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For the past few years, my primary machine at home has been a 2010 11” MacBook Air which has served me pretty well for light browsing, multimedia and even some light programming in Objective-C and Java. However, I recently picked up ASP.net programming for a personal project and needed a machine running Windows. I could have dual booted my MBA but the meagre 128gb SSD was scarcely enough for Mac OSX, much less dual booting. Thankfully, a co-worker passed me his old Thinkpad X61s and its accompanying dock, thereby reconnecting me with the Thinkpad family (was using a X31 prior to the MBA). The convenience of docking and familiar keyboard layout instantly rekindled my love for Thinkpads. With that, I embarked on a journey to trick out the X61s and bring it up to date with current devices.
Work done so far on the Thinkpad X61s
- Wireless Card: Replacement of Wifi module with Intel 6250N for Wireless-N and lower heat output. - $9.99 from eBay
- Battery: Replacement of 4-cell battery with an original Lenovo 8-cell battery for improved battery life. The 4-cell was on its last legs and could only hold charge for about an hour. - $60 from a local dealer after some significant discount.
- Battery Spacer: Addition of Lenovo Battery Spacer (Part no. 42W3050) so that the X61s sits stable by itself. - $5.99 from Ebay
- RAM: Installed 4gb (2x2gb) RAM although the max usable on my Win7 32bit is 3gb. - $36 from a local dealer
- Solid State Disk: Replaced HDD with a KINGMAX SMP35 120gb SSD. It’s not exactly a top-of-the-line SSD but it was the cheapest I could get from where I stay. I figured there wasn’t much point in going high end since the mobo is limited to SATA II anyway. - $93 from a local dealer
- Laptop Skin: Pasted faux leather skins on the cover and palm-rest to mask the flaky bits on the X61s (my co-worker wasn’t very gentle with his possessions). In fact, I think it looks even better than a brand new machine now! $21 from eBay
- Thermal Compound: Found the temperature of the X61s to be slightly too high for comfort so I reapplied thermal compound on the heat-sinks with Arctic MX-4. - $10 from a local dealer
- Fan Cleaning: When reapplying the thermal compound, I took the chance to clean the main fan. – Free
- Software Installations: Installed Middleton BIOS to enable SATA II (SSD) and device whitelist (Intel 6250N). TPFanControl for better temperature management, which really helped because the X61s stopped crashing when playing HD videos with it installed. – Free
- [Update: Sep 2013] Broadcom Crystal HD BCM70015: Added a BCM70015 to the second Mini PCI Express port for improved video playback, e.g. 1080p YouTube videos. – $25 from eBay
For around $240, I think I’ve pretty much maxed out what I could do with this machine, and it runs better than I expected it to. I’m not a gamer so the weak graphics card isn’t an issue for me. In fact, I’m spending so much time on the X61s that I’m kinda neglecting my MBA. Much thanks to fellow users who have posted about their customizations and those helped me out with their kind advice (especially on the battery spacer). I’m glad to report that I didn’t have any issues with the screws on the wireless module and they came off easily with a standard screwdriver. However, I did face slight difficulties in removing the palm-rest and it certainly wasn’t as easy as described in the service manual. Also, since I’m located in Asia, I couldn’t get my hands on cheaper alternatives for some of the items listed, which would have cost more if international shipping from US were included.
I could gone all the way with 8gb RAM but there’s no real need for a 64bit OS and they are simply too expensive right now. Also, some would suggest the SXGA+ screen upgrade but I work primarily at a desk, with the dock connected to a Dell 2407WFP so the built-in screen resolution doesn’t hurt me hard enough to warrant an upgrade. Lastly, some might say that the money could have gone towards buying a more capable machine but frankly, the X61s was given to me free and the geek in me wanted to give it a second life so cost was really a secondary concern (though I wouldn’t pay exorbitant amounts for any given functionality, e.g. SSD and RAM).
Pardon my lengthy post but if there are any other suggestions to improve my X61s, do reply here and I’ll definitely consider them. I would also be glad to answer any questions regarding the customizations I’ve done. Cheers!
Think the laptop is bricked now... Any more ideas?
Trouble is the kit to do it costs as much as another X61s notebook from Ebay, and the kit is one of the cheapest ones! 
