Thinkpads Forum

Good example of why I should un-link my credit card from ebay this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-PC-L ... 2749.l2649

That's all the info I have! Quite like the idea of an X60t running Linux, or even a stripped down Windows 10! Not getting too excited until it's arrived though, as it could be utterly trashed, can see a bit of damage by the fingerprint reader already. £11 worth of 2x2gb sticks of ram turned up this morning for it, and I have a close to death 80gb SATA drive that will do to test it, if it works and is worth keeping I'll pop an SSD in.

If the other 2 laptops in the lot work, hopefully a clean up, picture of them turned on and better pictures will see them sell as spares or repairs and net my outlay back...

Quite excited about this one if it works, If it works well I'm hoping to retire my massive HP Probook and roll this as a daily! I have an i5 windows box in the loft which I use as a file server/encoding rig for my youtube channel and remote into it to do any long work as I can leave it running and close the laptop, so not having a massive fast laptop does not bother me, it'll get used basically as a netbook!

If you can somehow successfully clean it up and make it nice again, then it could be a good find. At least you have rescued the poor thing from such a horrible abusive person! Come on.....they must be to treat something so badly!

That is true, it can have a nice pamper session if it works! I strip hoovers down to their component parts and wash all the plastics, how much harder can a laptop be... From the guys other listings I think he just buys 'junk', and puts no effort into cleaning them up. That lot was up for £35 plus post, he accepted my £20 offer within 3 minutes!

Stage 1 will be seeing it it runs first, then I'll find the service manual, I presume one exists for it? All other thinkpads seem to have them, already found the T40 one (as per the t4x room, I've bought a gubbed T40 too... have 3 thinkpads now!)

beko1987 wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:58 am

That is true, it can have a nice pamper session if it works! I strip hoovers down to their component parts and wash all the plastics, how much harder can a laptop be... From the guys other listings I think he just buys 'junk', and puts no effort into cleaning them up. That lot was up for £35 plus post, he accepted my £20 offer within 3 minutes!

Stage 1 will be seeing it it runs first, then I'll find the service manual, I presume one exists for it? All other thinkpads seem to have them, already found the T40 one (as per the t4x room, I've bought a gubbed T40 too... have 3 thinkpads now!)

At the top of this page is a link to 'HMM' (Hardware maintenance manual) where you can find the x60t.

I use a similar machine, an x60s, as my daily driver.

That's fantastic, thanks for that, I didn't spot that link at the top! That's my 240, t40 and x60 apart in my head then!

It's finally arrived! Throughout all of this post, please keep in your mind that it came with 2 other laptops and cost £27 posted... The 2 other laptops should net me that back even just turned straight back onto ebay!
(hopefully)


http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0Jk.md.jpg

It's cosmetically quite poor! Glue and scratches on the outer shell, although most of the filth should clean off. Not important right now

http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0Jl.md.jpg

The PCI slot cover and a bit of plastic from around the SD card slot was half hanging out, and came fully away when I poked it. Will have a look at glueing that. Again, not important right now!

http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0Jq.md.jpg

The non genuine charger rattled alot, so I cracked it open and found a large component floating around. Due to this and the heavy amount of tape around the cable I just tossed it straight in the bin. Hopeful that this is the reason the laptop is dead... Will have to dig my generic charger out later and hope it has an end that fits the thinkpad. Quite important!

http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0Jr.md.jpg

It has the stylus! This is good news, one less thing to need to buy

http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0Jz.md.jpg

Inside is worn but should clean up nicely. Note the excellent angle of the screen... That's because I'm holding the screen up, the hinge is dead... There's resistance when twisting it, but it's not holding itself up. Let go of the screen and it flops down flat. The casing around the hinge LCD side moves about too. Also, all the screw covers are missing, which means someone may have been in here before... High priority, once I know it turns on I'll get in here and see what the damage is.

