Thinkpads Forum

Hi everybody!

Can anyone tell me how much cooler an x61 with a penryn cpu will run compared to a merom one, if at all?

say the t8300 vs the t7300. any temp differences in the machine?

Thanks!

There are no X61/X61t machines with a Penryn.
The CPU is soldered so forget about a swap.

RealBlackStuff wrote:There are no X61/X61t machines with a Penryn.

You are mistaken, there were quite a few models with Penryns up to T9300, according to thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X61. Check the HMM available from support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-62866 on page 38 for details. The HMM doesn't list the machines with T9300, though, as these were only available on the asian market. Some regular members of the German thinkpda-forum.de are actually even using such a machine.

RealBlackStuff wrote:The CPU is soldered so forget about a swap.

Well, for the normal consumer a swap is definitely out of reach. Nonetheless, a chinese user recently went to great lenghts to upgrade an X61s even to a T9500 (see forum.51nb.com/thread-1193433-1-1.html for details). I'd rather prefer buying a X200 instead.

EDIT: There is a much easier way to upgrade a X61 to a T9300 by swapping the mainboard. While the offer ebay.com/itm/130588495614 has already ended, maybe the seller i.thinkpad might still be able to help.

My X60T/X61T HMM shows no Penryn at all.
Seems like the X61/X61s indeed has (only 2) Penryn models:

• Intel Core 2 Duo processor T8300, Standard Voltage (2.40
  GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache)
  Intel Core 2 Duo processor T8100, Standard Voltage (2.10
  GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache)

Didn't know that.

I remember BobA and Harryc selling an x61 with penryn, just wanted to know if you guys thought there would be any temp differences

cheers guys!

As a rule of the thumb, Penryn is cooler.

That being said, if I were on a cooling-down-mission on a X6x unit of any kind, I'd start with the wireless card...

There is a T9300 equipped X61 for sale at the moment in Europe for €295.

I don't like the heat of the Merom-based X61-s compared to X60s/X60T and would like to try Penryn X61's. Most likely will be sourcing T8100 or T8300 based system or board.

Raceboy wrote:There is a T9300 equipped X61 for sale at the moment in Europe for €295.

I don't like the heat of the Merom-based X61-s compared to X60s/X60T and would like to try Penryn X61's. Most likely will be sourcing T8100 or T8300 based system or board.

Is this on sale at outlet or some other place? How do you plan to get those installed?

My aunt has an X60 with a Merom-based T5600 (1.8GHz) while I use an X61 with a Penryn-based T8100 (2.1GHz).
I've seen her CPU temp go up to 85C (95C before I changed the thermal paste) while mine never went past 80C.

On the other hand, our operating systems and usage patterns are different, and my X61's Cardbus slot is missing its cover...

ajkula66 wrote:That being said, if I were on a cooling-down-mission on a X6x unit of any kind, I'd start with the wireless card...

Yes please, I'm interested, which cards offer good performances and run cooler? My X61T is too hot under my right palm for my likes...

Also I'm thinking of getting a X61 and take the SXGA screen from my tablet to make the ultimate X61 frankenpad.
Do all regular X61 (not S or tablets) accept the penryn CPUs?

kamaleon wrote:
Do all regular X61 (not S or tablets) accept the penryn CPUs?

You'd need to swap the entire board, because the CPU is soldered and not socketed.

Try using a half-size card with an adapter, one of the newer Intel 6xxx series.

The CPU is soldered, so you need to look for one with your required CPU in it.
Cool-running wifi cards, any of these: Intel 5100, Intel 6200/6205/6300.
These are half-size PCI-extra cards and need a half-size bracket/adapter to fill the gap.

Folks,
I thought the CPU on the tablets and the S-series ULV were soldered, but not on the regular X61... ain't this so?
My bad if my post wasn't clear as I mentioned having a tablet one... what I want to do is get a regular non-tablet, non-S (ULV) X61 and use the SXGA IPS screen on it...
and have a fast and cool penryn processor...

thanks for the tip on the wifi cards.

kamaleon wrote:Folks,
I thought the CPU on the tablets and the S-series ULV were soldered, but not on the regular X61... ain't this so?

