Suddenly I ended up with an X61 again...

[axur-delmeria]

My youngest sister's friend was looking for a used laptop, so I got a T61 for her.

I went to the seller's warehouse to test it onsite before purchasing. While waiting for the tests to finish, I asked the seller if he had any dead X60/X61's for sale-- I had a spare X60 board with a Core Duo T2400 [edit: it's a T2300 ] and wanted to get it out of my parts bin and into a working laptop.

He went and looked through his shelves, only to sadly report that he had already sold them for scrap a few days prior.

Then he says that he has a working X61 T7500, with 1x 2GB RAM, dead main and CMOS batteries, no charger and HDD, and that he'll sell it to me for the equivalent of 30 USD.

Oooookay then.

I still have the 640GB HDD from my previous X61. The main battery and charger I can borrow from an X60s owned by another friend of my sister (long story short: its HDD is busted, owner doesn't have money for replacement, so it's with my sister for safekeeping at the moment).

While I'm not exactly euphoric right now, there's this subtle yet pervasive good feeling, something like the opposite of melancholy, I guess.
I find myself grinning whenever I catch sight of the laptop at the corner of my room.

Ah, Thinkpad Bliss. That has to be the name for it.

[Shredder11]

Nice story and I too have the same X61 T7500 computer bought last year, which I have upgraded the best I can and it cost me the equivalent of $60 (before the upgrades). Apart from running hot they are an excellent choice and run quick and snappy. I replaced the CPU thermal paste with better stuff and upgraded the BIOS to the Middleton one and added an SSD, plus a Broadcom BCM70015 video decoding card. It has the WWAN antenna and SIM card but I do not use it. Even now there are many uses I could put this computer to.

[walrustahiti]

Nice story Typing this post and at the same time, running tlp recalibrate on my X61s : Middleton Bios, 250 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM for now. Absolutely perfect for what I use it for : light browsing, file editing (LaTeX editing mainly). And 4:3 ratio is the best !

[flyingfishfinger]

My X61 is still my daily driver for....everything. I love it, but C2D IS getting a touch dated, even oc'd with SSD. Twiddling my thumbs waiting for X62 to arrive.

Good condition X's are always a nice find though Nice nice.

R

[axur-delmeria]

Well, she's up and running now.

I had to reinstall Linux (more like upgrade to Debian 8 really) because the HDD suffered some bit rot and Linux wouldn't start properly.
I hadn't booted from that drive since I sold my previous X61 back in January last year, the timestamps on my files attest to it (the /home directory is in another partition and didn't need to be reformatted).

Sweet nostalgia crept as I browsed though my old files, well, until the palmrest got a bit too warm

I think there's a half-length Broadcom WiFi card in my stash of parts. I don't have an extender bracket though.

The display, understandably slightly yellowish, identified itself as a Samsung LTN121XJ-L07 manufactured back in 2005 (!!). If only I didn't break that SXGA+ panel back then . Then again, I really wish that a proper flex cable for the PVA and IPS panels be manufactured. I still have an X61 Tablet with a broken hinge to scavenge parts from.

I'm still putting it through its paces, will need to undervolt the CPU. Will also investigate segmentation faults from mpv video player.

PS

Is it just me, or is the X61 with 8-cell battery still lighter than the X220 with 6-cell?

[jaspen-meyer]

For the wifi card bracket, if the modem card is still there, you can cut a rectangular piece from that and make something to hold the card down. The drilled hole is already the perfect size, just cut off a 1cm width and you're done.

[axur-delmeria]

For the wifi card bracket, if the modem card is still there, you can cut a rectangular piece from that and make something to hold the card down. The drilled hole is already the perfect size, just cut off a 1cm width and you're done.

Sounds crazy yet doable, though I'd rather keep the modem card wrapped up in an anti-static bag somewhere in case I'd ever need it.

Crazy hack : gutting a 3.5 inch floppy disk and using it as a makeshift HDD tray and damper/spacer. In true MacGyver fashion, I used a bit of duct tape as well.

I promise I'll post pictures. EDIT: Here they are.

[hengster]

high five!
i just got myself a really great condition X61, for the second time...
the first time round i sold it off to a pal who just needed to use microsoft office, that was around 5 years ago.
i do not even know the processor or ram specs, that was how little i knew of my ThinkPads back in the day.

this time round, the X61 is more retro and sentimental than functional, after having many other ThinkPads in between.
screen is not as bright as i would like compared to my x201s or x230 ips or x1 carbon ips, but the old school 4:3 display is absurdly good.

mine cost around USD60, with Core2Duo T8300 2.4GHz, 120gb HDD, SIM-slot, 4GB DDR2 ram, and 8-cell battery.
upgraded it with a spare 250gb SSD lying around, loaded Win10 pro, and i am looking at a 2007/2008 machine running along at prime golden age
now to turn it on once every few days/weeks...

[axur-delmeria]

Finally cleaned the heatsink and changed the thermal paste-- I'm a cheapskate and bought Deep Cool Z5 instead of Noctua NT-H1, but the temps are decent. CPU is idling below 50c, surprising because it's a Merom-based T7500 and not a Penryn.