Thinkpads Forum

Binh wrote:Can a T61 with faulty GPU boot with external video card installed in advanced dock? Does anyone try to do that?

Yes you can do that. I'm doing that right now. 24" external monitor and blank laptop screen (due to dead Nvidia card). You just have to get into cmos and activate the external pcie as primary display.

A little update on my situation. My T61's internal vidcard fried (nvidia 140m) earlier this year. But my advanced dock with the external video card in the pcie slot saved my laptop, now it's a desktop. (look at thread for what I did).

I'm still using my T61 as a desktop now, instead of a laptop. I'm running windows 8. Everything is great!
Bought a used T400 as a portable option. My T61 is nearing 5 years old and everything seems fine, but perhaps the fan needs a change or the HDD. I know that my kids (in the future) will be using this "desktop" setup! I hope it lasts another 5 years!!!!

Best of luck guys!

Don't rule out a planar replacement. You could return that T61 to true form, you know.

Wesley wrote:My T61's internal vidcard fried (nvidia 140m) earlier this year.

Did it burn out or loose connection?
I succesfully revived (reflowed) a GPU a few months ago using a simple lightbulb (heating the chip with direct contact for 15min (( a lightbulb gets HOT!))

GL

On a side note - I managed to convince y electrician to cover the cost of a new used dock since he had screwed up the ground phase, and I am now again enjoying the benefit of a T61 + external GPU.
My new dock is unmodded and gosh, it is so loud... In the wake of my last dock burning out I am less inclined to open the new one up, even just to disconnect the Pci-e fan - any argument against simply cutting the wires?
Furthermore, the Pci-e fan seems to react on the powerdraw of the Pci-e slot, sure would be nice if there was a way to control or "trick" is without disconnecting it.

eyeland wrote: I succesfully revived (reflowed) a GPU a few months ago using a simple lightbulb (heating the chip with direct contact for 15min (( a lightbulb gets HOT!))

This won't actually fix the problem, but since you mentioned using a lightbulb, I'll use this analogy. I've sure we all have seen a lightbulb blow out and if you tap on it you can move the broken filiment enough to temporarily make contact and it lights up again... usually only until it's tapped again, or turned off. By heating your chip you managed to move the microscopic circuits just enough to make contact over a fracture. The heat expands the materials and will often appear to fix the problem, but it's no more fixed then the lightbulb in this analogy.

Reflowing was used to fix problems when the solder joints under the chip cracked and heating them up would actually fix the problem. These cracks were caused by flexing of the laptops frame/board, but the T61 doesn't suffer this flexing so it would be highly unusual for a chip to become detached, but it is somewhat common for the chip to fail.

Everyone who has done this type of repair soon realizes it's not fixed, the only proper solution is replacing the board, since there are no reliable chips available to repair them.

The DIY reflowing I did was indeed on a laptop suffering from the "flex" problem and it has been running great ever since. Suggesting this "fix" was not meant as any kind of expert advice, was merely throwing the idea out there

In regards to the dock, I just disconnected the Pci-e slot fan and realized that I had forgotten how much noise the PSU fan makes (my old dock was modded with a resistor on the fan for lower RPM)

I am just learning as I go along so this might be a stupid question:
what would the electrical implications be of simply obstructing the PSU fan without disconnecting it?
( I know of ppl who do this from time to time, but it always struck me as somewhat .. dodgy

little feedback after 1+ year of usage of advanced dock with hd6570 (windows 7 x86), on a philips 16:10, 1600x1200 monitor:
-nevewinter nights (1) runs perfectly with max settings on full resolution (obviously, this is a rather old game)
-team fortress 2: i have to run it on lowest settings (if using directx 9, i have read somewhere that directx 8 may give better performance) and on a resolution of 1280×800 - maily because it is a multiplayer game
-diablo 3 runs at full resolution but with minimal graphical settings
-minecraft without mods has no problem running smoothly
-darksiders (1) runs at full resolution with minimal settings mostly smoothly (some minor slowdowns but overall its enjoyable)
-the hidden (hl-2 source mod) runs at max resolution with minimal settings - mainly because the maps are a bit simpler than in team fortress 2 and the gameplay is not that fast paced
-older games like first red faction have absolutely no problem running at full resolution with max settings (there are games that have community-made paches that can enable previously unavailable resolutions and settings, but they cause no slowdown)
-deus ex - human revolution runs on max resolution with minimal settings, it should be noted tho that i played the game very stealthy so gameplay was mostly smooth, but i had to reduce resolution one time because of the direct confrontation there was a lot of action and smoke, and i had to move fast
-arma 2 (with day z mod) - max resolution - medium-low settings

