Help with T60P Purchase

[taichi]

Locally a fellow is selling a T60P in great condition EXCEPT the top brightness level on the display...level 8...doesn't work. Anyone have any input before the deal vanishes?

Thanks

[Troels]

The brightness control is implemented on the inverter board - so replacing the inverter board would most likely fix this. Unless of course it is a software problem/bug

I don't know - what are the other specifications of the T60p?

[taichi]

Well, I took the plunge for $400.00.

The display would turn off whenever the brightness was set to high after less than a minute until I went into BIOS and set display to high. Then the machine works fine. No restore disks, but the previous owner (an architectural student) will ask his parents in Michigan to look for them.

No scratches...it looks in pristine condition. He used the machine for two years as his main device, then got a desktop and has only used it since for light web browsing.

A tech friend of mine mentioned that there was a driver update for the GPU in November that's supposed to address display issues. I know he didn't do the update.

The other thing is that he had done a BIOS flash recently and at first the machine wouldn't recognize the hard drive.

Any comments, suggestion, words of wisdom, encouragement or anything else?

Will the hard drive from my A21p slip into the device, or can I clone the XP HD from my A21p onto the HD which is now running Vista with the annoying UAC? It's my first brush with UAC. Yipes!

Thanks

[taichi]

Oh, by the way, Bill, it's a 2623 DDU. Obviously the hard drive is recognized now, or it wouldn't boot. When he had done the BIOS flash some time ago at first it wouldn't recognize the hard drive.

I never act impulsively. Except this time. No scratches at all on the rubberized cover, and much lighter than my A21P. Finding Nemo looked quite good on the display.

[ajkula66]

Congrats, that's a very fine machine, was one of the highest-end models at the time, Verizon wireless and the whole nine yards...

Personally, I'd just save the important files from the A21p and move them to the new machine.

Good luck.

[taichi]

Thanks, ajkula66.

It's great to be in the Thinkpad community with an infusion of newer technology. What a well built machine. And so is my long lived A21P. How do you explain to the uninitiated the elegance of the Trackpoint?

It's got Vista Ultimate 64 bit, and the colors look beautiful. It looks like a very lightly used machine...looks pretty new, actually. The fellow I bought it from handled it with the precision that an architectural student would.

So for the time being do you think I should stick with Vista, and copy the files over?

Is it possible to download Thinkpad utilities, given that the fresh install of Vista Ultimate wiped all those out?

And this forum has some of the friendliest and most sensible people on it of any of the forums I've been on.

Cheers

[goofyGAguy]

Is it possible to download Thinkpad utilities, given that the fresh install of Vista Ultimate wiped all those out?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-66956

[taichi]

Thanks for the link, goofyGAguy. But for some reason when I go there I get this message:

There is a problem retrieving the document $view.getDocumentView().getLndocid().

Taichi

[ZaZ]

You might want to try the Thinkpad Driver Matrix. Congrats on the machine. It's a fine Thinkpad with probably the best notebook screen ever.

[Crunch]

Congratulations on your T60p, taichi, fellow Angeleno! I still have mine, and the W700's screen is LAME compared to the S-IPS panel on my T60p.

TN sucks. If the next refresh of MBP's get IPS, I'm ditching the ThinkPad. Even Apple's 9.7" iPad gets IPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ZaZ]

Just curious Crunch, why is the W700 screen so lame? I've never seen one myself. I'd agree when it comes time to purchase my next notebook, which is probably a ways off, if anyone is offering an IPS screen or better, they get my business. If somehow it was a 14" SXGA+, I'd never buy anything else.

[goofyGAguy]

Thanks for the link, goofyGAguy. But for some reason when I go there I get this message:

There is a problem retrieving the document $view.getDocumentView().getLndocid().

Taichi

The Lenovo site is often down for maintenance on the weekend. Try again tomorrow.

[taichi]

Thanks for all the great input and help. Thinkpadders are, as I said, a great computer community. The forum seems to be free of the squabbles that erupt on a lot of other forums.

So my T60P has EVDO for Verizon?

Last night the first thing I did was let Windows Update do its thing. 303 MB of critical updates. I'm wondering if that's why the previous owner recently had the issue with the display turning off...lack of proper drivers and such after he fresh installed Vista 64 Ultimate.

Or should I manually update the GPU driver through ATI? I'm pretty sure he missed that update from Nov. 2009. That driver was supposed fix various display issues. But since I went into BIOS and put display at high there have been no troubles.

IE is still at 7, and I can't find the tab at the toolbar to see what Service Packs Update installed.

