Thinkpads Forum

I have a 15.4" t61 that needs a new heatsink. I had a non-wide t61 heatsink in my parts bin.

Bemused that while the two heatsinks look like they have the exact same size and shape, the narrowscreen heatsink does not fit in the widescreen laptop. Why did Lenovo decide to make the two *just* different enough to be incompatible? So strange.

Glaurung-quena wrote:Why did Lenovo decide to make the two *just* different enough to be incompatible?

In order to max revenues, they probably have a special Department of Incompatibility for this purpose.

scnr

admin edit:

Useful lesson I learned this week: searching for "t61 fan" on ebay will pull up heatsink assemblies, as well as the usual assortment of naked fans. Now wondering if I could find better deals on ac adapters if I searched for "(model name) power cord."

funny on T60 i managed to cram a 15.4” heatsink into a standard screen body, i only had to break off the guides for the broadband antennas.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 04, 2025 1:03 pm

funny on T60 i managed to cram a 15.4” heatsink into a standard screen body, i only had to break off the guides for the broadband antennas.

The non-wide heatsink *just barely* doesn't fit the 15.4". Hold the two heatsinks up against each other, they look to be identical in footprint and layout. But the non-wide HS does not want to go into the slot properly, it gets stuck with the HS still hovering a fraction of an inch above where it should be.

This is a rare subject. I tried to transplant a T61 14" widescreen heatsink to another T61 14" widescreen (one had the T7250 and the other T7300 CPU) and they didn't fit. I had to remove the fan from the assembly and replace the one in the other assembly.