that would be much more compact and have a lot less I/O, pretty much strictly being a PCIe dock or eGPU dock. From what I remember being told, Dock 2503 has these switching controllers for the PCIe lanes to allow it to be hot-plug capable, so maybe if you were able to develop something that used the PCIe lanes directly- you might have more stable eGPU performance.

Medessec wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 28, 2025 4:50 pm

AFAIK, I don't think it's ever been really tried. I've actually asked around about this sort of thing too, my idea was just simply using another G86 chip from the time but for a completely different card, maybe even lower power card like the NVS 130M chip as it uses half the VRAM and maybe the BIOS can be modded to just tell the GPU to ignore the other half of the VRAM on startup. Getting a completely different chip working in the motherboard, I can hardly imagine how dicey of an endeavor that would be, but I imagine if you had a Type 2503 dock you absolutely could just BGA solder the new GPU on you want to try, and then just leave the lower half of the laptop plonked on the dock to display video by default to the Dock's PCIe GPU until you get the laptop's new dGPU working. Of course, that's not considering the BIOS having hard-coded no-start conditions (black screen, unresponsive) from starting with an incorrect GPU soldered to it, or not having the microcode to initialize it. The more I think about it the more I think there's a good reason no one's ever tried it. But I don't plan on telling you not to try if you really want to

As scary the resoldering bgas sounds, I'm much more worried about the software (or bios in this case) side of things as even after 6 months I haven't been able to actually mod ram spd after my 1066 mod (I was succesful only with single stick)

GT 610 seems to be a GF116S, which has a wattage rating of 25-30W. The NVS 140M does have a 10W cap, yes, but the T61 is also engineered from factory to fit the Quadro FX 570M, which is rated at 35W. So power delivery to a GF116S on a T61 motherboard (in theory) shouldn't be an issue at all.

The elusive 2503... it's unobtainabless is the sole reason why I'm even considering such outlandish ideas.
But regarding the FX570, the problem is that nvs140 and fx570 do not share the bga so installing the gt610 is "possible" only on the nvs140 boards. So while fx boards would be able to hold 610, the same might not be able to be said about the nvs140m boards.

I'd also be interested to see how far you get with this, because Dock 2503 is the only dock that has a PCIe slot and it would be super cool if someone somehow made something that would be much more compact and have a lot less I/O, pretty much strictly being a PCIe dock or eGPU dock. From what I remember being told, Dock 2503 has these switching controllers for the PCIe lanes to allow it to be hot-plug capable, so maybe if you were able to develop something that used the PCIe lanes directly- you might have more stable eGPU performance.

Regarding the custom dock I actually have two ideas. One involves actually making a smaller 2503, since from what I've seen the docking connector (or it's pins to be specific) is shared across all docks, so on paper it would mean that my 2505 can just be modified. Another idea involves somehow strapping a mobo from a newer laptop to the dock connector and making it utilize thinpad's screen, keyboard, etc.
I'm inclined to believe that the first variation might be easier (if it even can be called "easy").

I love an engineering and entrepreneurial spirit in ThinkPads as much as anyone else here. Before we go reinventing the wheel here, what if we remember that the EXP GDC Beast exists? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004346743997.html

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 02, 2025 6:25 pm

I love an engineering and entrepreneurial spirit in ThinkPads as much as anyone else here. Before we go reinventing the wheel here, what if we remember that the EXP GDC Beast exists? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004346743997.html

Oh yes, I forgot to mention it but I do possess EXP GDC 8.5c and I'm planning to incorporate it into my concept (in the early stages at least).
Alas, so far my egpu endeavors were met with one long and two short beeps which means something is wrong with the connected GPU.

what about buy a T500 with Radeon 3650, it's close to the FX570m in power and the rest of the laptop substantially looks like a T61.