Vista 64 seems fine. I came from Win 2000 to XP, and despite all the bad rap on Vista, it seems a revelation to me. I've got Chinese mountains and lakes on my screen as wallpaper.

It's great to have a good matte screen again. No ghosts in the mirror!

Hey Crunch. Glad to see another Angelino!

Taichi

[taichi]

Aha! In my haste I assumed that the previous owner did a fresh install of Vista Ultimate 64, (because the disk said Vista Ultimate) but the disk is Ultimate 32 bit. Is this a better match for the T60P? Better to go to 64 bit, or WIN 7?

Windows Update installed the ATI GPU update.

Thanks!

[ajkula66]

With a stock CPU it will only run a 32-bit OS.

The bulge on the RH side of your lid is the WWAN antenna, and AFAIK 2623-DDU only came with VZW cards, but I might be wrong on that account...

[taichi]

Thanks, ajkula66.

I'm happy with the machine as it is right now, but for information purposes, can the CPU be upgraded as I've heard?

Taichi

[ZaZ]

Yes it can, up to the T7600.

[taichi]

Thanks, FredGarvin.

That will definitely be a project for the future. Right now I'm basking in the glow of what a nice machine the T60P is. I strongly advise buying used machines from precise, neat architectural students.

One thing I'm a bit confused about. The link above for Thinkpad utilities (wiped out by the Vista install) seems to download a lot of things...not just the utilities. Is there a more focused download that would restore the useful utilities that I grew accustomed to with my old A21P?

Cheers

[goofyGAguy]

Is there a more focused download that would restore the useful utilities that I grew accustomed to with my old A21P?

There are a lot more packages available for the T60 than for the A21. Just uncheck the boxes next to the stuff you don't want. Simple.

[taichi]

goofyGAguy

If you had a T60P which had a fresh install of Vista 32 Ultimate, what would you install?

I looked over a list of downloads for the T60P and it was a bit bewildering. I'm wondering, for example, if Vista wiped out the fingerprint scanner?

What I miss from my ancient A21P, were the Thinkpad Utilities, those which guided one around the operation of the machine. Great thing, for example, to have descriptions of all the ports, etc.

How's Georgia?

Taichi

[goofyGAguy]

Well, I don't have my T60 handy anymore, as I just shipped it off today, but definitely the following:

Power Manager
Active Protection
Ultranav Wizard
ThinkVantage Toolbox
ThinkPad Configuration
Hotkey drivers

And also the latest drivers for video and wireless.

Georgia's starting to really suck, actually.

[taichi]

Thanks for that goofyGAguy. I really appreciate it.

Are you in Atlanta? When I visited there years ago there was a great grill place that had incredible Mesquite Chicken.. Nothing so good in LA.

So where would you go?

Taichi

[goofyGAguy]

I'm about 15 miles east of Atlanta. As for where to go, where is there left to go anymore?

Threadjack over.

[taichi]

I downloaded over 303 mb of updates through windows update one day, and the next day it downloaded IE8, but when I used the Thinkvantage Toolkit under system details it doesn't show that I have any Service Packs installed. About IE shows the same. No Service Packs installed!

Help!

Confused in LA

Taichi

[taichi]

After doing a little research, I checked to see if Windows Update wanted to install anything today, on the theory that an additional update or fix was a prerequisite to trigger the SP1 Update message.

Lo and behold, after updating and restarting, a check of Windows Update showed SP1 ready for download!

Now the question is, do I want SP2 if offered? I've heard that there is some question about the value of SP2.

Thanks,

taichi

[TTY]

Now the question is, do I want SP2 if offered?

Yes. SP2 is OK.

[taichi]

Did SP2 improve anything perceptibly?

Happily, installing SP1 allowed me use my USB flash drive.
You have to be happy for small things!

Another thing I'm happy about is the beauty of the T60P display.
It's just a pleasure to look at.

taichi

[TTY]

Did SP2 improve anything perceptibly?

Don't remember, it was so long ago that i installed it. But it's still a good idea to install SP2, because if you want to allow installation of Microsoft's Platform Update for Windows Vista, SP2 is part of system requirements. In the foreseeable future, SP2 will probably be part of system requirements for other new program versions.

[taichi]

Sure enough, today there is a Windows update for SP2.

Is a T7600 upgrade simply a matter of plugging in a new CPU and then doing a bios update?

Really enjoying my new/old T60P. The screen is beautiful.

taichi

[ajkula66]

Well...T7600 is also a matter of having extra $$$, that's why I went with T7200 on my FrankenPad...

Plug and play, but don't forget fresh Arctic Silver...and, BTW, the machine will run hotter...