There's no screen latch either (snapped off), and it has a pattern battery, which might work, but the middle locating tab is snapped off, so it doesn't sit properly. Low priority for now though

http://ultraimg.com/images/2018/01/10/n0JI.md.jpg

So there we go! Could be better, could be worse! Main aim tonight is to see if the thing turns on! I bought a cheap 4gb pair of RAM when I bought this (no RAM included) so I can see if that helps (I know it'll only see 3gb), and I have a ratty 80gb hard drive for testing purposes. Oh yea, the hard drive cage is missing, it has the rubber sides though which will do for now.

Another project! Just as my T40 needs a screen, keyboard bezel and whitelist BIOS flashing... If it runs that'll do, can look to buy parts next month, bit too poor to afford anything now!


Admin warning: Please read the Forum Rules, especially Section 5 (pictures): viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14339

beko1987 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:34 am

The non genuine charger rattled alot, so I cracked it open and found a large component floating around. Due to this and the heavy amount of tape around the cable I just tossed it straight in the bin. Hopeful that this is the reason the laptop is dead... Will have to dig my generic charger out later and hope it has an end that fits the thinkpad. Quite important!

In one paragraph you threw out the adapter attachment you need and then wondered whether you have the attachment. Nice!

If you have a soldering iron, and you're trying to do this all on the cheap, pull the adapter from the bin and do the repair. If you post close up pictures, someone here will walk you through how/where to connect the broken bit.

I can see where the component goes, but the cable is very taped up, it's a cheap, generic power adapter, I can buy another brand new cheap generic power brick for £6 from ebay, and possibly keep my house from burning down!

The broken component looks to have blown off the board too, not just fallen off, don't fancy the risk, especially with that massive cap staring at me!

Might fish it out and try.....

Regarding the thread title, not 'silly' but 'adventurous'.

Adventurous is certainly one way to put it! Admin warning understood too, sorry. Will just link to ultraIMG in order now.

So, I did bring the power brick home last night, and it was a good job too because I cannot find my 'fits all' laptop charger (and didn't fancy tearing the house apart to find it) so I got the soldering iron out

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hO

Pushed the broken component back in

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hZ

and soldered it home (badly, I'm not great at soldering...)

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0ht

With a degree of trepidation, I plugged it in, and it didn't explode... So I plugged the X60t in, and it didn't explode either, result! Ah... fan error

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0h4

But, the screen works, which is more than the T40 I bought did. So I had some dinner, did some googling, ending up on these fine pages, and after dinner, got the HMM and screwdrivers out!

Along the way, I found this, and as much as I tried, could not find the FRU for a wooden stick... Buggar, where will I get one of those from? (more on that later...)

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hB

15 minutes later, I had the fan and heatsink out

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hC

The fan was hard to turn, the fluff was deep.

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hL

I hoiked it apart, and sprayed far too much silicone grease on it (it's quite hard to just get a drop out of the can) so used that to wipe it all down (lots of filth from the bearing area) then another short blast and cotton bud/q-tip to get the excess. Voila, one free spinning fan!

Putting the screen back on it became evident that the hinge was not well

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0hh

However, no point in worrying about that now, once together, did it fix it?

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0h9

Yey! I put the other 2gb stick in and closed it all up.

So, it now works, has 4gb of cheap ebay RAM (I know it can only see 3gb, but I wasn't faffing around with 1x2 and 1x1 sticks, 2x2 was £11 delivered! I also found an old rattly hard drive for testing purposes, and get about making a bootable windows 7 drive (because I don't have the dock with the DVD rom)

Whilst it did that, I had a better look at the screen, to see what the damage is

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0UU

Hehehe... At least the mounting points aren't smashed I suppose, that's what I was fearing.

Some time later, I had Windows 7 installed, and everything worked, even the touch and pen!

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0U8

Was running a bit warm though...

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0U7

Those thermals for up to 93/94 degrees during the next stage, I propped it up to increase the airflow as I didn't want it to shut down part way through. I didn't, and this morning after an hour, I had Windows 10! (the accessibility upgrade is still active until the 16th, so I grabbed it now before I missed it)

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0UR

Windows 10 likes it even better than 7!

