Z61p 9452-3NG upgrade to C2D T7600 CPU; thermal assembly?

[Shredder11]

I'm wishing to upgrade my Thinkpad Z61p 9452-3NG CPU and I have read posts on here about the T60/p models and the choice of CPU thermal assembly (heatsink and fan). My Z61p is almost identical to the T60p and seems to share many of its FRU parts, so I am wondering if there is a beefier heat-sink assembly that I can fit to better cool a Core 2 Duo T7600? I know people tend to recommend the cheaper T7200 and I have just fitted one in my sister's Acer Aspire 5612WLMi which has the same chipset as my Thinkpad X60s. However the T2500 in my Z61p kicks the [censored] out of the Acer and the T7200. For my Z61p 3NG the FRU part is 41W6569 but I guess that is just the standard heat-sink for the Core Duo T2500 that it came with. My current temps with the T2500 CPU are around 54 idle and approx 70 under load, from say HD 1080p video; the GPU is usually around 74 under heavy load.

[ajkula66]

The heatsink type is dependant on the GPU and not CPU.

There is no better heatsink assembly for your machine than the one that's already in it.

Happy upgrading.

[Shredder11]

Thanks for the assurance, my GPU is the discrete ATi FireGL V5200.

[Shredder11]

I received a Core 2 Duo T7600 in the post today, although my heart sank when I saw numerous pins bent at 45° angles and I had to try and straighten them without snapping them off. Luckily once I had done this and disassembled my Thinkpad z61p, the installed CPU worked perfectly. It idles at around 45°C and rarely goes much beyond 60°C under severe load, so I am very happy about that. I notice that certain 1080p HD videos that totally red-lined my previous Core Duo T2500 CPU to the max continuously, now only use between 50% and 61% of my T7600 CPU and runs 12°C cooler.

So the CPU upgrade turned out to be well worth the effort, but it was not that difficult. So I am now awaiting the arrival of the ExpressCard/54 interface with the SATA and USB 3.0 ports, and then I can plug in a second 500GB SATA 2.5 7200rpm drive which happens to be in one of those QuietDrive enclosures *** 2009 review ***

The other thing I did while everything was disassembled, was to replace the rather worn keyboard with another used one from Ebay which is in nearly new condition; it has the G key missing but that will be arriving tomorrow. The keyboard and extra key cost a total of £7. I might also replace the worn trackpad and palmrest at some point too. The laptop is only just four years old this month, but previously had a hard life before I got it. Since I first got it I have done major cleaning and upgrading, so it is now a superb laptop!


A close-up of the heatsink assembly prior to installing the CPU:

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... sembly.jpg
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 071326.jpg

MOD warning: please read Forum Rules re picture sizes!

[Shredder11]

Just returning to an old topic, sorry if this offends people who hate this (why?). Anyway the past week or so I have been doing a major revamp of my room and computer setup with this laptop. I use this for music production / audio & MIDI sequencing etc, and as outlined earlier in this thread I previously installed a ExpressCard/54 with USB 3.0 / eSATA. The 2.5" 500GB laptop drive only achieved a mere 50MB/s through this interface, so today I decided to use a Toshiba 2TB USB 3.0 external drive and wow......this is much more like it! I now get approx 127MB/s for read and write speeds! I know laptop drives will always be slower than desktop ones, but never thought a relatively modern one could be so poor.

[axur-delmeria]

Thread necromancy is annoying if:

1. It's done by spammers
2. The necromancer attempts to join a conversation that was concluded a long time ago.

In your case, it's neither, because you're the OP (original poster) of the thread.

It's true that desktop HDDs are generally faster than laptop HDDs.
I also use an Expresscard USB 3.0 card, and experience sustained transfer speeds between 40-55 megabytes/sec on my 1TB 2.5-inch external HDD. But since my HDD's around 50% full when I got my USB 3.0 card, I believe transfer speeds would be much higher on an empty drive.