Thinkpads Forum

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook T3010 which I don't use as much now because it has a Pentium M 1.4 Ghz I was wondering if the X61 would be a good upgrade? Also is the X61 PATA or SATA?

The X61 sports Core 2 Duo CPU from 1.8GHz up to 2.5GHz and uses PC2-5300 RAM. The hard drives are SATA. Click here for a rundown on many of it's features.

X61 is SATA.

Whether something would qualify as a "good upgrade" really depends on one's needs, and we know nothing about yours from the above post....

ajkula66 wrote:X61 is SATA.

Whether something would qualify as a "good upgrade" really depends on one's needs, and we know nothing about yours from the above post....

Wow this place is not really new user friendly.. My Fujitsu has Windows 7 installed with 1GB of memory and I think a 60GB hard drive It's a PATA drive. Most things it struggles with flash for the most part and a few HD videos. However support for the media buttons on the screen was a pain to get working with 7 but was doable. So I assum the X61 being newer has decent Win 7 support?

Neil wrote:The X61 sports Core 2 Duo CPU from 1.8GHz up to 2.5GHz and uses PC2-5300 RAM. The hard drives are SATA. Click here for a rundown on many of it's features.

Thanks for the link to that site just what I need.

I have a X61 and X61 tablet, both with Win 7. No drivers issue and will be a significant upgrade over your Fujitsu in terms of expandability, processing power and screen quality.

The X61 and X61s are terrific Windows 7 machines. They also run Windows 8 flawlessly. They can take up to 8GB of RAM.

The Intel graphics processor off-loads much of playing hi def videos. Flash is handled with low CPU usage. The machine is actually lighter and smaller than later X-series machines.

A Russian wrote a very interesting BIOS mod for these machines, the "Middleton BIOS" With it, the X61 has a SATA2 interface, and can benefit the fastest hard drives, including SSDs. Middleton also unlocks the mini-PCIe slots, allowing the use of any electrically compatible cards. The Bluetooth can be upgraded to 2.1 with a module swap.

I upgraded from a machine similar to yours, a Compal CL-50 with a 2.1gHz Pentium M. The 1.6 gHz dual core X61s runs rings around it.

Even today, the form factor, where the display occupies the entire lid, cannot be matched. That's why I have three of them.

precip9 wrote:The X61 and X61s are terrific Windows 7 machines. They also run Windows 8 flawlessly. They can take up to 8GB of RAM.

The Intel graphics processor off-loads much of playing hi def videos. Flash is handled with low CPU usage. The machine is actually lighter and smaller than later X-series machines.

A Russian wrote a very interesting BIOS mod for these machines, the "Middleton BIOS" With it, the X61 has a SATA2 interface, and can benefit the fastest hard drives, including SSDs. Middleton also unlocks the mini-PCIe slots, allowing the use of any electrically compatible cards. The Bluetooth can be upgraded to 2.1 with a module swap.

I upgraded from a machine similar to yours, a Compal CL-50 with a 2.1gHz Pentium M. The 1.6 gHz dual core X61s runs rings around it.

Even today, the form factor, where the display occupies the entire lid, cannot be matched. That's why I have three of them.

I'm trying to learn about these different bios they have seems like they can really unlock some pretty decent features. I love tablet pc's but it's hard to use when it's a little slow and it takes 8 GB of ram which is more then I thought it would of taken.. Man I sure want to get one now.

MikeCL wrote:I'm trying to learn about these different bios they have seems like they can really unlock some pretty decent features. I love tablet pc's but it's hard to use when it's a little slow and it takes 8 GB of ram which is more then I thought it would of taken.. Man I sure want to get one now.

That 8GB thing is true, but it's also deceptive. Although the X61 does support 8GB, it's still DDR2. 4GB DDR2 modules are very rare, so their price is much higher compared to DDR3. Instead of spending an extra 150-200$ on 8GB DDR2 memory it's much more sensible to get a newer machine like an X200T. An 8GB upgrade for the X200T would cost about 90$ and the memory would be faster (1333MHz).

On more thing i have to say about the X61T - the soundcard has been crippled on purpose so that it doesn't have a "Stereo Mix" option and no BIOS can fix it. I think it's like this on newer Lenovo machines as well.

Hmm that makes sense but say if the system (X61T) already came with 4GB then that's fine.. it's not like I would be doing anything overly crazy on the tablet.. It's cpu is a little too slow for music, it says it only needs a core duo but I don't trust that for realtime, the tablet makes the laptop look nice when folded back.

What do you mean by "too slow for music"? Even for a DAW, any relatively new laptop will work...

Nprod wrote:What do you mean by "too slow for music"? Even for a DAW, any relatively new laptop will work...

Well the software I use (kontakt) loads the samples into memory. Only thing is when working with a lot of tracks could a slow cpu be an issue.. I don't plan on working with more 4 at the moment.

I went on NI's website and you're right, Kontakt is a pretty heavy one... I wouldn't really recommend using a secondhand laptop for that then. Especially the X-series tablet thinkpads because their CPU's are always low-power and kinda weak.

Nprod wrote:I went on NI's website and you're right, Kontakt is a pretty heavy one... I wouldn't really recommend using a secondhand laptop for that then. Especially the X-series tablet thinkpads because their CPU's are always low-power and kinda weak.

Really including using the power adapter?

The X-series in general are designed as thin light-weight machines. You can overclock the CPU as a last resort, but that will make it run even hotter than it already does... The non-tablet X61's have better CPUs but not by that much.

Ah well I guess you can't have everything