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0UE

It's not too bad performance wise tbh, the biggest issue is the old hard drive, which came out of a dodgy laptop years ago and hasn't been treated well since

Still, it does for testing, I ended up stripping windows 10 down a fair bit, as I don't use most of the rubbish it comes with, and have it running quite well. It takes a while to boot, but once it's there it zips along quite happily. I also got all the drivers from the link at the top of this page, although 10 pulled a fair few down itself.

I then let my daughter test it out

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/n0Us

Success! £20 for just this isn't bad, and I still have 2 unknown other laptops to turn on and basically throw straight back on ebay!

I've been shopping now too:

1 x screen hinge
1 x hard drive carrier kit (it's missing the actual drive holder, the drive is just sat in the bay wedged with card for now...)
1 x keyboard (not all the keys work too well, many have the lettering worn off...
1 x new cheap but 90w power brick!

A lovely chap from the Thinkpad facebook group says he has the screws I need for the screen hinge too, which is awfully nice of him, thanks Darren!

All that came to £20 delivered, the same cost as the machine!

Once I get a bit of money together I'm going to perform the M.2 SSD mod, as, looking about m.2 ssd's are cheaper than 2.5" ones, and I only need 64gb, this is only going to be a mess about laptop, I store actual stuff on google drive/my home server. That should sort a good deal of the performance issues out!

It needs a battery too, the pattern one is dead as a dodo, windows says it's charging, but it's not. New pattern ones are quite cheap so I'll treat it one day!

It all needs to come apart again for new thermal paste too, probably the next job I do to it!

It got a good scrub last night too which got 60% of the filth off. Will strip it properly as some of the plastics need washing, will get some glue and try to fix the broken PCI slot cover at the same time, and remove the rest of the paint splatter...

All in all though, I'm happy for my £20 stab in the dark. Been offered a few T23 thinkpads too from a bloke on another forum, so can I now say I officially have a collection?

240
T23 (incoming)
T40
X60t

Oops...

SInce this heatsink is aluminum fins, why not find another heatsink with copper fins this time and fan in better condition which is usually is. Silicone lube is not a proper oil. Engine oil will do, just do the another copper heatsink by lifting out the fan rotor from the armature and clean dust, use engine oil on the spindle bearing with toothpick, drop the fan rotor back in. I do this all the time as fans tend to be on dry side even still in good shape.

If you find heatsink with copper fins, make sure to mention that in purchase message.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Original-CPU-Fa ... SwtExVgwL2

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

That's a great story. Thanks for the details.

beko1987 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2018 2:42 pm

1 x keyboard (not all the keys work too well, many have the lettering worn off...

Furballs, or other objects, can get under the keyboard's keys and prevent them from working properly. The solution is to remove the debris. You can pop off the keys by pulling gently upwards on the top-right of a given key, use your fingernail or tip of index finger. They should pop off easily. If they don't pop off easily, rotate your attack 90 degrees and try again.

Reattach the key by placing it on the keyboard, and pushing down - the same way you would while typing, only a bit more deliberate.

Thinkpadcollection - Thanks for the top on engine oil, will try that, got plenty of it sat in the garden! (Oil change on 2 cars last week). Will see if that helps at all first before buying a new heatsink assembly. Although by the sounds of it it could be worn, hence it made noises when at an angle and not flat on a table.

Jaspen - You are possibly correct, the keyboard is utterly horrific! When I went to remove it to get to the fan I had to almost peel it off the gunk sicking it to the edges. If it was just dirty I'd have cleaned it, but it's heavily worn, and a new board was very cheap and infact has been delivered today, so too late to change my mind about that now!

I'll wait for all the parts to arrive, then strip the whole lot back down again, scrub all the plastics, oil the fan rather than silicone grease, and re-assemble it all! Must get some glue to try and fix the broken case by the PCI slot too...

beko1987: I wasn't going to post in your thread, because I am the most unknowledgeable/nontechnical member of the forum but I have to thank you for your reference (in photo) to the Piriform Speccy system info program. I have downloaded it onto two of our laptops so far. The free version is very informative! So, thank you!

