Thinkpads Forum

Hi

My Thinkpad T61p with the 1920x1200 screen recently died, due to the faulty Nvidia GPU issue. I've tried reflowing ("baking") the mobo, which worked for a couple of weeks, but now it's really, truly, dead.

Since I've invested in a CPU upgrade (T9300) and SSD recently, I'm currently looking at a cheap T61 to replace my T61p.
This T61 has a NVS 140M GPU and I was wondering if it were possible to transplant the old 1920x1200 screen from my T61p to the T61.

NVS 140M specs tell me it should be able to handle the 1920x1200 resolution just fine, and the both the T61p and T61 are 15.4 inch machines, but I want to be sure. Has anybody undertaken such a transplant before?

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum.
The transplant is easily possible, provided both machines have the same size LCDs (as in your case).
You just transfer the whole lid, rather than the LCD itself.

As to buying another T61 with nVidia GPU, I would in the strongest possible way advise AGAINST that.
It's still a crappy nVidia GPU and you run the same risk as with your T61p! DO NOT DO IT.
Instead, look for a T61 with Intel graphics.
Or rather: just replace your motherboard with an Intel-version.
Look for P/N 42W7651 or 42W7875.

Thanks for the quick reply!

To my understanding, T61/T61p's that were manufactured after July 2008 do no longer suffer from the faulty Nvidia GPU. Is this correct?

I full heartedly agree with RealBlackStuff: Don't even think about buying another nVIDIA-T61, unless you are sure that the GPU was produced starting August 2008. But such a machine will be almost impossible to find, as the main bulk of all nVIDIA-T61 was produced with these faulty nVIDIA GPU's. Both the NVS 140M and the Quadro FX 570M were affected, so there is no way around that.

If you finally decide to just do a mainboard swap using an Intel based board, make absolutely sure to only get a mainboard with FRU 42W7875. Since you have already invested into a T9300 Penryn CPU, you will need this newer revision Penryn-capable mainboard, as older board revisions would unfortunately require an unfficial patched BIOS to make it take other CPU's than the Merom it was designed for.

All possible T61(p) mainboard options are listed at the bottom of thinkpad-wiki.org/T61.

Thanks for the help! I will check whether the T61 was produced after July 2008, otherwise I'm going to look for the mobo with the Intel GPU.

Just a quick update for future reference: I've bought a 15.4 inch Thinkpad T61 with the Intel X3100 GPU. I've transplanted the complete 1920x1200 T61p screen, including WiFi antennas, cover and hinges to my new machine and it works like a dream (writing on it now.)! Thanks all!