i have to note that there is some ridiculously slowdown in the window manager of windows 7, it is not consistent but sometimes clicking on the file menu in vs2010 or opening a new tab in firefox/chrome can take 2-3 seconds

printf wrote:little feedback after 1+ year of usage of advanced dock with hd6570 (windows 7 x86), on a philips 16:10, 1600x1200 monitor:
-nevewinter nights (1) runs perfectly with max settings on full resolution (obviously, this is a rather old game)
-team fortress 2: i have to run it on lowest settings (if using directx 9, i have read somewhere that directx 8 may give better performance) and on a resolution of 1280×800 - maily because it is a multiplayer game
-diablo 3 runs at full resolution but with minimal graphical settings
-minecraft without mods has no problem running smoothly
-darksiders (1) runs at full resolution with minimal settings mostly smoothly (some minor slowdowns but overall its enjoyable)
-the hidden (hl-2 source mod) runs at max resolution with minimal settings - mainly because the maps are a bit simpler than in team fortress 2 and the gameplay is not that fast paced
-older games like first red faction have absolutely no problem running at full resolution with max settings (there are games that have community-made paches that can enable previously unavailable resolutions and settings, but they cause no slowdown)
-deus ex - human revolution runs on max resolution with minimal settings, it should be noted tho that i played the game very stealthy so gameplay was mostly smooth, but i had to reduce resolution one time because of the direct confrontation there was a lot of action and smoke, and i had to move fast
-arma 2 (with day z mod) - max resolution - medium-low settings

i have to note that there is some ridiculously slowdown in the window manager of windows 7, it is not consistent but sometimes clicking on the file menu in vs2010 or opening a new tab in firefox/chrome can take 2-3 seconds

Whats you other specs, mate? I'm considering buying a dock for my R61 (T8100/4GB/Intel). Also, have you tried anyting faster in the dock? HD6570 isn't a high performing card by any stretch of the imagination.

DaKKS wrote:Whats you other specs, mate? I'm considering buying a dock for my R61 (T8100/4GB/Intel). Also, have you tried anyting faster in the dock? HD6570 isn't a high performing card by any stretch of the imagination.

T60p with firegl v5250, 2 gigs of ram, core 2 duo t7400 (if i recall correctly) ~250 gigs hd
i have tried other cards (read a bit further back in the thread)
i don't think you can/should put any better card in the dock for 2 reasons:
-performance bottleneck of the 1x (http://www.blasterzone.ro/wp-content/up ... -slots.gif) pci express
-wattage limit (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-68839) of 50

also be careful with the dock as i had one that said no "lenovo" on the sticker with the instruction images, it only worked with a radeon x550, then i had to buy a lenovo one to get this card working
see difference:
-ibm one(probably older): http://www.abload.de/img/len_kieg_advanced_docytr5e.jpg
-lenovo one: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z6bR633Ju3I/T ... BVorne.jpg

printf wrote:
T60p with firegl v5250, 2 gigs of ram, core 2 duo t7400 (if i recall correctly) ~250 gigs hd
i have tried other cards (read a bit further back in the thread)
i don't think you can/should put any better card in the dock for 2 reasons:
-performance bottleneck of the 1x (http://www.blasterzone.ro/wp-content/up ... -slots.gif) pci express
-wattage limit (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-68839) of 50

also be careful with the dock as i had one that said no "lenovo" on the sticker with the instruction images, it only worked with a radeon x550, then i had to buy a lenovo one to get this card working
see difference:
-ibm one(probably older): http://www.abload.de/img/len_kieg_advanced_docytr5e.jpg
-lenovo one: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z6bR633Ju3I/T ... BVorne.jpg

Alright, thanks for the heads up. With all the gfx cards I have, I figured I'd try 'em all until I found one that works. Also, I'm not completely unfamiliar with a dremel. The wattage shouldn't be an issue, a PicoPSU doesn't take much room and supplies 150-180 watts.