I too would also like to know of a glue which will bond to our Thinkpad palmrests etc. It is my understanding that the ABS plastic from which the palmrest etc. is made is "inert" meaning that it cannot be glued. So, if you find a glue which will in fact bond, please post it up because all of my X61 and X61T have cracks near the PCI slot.

Finally, I am glad that you are ADVENTUROUS and that you post photos of your ADVENTURE because I for one and likely others will likely learn something from your out of the box approach to re-working the X60T...

E350 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:17 am

beko1987: I wasn't going to post in your thread, because I am the most unknowledgeable/nontechnical member of the forum but I have to thank you for your reference (in photo) to the Piriform Speccy system info program. I have downloaded it onto two of our laptops so far. The free version is very informative! So, thank you!

I too would also like to know of a glue which will bond to our Thinkpad palmrests etc. It is my understanding that the ABS plastic from which the palmrest etc. is made is "inert" meaning that it cannot be glued. So, if you find a glue which will in fact bond, please post it up because all of my X61 and X61T have cracks near the PCI slot.

Finally, I am glad that you are ADVENTUROUS and that you post photos of your ADVENTURE because I for one and likely others will likely learn something from your out of the box approach to re-working the X60T...

Why thank you! Didn't think I would be helpful! Speccy is indeed a wonderful program. From the same people as CCLeaner. Oddly though, in Widnows 7, it showed both the CPU and motherboard temps, in Windows 10 it just shows the CPU...

Haven't got as far as trying glue yet. Was hoping Q-Bond wouldwork, as that's what I usually use for repairing Dyson (my day hobby!), but if that doesnt work then we shall have to experiment! Will be a while before I try too, the hinge is coming from Turkey to the UK... Will report back though! Would strong tape work from underneath? Didn't look at that was under there when I had it apart, forgot about that! Won't help my other broken parts though

The new power supply turned up yesterday, it fits the machine much better, doesnt get as warm, and doesn't rattle! 90w too rather than the old 60w one whick should help, well... would if the battery wasn't stone dead! The keyboard came too but I've not fitted that yet, will wait for the hinge to come and hit it all at once!

I'm off work this week, however I think the LCD hinge has arrived, apparently there is a package from Germany on my desk! WIth that, the keyboard that's been floating around in my car and now the power adapter I should be able to get it useable finally next week!

I need to re-paste the CPU and GPU as it ran pretty flipping hot last time I had it on for any length of time. Needs an SSD too as the random hard drive I found really isn't very healthy, but I can't afford that at the moment, will work around that/not make any decisions about performance until that's fitted!

Been a bit sidetracked with my T40 and T400 recently, poor X60 hasn't had a look in bar me borrowing it's hard drive to test random laptops I want to sell (windows 10 is very happy to be moved from machine to machine it seems and boot fine!)

Need a battery too. I bought a £12 ebay special battery for my T400 and so far (3 days in) it seems utterly fine, so I'm hopin an equally cheap x60t battery will be similarly good!

Silicone oil? I've myself tested vaseline oil since it does not collect dust and does not turn sticky, works well with both high and low speeds - and the my fans work perfectly silent.

If you need a genuine battery in a decent shape, drop me a PM. I have one left while am not using my tablet much.

darn, I wish I'd seen this 2 hours ago when I ordered a £12 ebay battery... Sorry, but thanks for the offer!

Have been working on the old girl tonight though! The new hinge, hard drive caddy and keyboard turned up last week, and they all got fitted tonight, and it's nice to be able to use it without propping the screen up on something! The black WLAN cable was starting to be chewed up too so I fixed it just in time too I think. Can remove the hard drive without having to flick it out with a screwdriver now it's in a proper caddy.

Still not there yet though...

The cheap ebay power supply I bought went pop yesterday (was using it on my T400), so I'm back to using my fits-all power supply, which is a bit poor as the connections are a bit baggy now. When the battery comes I can charge that then use it as a workaround until I buy a slightly better, maybe even genuine power supply!

