how to (almost) have a T7400 Core 2 Duo for about $50

[wild_bill]

if you don't mind 2MB L2 cache instead of 4, your poor man's T7400 is the little known T5300 with the same smokin 2.17 Ghz speed! and the same 64 bit architecture for Windows 7 or Linux!

the T5300 is typically available on ebay for around $52 shipped, from several sellers.

the Thinkpad T60/T60p CPU circuit's speed is multiplier dependent, and locked at a 667 MT/s front-side bus, the sneaky little Intel insider secret is that this is a full 2.17Mhz T7400 except with half the cache turned off. Both are a 13X multiplier. Yes, you would be technically "overclocking" the T5300 a bit (25%) when looking at it as a 533MT/s FSB chip, but the 65nm Merom family seems to run cool and has a lot of headroom as long as you use Arctic Silver grease, good clamping force and heatsink contact, and have a nice clean fan cowl.

remember this is less of an overclock heat-wise than plugging in a T7400 or T7600 and we do that every day.

have fun!

[elthinkpado]

if you don't mind 2MB L2 cache instead of 4, your poor man's T7400 is the little known T5300 with the same smokin 2.17 Ghz speed! and the same 64 bit architecture for Windows 7 or Linux!

the T5300 is typically available on ebay for around $52 shipped, from several sellers.

the Thinkpad T60/T60p CPU circuit's speed is multiplier dependent, and locked at a 667Mhz front-side bus, so I can see no reason this would not run as a full 2.17Mhz T7400 except with half the cache. Both are a 13X multiplier. Yes, you would be technically "overclocking" the T5300 a bit (25%), but the 65nm Merom family seems to run cool and has a lot of headroom as long as you use Arctic Silver grease, good clamping force and heatsink contact, and have a nice clean fan cowl.

have fun!

don't know much about overclocking, but it gives me the impression it'd run hot.
anyone else has comments on this?

BTW: love your signature

[wild_bill]

don't know much about overclocking, but it gives me the impression it'd run hot.

not at all, if fact the T5300 will run slightly cooler that the T7400 because it is the SAME EXACT CHIP with half of the cache turned off!

I am running the T7400 and it doesn't run any hotter than the original slower T2400 did, as lomg as you make a few slight improvements like I indicated in the original post (such as replacing the crap stock thermal pad with Arctic Silver and a slight careful bend to the heat pipe to take up the slack.)

[elthinkpado]

I haven't seen any manual settings for speed on the BIOS, how would you overclock it?

[wild_bill]

I haven't seen any manual settings for speed on the BIOS, how would you overclock it?

it overclocks itself! - that's the beauty of it - just plug it in!

the system clock on a T60 series is fixed at 166.6 Mhz (quad pumped as Intel calls it)

[elthinkpado]

it overclocks itself! - that's the beauty of it - just plug it in!

the system clock on a T60 series is fixed at 166.6 Mhz (quad pumped as Intel calls it)[/quote]

one more question.
have you actually tried?
do you know where to get it for 50 bucks?

I'm a little desperate to get a new CPU as I'm on the slow 1.8 but dont have a lot of $$ available atm.

[wild_bill]

I have not tried the T5300 on a T60 yet, but if I was incorrect about 100 really smart people on this board would come after me in this thread like a bunch of hornets - lol

wait for a couple days and read the other comments that I am sure will come

the T5300 is nearly always on ebay from multiple sellers for $50 - $55

don't forget to vacuum and brush your fan & fan cowl & heatsink fins (2 sets)

[underclocker]

Interesting and for $50, that would be a great upgrade.

I'd like to hear from someone that tried it. I think it's possible that the CPU will be correctly set up with a 533MHz bus and run at 1.73GHz. R60's which have similar motherboards had the option of 533MHz bus Celeron CPUs. I think with this generation of machines, the memory can continue to run at 667MHz (assuming PC2-5300 sodimms) while the CPU runs at 533MHz. Certainly, the reverse is true with any T60 or R60, you can run the memory bus at 533MHz (using PC2-4200 sodimms) while the CPU stays at 667MHz.

The same is true on R61/T61's, you can run either 533, 667 or 800MHz CPUs and they will be properly set up by the BIOS. With the correct memory, the memory bus will stay at 800MHz, no matter the CPU.

Finally, that CPU may not work at all if the BIOS can't support it. However, it was an option with the R-series line (which leads me to believe it will run at 1.73GHz in a T60, too.)

It would be nice to hear back from someone that tries it.

[ZaZ]

I have a R60e with a Celeron. I bought a T5200 last year hoping to get speedstep, but the machine would not post with the T5200 in there.

[Vempele]

I don't think it'll work. Either the motherboard supports FSB533 or it won't boot at all - overclocking the processor is insane for default behaviour.