Changing ATI FireGL V5200 to a better card, T60p question!??

[Crunch]

Alright, hello everyone! I have a T60p, and I understand that the inability of swapping the V5200 card/chip/whatever kind of has me stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was just thinking as I was going through each component...Is it possible to disable the V5200, and install a new card into the PCMCIA or Express Card slots that I happen to have on my T60p.

If the BIOS doesn't accept it, there is a workaround, so that should not matter either. Do graphics cards even exist in that form, i.e. a PCMCIA gfx card, or one that fits in the Express card slot.

Grasping at straws, but no T60p came with wireless-N, OR a T7600, a 64-bit processor, and my signature has no errors.

[GomJabbar]

I think the only real solution would be to get a dock that accepts a video card. Otherwise, get a different laptop. I don't know if a card in the dock will work with the internal display or not. You might need an external monitor.

[crazyfrog]

It sounds like a good idea to install the PCMCIA or Express Card slots. But I doubt without proper heat disperse design anyone can make a PCMCIA or Express Card that is more powerful than the default V5200. So stay with your V5200 (or upgrade to V5250) is the only way.

[misfit]

Grasping at straws, but no T60p came with wireless-N, OR a T7600, a 64-bit processor, and my signature has no errors.

Huh? My T7400 is a 64-bit processor. At least according to Intel, CPU-Z and Everest.

[dr_st]

Generally, the number of Core 2 Duo T60s was significantly less than the Core Duo T60s, but still, there are a couple of T60/p models in the ltwbook with T7600, and a few more with T7200/T7400, and probably quite a few which aren't in the ltwbook because they were custom configurations or non-US models...

It's true that none of them came with wireless-N though. Atheros/Intel ABGs is what they all had. The T61 and equivalent series were the first to feature WiFi-N, and also not from the start.

[Crunch]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, my T60p has a super-IPS screen, which is why I upgraded the WiFi card with a wireless-N card, and the CPU from a 2.16GHz Core Duo to the Core 2 Duo T7600, the latter of which is a 64-bit CPU. So....it's all about the screen. Sorry, that omission led to some confusion.

Alright, what about this...I have a WWAN card in it, too, which I think is a mini-PCIe, too. Please correct me if I'm wrong anyone?? So do they make cards I can use for my T60p that way??

Back to the PCMCIA/Express Card idea: I did some more research, and while it's not done often for obvious reasons, sometimes people do do it. I can maybe apply extra cooling for that part of the Thinkpad...

[dr_st]

Back to the PCMCIA/Express Card idea: I did some more research, and while it's not done often for obvious reasons, sometimes people do do it.

Can you please provide a single example of people running PCMCIA/Express Card video adapters?

Seems like an awfully stupid idea, unless your main GPU is dead-dead. Anything you'll put there will not even be close to matching the performance of the onboard V5200 GPU.

[bhtooefr]

And it still won't drive the internal display. Your upgrade path is this:

V5250 (expensive, very minor upgrade, and a motherboard swap)
Quadro NVS 140M (motherboard and CPU swap, the motherboard is hard to find (has to be out of a 14.1" T61,) and the GPU is unreliable)
Quadro FX 570M (expensive, motherboard and CPU swap, the motherboard is even harder to find (has to be out of a 14.1" T61p,) and the GPU is just as unreliable)

That's it.

You can get the Advanced Dock and install a 16x PCIe graphics card and drive an external monitor, I'd stick with ATI just because nVidia and ATI don't usually play well together in the same system.

[dr_st]

Quadro NVS 140M (motherboard and CPU swap, the motherboard is hard to find (has to be out of a 14.1" T61,) and the GPU is unreliable)

And is actually slower than the V5200.

Quadro FX 570M (expensive, motherboard and CPU swap, the motherboard is even harder to find (has to be out of a 14.1" T61p,) and the GPU is just as unreliable)

A somewhat tangible upgrade in performance, although not as big, since he needs the 14.1" T61p motherboard, which AFAIK has the crippled 64bit-bus 570M.

You can get the Advanced Dock and install a 16x PCIe graphics card and drive an external monitor, I'd stick with ATI just because nVidia and ATI don't usually play well together in the same system.

You can install a 16x PCIe graphics card, but it will run at 1x PCIe bus speed.

[crazyfrog]

A somewhat tangible upgrade in performance, although not as big, since he needs the 14.1" T61p motherboard, which AFAIK has the crippled 64bit-bus 570M.

And you lose 128MB dedicated graphics memory too, as Quadro FX 570M on a 14.1" T61p motherboard has only 128MB, while V5200 has 256MB.