Also, where did you buy your dock, mate? Do you have a hungarian source or did you buy it straight from Lenovo?

bought it from ebay from germany.
my advice is to look regularly (read: daily) on ebay for offers and you can consider yourself lucky if you can get one around 100-120 euros
after some time they should show up

printf wrote:bought it from ebay from germany.
my advice is to look regularly (read: daily) on ebay for offers and you can consider yourself lucky if you can get one around 100-120 euros
after some time they should show up

Dang, I was hoping to pick one up when I'm home next month. Thanks anyway. I'd better brush up on my german then...

I have now located an advanced dock (39T4569) and on delivery, I will attempt to use eGPU/ViDock techniques to clone the pci-e output to the internal LCD. Either via the ultramon solution or with an screen capture software and LCD controller.

A the moment, the gfx cards I will test (w/ or w/o external solutions) are: Radeon HD3450, HD4850, HD5770, HD6970, Geforce 8400ES, 8600GT and 660Ti. These are all cards I have at home for the moment.

Unfortunately, my riser hasnt arrived yet, but my dock did. I immediately installed a HD3450 and a GF 8400GS, and neither works. Just get the long short short beep core. I'm so [censored] right now that i cant describe it...

Any more news on which cards work and those that do not? I have just bought this dock from Ebay for £35 boxed old / new stock, and the photo shows Lenovo but not sure what it actually is until it arrives but description says "Lenovo 39T4572". I will be using the dock with my Thinkpad Z61p (same as T60p but with more features) and I am wanting to install an Nvidia based card with CUDA capabilites https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus but do not require anything for gaming, just enough to do flawless bluray playback and general video stuff. So if anyone here has successfully got one of the cards from that list working, please let me know

The other day I had a second attempt at getting my dock to work. Last year I tried a Zotac GeForce GT610 1GB which I think uses around 49 TDP, so just within power tolerances and is a rebranded GT 520 which apparently works with this dock. This did not work so I recently bought a Hewlett Packard AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 (model QP027AA) which I believe has a TDP of 44. Again this did not work and at first I only got a BIOS long beep followed by two short beeps, but after messing with the BIOS Display settings I managed to boot into Windows XP Pro SP3. However the HD 6570 graphics was not working and the external monitor had not even woken up. I then tried removing some RAM to leave 2GB installed in my Thinkpad Z61p; this made no difference.


So if anyone has any tips and advice that I have not tried yet, please let me know as I would love to get this working and in theory at least the HD 6570 should be working, although I would prefer to use the Nvidia card for its' CUDA features.


The HD 6570 card I recently bought:

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.asp ... .pdf?ver=1 *** Quick Specs pdf ***

I finally got my T61dock/ATI X1300 to work by removing 1gb of ram. Mine won't work with more than 2gb of ram.
Anybody get theirs to work with the extra ram?

mbr12,

How much VRAM does that X1300 have?
I suspect that the issue is either a BIOS or chipset limitation, so it's probably not fixable.

I believe the x1300 has 125 mb. I have the Middleton bios.

Middleton never made a BIOS for the T60 or T60p.
That may be your problem!

For the built in Radeon Mobility T60 GPUs:

X1300 64mb Vram

X1400 128mb Vram

FireGL 256mb Vram

The external PCI Radeon X1300 has 256mb Vram.

I'm having the same issue with RAM compatibility...
Still haven't found any solutions to run the PCI-E GPU with 4GB RAM (1 long 2 short beeps)
Tested on a Frankenpad with Intel Integrated GPU (AND 8GB OF RAM) and it works perfectly !
Are there any other or newer modifications of BIOS that would fix that ?
Any advice is welcome (specs in signature)

Anyone here willing to share their knowledge on the steps required to get this dock to work? I have a Thinkpad Z61p (T60p more or less) and two GPU cards, a Zotac GeForce GT610 1GB (rebadged GT520) and a Hewlett Packard AMD Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 (model QP027AA). Surely I can get at least one of these cards to work in my dock! The thing is these docks are fiddly and strange to get working at all, so any advice from someone who has it working is very welcome.

I've been looking out for any bits of information on here that might help, but it also occurred to me that up to now my attempts have all been using the VGA output to older CRT or LCD monitors. So maybe I need to invest in a HDMI equipped monitor or TV for this dock to work?