No it's not.

All X series since the dawn of ThinkPads had soldered CPU, and X6x units are no exception...

dang!
My bad, sorry for looking like a fool.
OK back to the topic then - anyone here using a penryn system could comment on the heat and the power usage? I wonder how many watts does a penryn X61 use.

There's a few 6300 cards "vanilla" on ebay, with no Lenovo FRU part sticker.
I suppose they should work OK with a middleton BIOS?

yes

kamaleon wrote:dang!
My bad, sorry for looking like a fool.
OK back to the topic then - anyone here using a penryn system could comment on the heat and the power usage? I wonder how many watts does a penryn X61 use.

I have a x61 with a T8300 Penryn. It's slightly customized and runs Linux, so take these numbers with a grain of salt. It's not undervolted, or anything like that.

Idling with all radios off and the display backlight at the minimum it uses 8.7-9W. The fan is off, and the CPU temperature is stable at 42C. The ambient temperature is about 20C.

Same setup but both cores fully loaded it uses 34-36W. The fan maxes out at 3900RPM very quickly, the temperature climbs quickly to 78C or so, and then very slowly up to 81C, and oscillates between 80-81C.

With a single fully loaded core 30W and about 73C.

Those figures sound nice to me. I'm waiting for a T8100 system so I'll see how that goes. Thanks!

Could you put a penryn on the same way you reball an nVidia gpu? Or are there other differences between the motherboards?

I got the Penryn T8100 X61 now and had a Merom T7400 X61 before. From CPU perspective it runs about 4 to 7 degrees cooler under full load, under idling there is about 3 to 4 degrees difference.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lead_org/8 ... 952614132/ <-- this is the thermal temperature profile of the X61 T8100 Penryn CPU when it is put under full load with Prime95.

But the most annoying thing about the X61 is the stock wireless card, if you use the stock wireless card, the palmrest can get up to 40+ degrees Celsius even when room temp is around 20 C under high wireless data throughput. If you flash the bios and get the Intel 1000 or 6205 card, then the situation improves a lot (the highest temp would be at the more reasonable 25 to 30 degrees C).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lead_org/8204998854/ <-- X61 with Merom CPU under full wireless card (Intel 4965AGN) load copying a 1 gig file over wireless network. Palmrest gets to about 40 degrees C @ 20 C ambient temp.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lead_org/8203906497/ <--- X61 with T8300 Penryn CPU under full wireless card load (intel 6205) copying over a 1 gig file on the same wireless network. Around 25 degrees C @ 20 C ambient temp.

Could you put a penryn on the same way you reball an nVidia gpu?

I think it is possible.

I remember a hardware mod on a different laptop (it was the Asus EEE PC 701, the original netbook) where the original Celeron M CPU was removed and a Pentium M ULV was soldered in.

I think this approach will work on an X61 as well.
The hard part I think is finding a donor laptop with the appropriate CPU.

axur-delmeria wrote:
I think it is possible.

Not so fast.

A Merom board will throw a "thermal error" at boot at the very least. I don't believe that anyone on this forum has actually completed such a conversion, but that much we know from T61/R61 upgrades...and Middleton's BIOS for X61 doesn't address this aspect.

tipo33 wrote:

Could you put a penryn on the same way you reball an nVidia gpu?

Presuming one has access to proper reballing equipment, and knows how to utilize it, a theoretical "yes".

That being said...why not just flip the board, or find a machine with a Penryn board in the first place? They're not that rare...

George, I have personally swapped Pentium M Banias 1.4 GHz CPU on the X31 board to 1.5 GHz Dothan LV 758 and I did it without special soldering station.
Have a look here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=101801&

Though as I already stated above, it makes much more sense just to swap the boards.

Raceboy wrote:George, I have personally swapped Pentium M Banias 1.4 GHz CPU on the X31 board to 1.5 GHz Dothan LV 758 and I did it without special

I know you did.

I also know that not too many people around here have your skills when it comes to tinkering with this type of stuff, which is why I'm *very* hesitant to recommend following your steps...