Thinkpads Forum

My beloved T60p needs a new motherboard (bad iced tea/150lb Saint Bernard puppy dog accident) and I am getting a t61 board and a penryn t9300 cpu. I have a couple questions.


1. With respect to the “t61 14” 4:3 non widescreen integrated gpu motherboards”,
What is the difference between the 42W7648 and 42W7872 motherboards?
A little background:
I thought initially that the 42w7648 was for the t7xxx Merom cpu’s, while the 42w7872 was for the t8xxx and t9xxx Penryn cpu’s. But then I read that the non widescreen t61p’s never had penryn cpu’s. So that makes me wonder what the difference is. (I was hoping that the 42w7872 could use a penryn without the thermal sensing error)


I know people have made frankenpads with penryn cpu’s, and my understanding was if you did it with the 42w7648 planar, you would have to press escape to get it to get passed the thermal sensing error.
I also thought that if you used the 42w7872, you could get away with a penryn cpu without the thermal error and the escape key routine.
I bought a 42w7648 motherboard for $39.00, and a t9300 [2.5 Ghz 6Mb cache 800Mhz FSB] penryn cpu for $140, so at that price, I am willing to try to get along with the thermal error. Hopefully I can at least monitor the gpu temp and extrapolate a probable cpu temp from that. I can’t see spending $260 for the 42w7872 motherboard just to avoid pressing one button, especially since I could melt down and buy 6 more of these motherboards before approaching the $260 price, and also I have no proof that the expensive board will work anyway.


I can't find any of the 42w7872 motherboard models in the ltwbook, so I can't tell what cpu they are supposed to have. So, there are models left out of the book, how can anyone say "they never made such and such" They are making these things if they are in the parts manuals. Maybe for the cia or al quaeda. According to the parts book, all these models have the 42w7872 motherboard:
* 8895-CTO, A2x, A5x, A6x, A7x, A8x, A9x
* 8896-CTO, ACx, ADx
* 8897-CTO
* 8898-CTO, AEx, AFx
* 8899-CTO
* 8900-CTO
* 8938-CTO, A3x, A4x


Random questions:
The next two questions pertain to the following statement by spacejunk (although he might have been building a dedicated gpu Nvidia unit, which would have made these questions irrelevant) :
Spacejunk posted this:
I have done the T60P upgrade with T61 motherboard on two systems and here's are a couple of tips.

Use the fan/heatsink from the T61 with the retention brace from the T60. This part is a nit but a portion of the retention brace should be filed down to allow it to sit flush on the heatsink. This is due to the shapes of the heatsinks being slightly different and the edge of the T60 retention brace is raised so one edge will press on the heatsink sooner than the other edges. Again it's a nit and it will work fine without filing.


My random questions:

Why are we using the heat sink unit retention brace from the t60 if it has to be filed down? Is the t61 retention brace even worse??

Does this apply to me if I am using a board with integrated crestline graphics?

andre:

Concerning 42w7872 mainboard, it definitely support penryn CPU. Please, look again into the T61 std screen HMM (pages 142-143), you will see that 8895-A2x, for example, equipped with T8100 CPU, while 8895-A8x with T9300 CPU, etc.

About difference between retention brace, I compared (quickly, 3 months ago) the one on my T60p and the one on T61 nVidia (not equipped with Penryn CPU), and I did not find any differences between them.

42W7872 will support Penryns, 42W7648 will cause "thermal sensing error". That's the only difference. 42W7872 is a neweer board than 42W7648.

You can't use the T61 retention bracket since it is multi-piece and is screwed down to the T61 frame. The T60 15" frame has no screw hole in the spot where the T61 retention bracket is supposed to screw down, hence you must use the T60 retention bracket.

What I found out from working on dozens of frankenpads is that the T61 14.1" heatsink for the discrete Nvidia GPUs (42W2821) is slightly different than the heatsink for the integrated GPUs (42W2820). The heatpipe run is different. If you use 42W2821 with the T60 heatsink retention bracket part of the bracket is pressing down top of the heatpipes. So if you want a better fit you need to file the left edge of the bracket slightly so it presses down on the heatsink evenly. If you use 42W2820 with the T60 retention bracket this is not a poblem.

In short is you are planning to get the T61 MB with integrated GPU get 42W2820 and the T60 heatsink bracket goes on perfectly.

Sorry for necroposting, I've found this thread interesting as I've recently came across a sold-as-damaged but booting into BIOS (unchecked later) T61 8895 (beleive it or not, price is ~$130) with T7300 CPU on board and I'm thinking about swapping the mobo.
Which part is the retention bracket, is it the one holding the LCD cable on board?
And a short question - shall I go for it?

andre#4 wrote:I know people have made frankenpads with penryn cpu’s, and my understanding was if you did it with the 42w7648 planar, you would have to press escape to get it to get passed the thermal sensing error.
I also thought that if you used the 42w7872, you could get away with a penryn cpu without the thermal error and the escape key routine.

I have had the 42w7872 in my FrankenPad T61, but I also got the thermal error message. I installed a modified (Middleton o.i.d.?) bios to get rid of it.

@ the OP:

Just a hint; you may (perhaps) find the thread Parts for the ultimate 15” T60 UXGA FlexView w/T61(p) mobo?, and the links therein, useful.

Johan

Thanks, I must have missed that one somehow. Anyway, my t61 has arrived, this is the day. Shame it's sunny, severe thunderstorm would have been better

Edit: hell yeah, it's alive! Had to work a bit on the magnesium frame to fit the systemboard