The fan is a bit knackered. Makes gentle rattling noises as it spins, and a I've had it apart already to get it spinning to fix the fan error, I think a new fan is the only way forward now. CPU is hovering around 75/80 degrees C with no real load, and that's after fresh thermal paste on the CPU...

It needs a new wrist rest/keyboard bezel. Mine has a big crack in it which I can't bodge up as it's right around a mounting screw. there's also a piece broken off by the pcicma slot, and something missing around the pen slot as there's nowhere for the missing screw to go

Still need to track down a screen latch

The random hard drive I fitted is really dying! I can feel it on my leg just idling, and windows is running far slower than it should. A job for next month though, too skint this month. I do have a few other hard drives now after helping my dad clear his stuff out over the weekend, but tbh their probably no better...

Progress though, onwards and upwards! Typing this on the T40 because it's easier and I dont need to be near a wall because it's battery works. I did get a spare trackpoint cover too thinking about it, the new keyboard came with one fitted, so I popped the one from the old broken board onto the T40! I think all my pads have nipples now, albeit worn smooth bar the 240 which is nice and minty.

Small update. I bought a cheap ebay battery which nearly fits perfectly, but I can type this on it whilst sitting on the sofa!

The CPU fan is really loud and rattly!

I replaced the hard drive with a better one (does not rattle when shook etc..) which seems alot better

And, earlier, I installed Linux MInt! Which runs really well!! Alot faster than windows 10, and everything seems to work out of the box. The touchscreen and stylus work, rotation buttons on the screen for tablet mode etc, I'm very impressed!

Gosh, so long since an update! I still have it, I'm typing this on it now!

What has happened since my last post utterly ages ago?

Well, it's had an ebay battery on it for a while, which has been very annoying, as the battery has 2 humps under it where cells sit, but this stops the laptop sitting flat on the table. Very annoying! However, the other week I found what is apparently a brand new Lenovo battery for £45 on ebay! Hoping it arrives soon, if it's not a genuine battery/has the stupid humps that all the pattern batteries have I'll kick up a storm!

It's had a 128gb SSD fitted for a fair while now, that's transformed it. Running Windows 7 on it, which it likes alot. I have had various linux distro's on, but none have played well with the wacom screen, mainly just refusing to boot into the GUI.

I've found a few cheap parts on american ebay, seems this thing was more popular over there!

1 X screen latch. Handy because mine was missing, however I then found
1 X brand new genuine LCD cover! Which makes it look sooooooo much nicer! It came with the latch, so I have a spare now...

Then, the other week, I found a brand new keyboard bezel! From china, I paid in Dollars, but it cost about £10, and arrived yesterday, I fitted it last night

Old vs new

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/OgdW

It has a different logo on, I did remove the logo from the old broken wrist rest, but I quite like the X series one, so might keep it for now

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogjb

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogjj

Looks much smarter!

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogj2

Bonus is, the new wrist rest has the screw thread for the stylus hole brace intact, so I found a correct enough size screw in my pot of spares, and now the stylus clicks nicely in and out

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogj3

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogj5

And swapped the trackpoint tip as I did not like the domed one, but, the old wrist rest was missing its rubber pads, and the screen moved the trackpoint when it was closed! Doesn't do that now, so I could fit a brand new one

https://www.ultraimg.com/image/Ogj6

I'm nearly there now, from a pile of scrap, now all it needs is the proper battery to come, then that's everything wrong with it right! Some nice to haves would be the screw caps on the LCD bezel, I tried some T40 ones I have but their too big, and if I see a bottom cover I'll grab that as the battery latches are not the best and it's VERY worn.

It's my daily for now until the new LCD cable capable of driving the WSXGA screen comes for my R500! I've been using it alot actually, I twisted my ankle and worked from home for a week, had the X60t running Linux Mint at the time, set it up on the dining table with a second screen and it was fine logged into my virtual desktop at work! Do LOVE the keyboard, can't wait to be able to use it on a flat surface without propping the front up with lego