A new life for an old R60

[TripleLisk]

Hey everyone, I'm TripleLisk, and I'm happy to join this community. I've been lurking for quite some time, because most of my questions were already answered by the great people here, and I didn't feel like I have something meaningful to contribute, but, being someone who likes to push the older hardware to its litim, I believe that the time has come.

See, recently I've got myself an R60, a 14" 9460-AWC, to be precise. It captured my attention by a change when I was wisiting my employer's IT guys and they were getting rid of the old hardware that was gathering dust before moving to a new office, and when I, by a pure impulse, asked if I can have it, the answer was yes. They didn't knew if it was still operational ("Well, I guess it was once"), but other than being dusty and missing a couple of screws here and there, it looked surprisingly good, given its age, so I thought: what if... And guess what? It turned on and even attempted to boot something before giving me a BSOD. As I found out later, the hard drive was in terrible condition, which was not surprising at all. But it worked! And if it can work, it should. So I've decided to give it a second life.

I've bought a new battery, because it came without one, and it allowwed me ti update BIOS. I've replaced the CPU it came with with a T7200. I gave it an SSD instead of an old and mostly dead HDD. I've installed 2x2GB RAM (of which I can use 3GB due to chipset limitations). I've bought a nice and comfy docking station (2504, so I could use digital video output). Needless to say, I've properly cleaned every nook and cranny and applied fresh thermal paste and thermal pads.

The question is... What else I can do with it? While this machine is certainly limited compared to, say, T61, I like it. I'm going to use it at my summer house for remote working, watching videos and some light gaming, it fits the role perfectly. But how can I improve it more? The frist obvious answer is swapping the LCD for something better, because it came with a 1024x768 one, which is also rather dim. As far as I know, some 14" R60 had panels with higher resolution, so if I find one, is it a direct swap? Another thing that concerns me is that this machine runs hot. As in, really hot. About 50-60C when idle and in upper 80s under full load. I know that ATI x1400, which it has, is really hot by itself, and it shares the heat pipe with the CPU, but isn't this too hot? Is there anything that can be done about that? I did some searching, and from what I gather, one can fit a different heatsink into a T60 and maybe a 15" R60, but not in a 14" one. Finding spare parts won't be a problem, but is there anything to look for? Lastly, I'd really like a latest BIOS (2.23, I believe) without a whitelist, the original WLAN card does run pretty hot too, and I'd like to swap it with something cooler and faster.

Thanks in advance!

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the Forum.
R60 manual: https://thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hmm_p ... 749_02.pdf
For more manuals, click on the HMM link at the top of each forum page.
Check that the fan is properly mounted on the CPU and that you use a decent paste, like Noctua NT-H2.
BIOS 2.23 with WL removed: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... ost-460870
If you can find an SXGA+ (1400x1050) screen, it's a drop-in replacement.
The best wifi card would be an Atheros AR9380.

[dr_st]

I know that ATI x1400, which it has, is really hot by itself, and it shares the heat pipe with the CPU, but isn't this too hot?

The heatsink used with the ATI models does appear to have separate heat pipes for CPU and GPU...

[atagunov]

Hey, welcome!

Pls. make sure that 7mm SSD doesn't wobble in 9mm HDD compartment. Some extra sticky foam on SSD or carefully placed paper or - the proper solution - 7mm to 9mm step-up rubber rails (look at 2nd photo).

You could pre-order this which is already several years late (not sure if it's actually shipping anywhere yet.. probably not.. another few years of wait?). I think it should fit an R60. And the SSD to put in that might now be rare and expensive. Yet I'm thinking I should probably get one for myself at some point. If for no other reason then as a collector's item..

Some people were managing to get led mod kits for their screens - but this is rather involved project and I'm not sure if you're going to get hold of one. And even if you do butchering the screen and fitting that in is quite an involved process I understand.

You might be able to find a 2nd battery fitting your ultrabay to replace that DVD. Alternatively/additionally there used to exist adapters that allowed one to put a modern SATA ssd in instead of the DVD but what I read on forum they have become rare as hen's teeth and on top of that since they convert SATA to PATA they must be quite slow.

That is it I guess unless you're keen to go down T61 14" 4:3 motherboard rabbit hole.. Yours is 4:3 right? Everybody on this forums is probably tired of repeating T61 mobos with nVidia are less reliable than T61 mobos with integrated (Intel) graphics. And 4Gb RAM sticks for that T61 mobo would cost more then their worth. Re temps - make sure you have fresh enough thermal paste, maybe your temps are tolerable btw?

It's possible to power your machine via a USB-C charger of sufficient (60W+) wattage if for some reason you feel like doing so. There are adapters from USB-C plug to round barrel plug, there are also micro PCB-s that can be fitted inside the machine adding a USB-C charging port but why bother if there are external cable adapters? I suspect those adapters will mostly make Thinkpad think it's got a 65W charger regardless of what USB-C charger you actually have. I think it will refuse to draw more than 65W, but that's enough isn't it? Even an external USB-C power bank of 60W+ wattage should work, though the Thinkpad will probably start doing the stupid thing of charging its own battery if you plug that in.

I'm pretty happy with the 90W Sharge charger that XYTech sold me together with that X2100 that I still have not commissioned properly. That's a nice charger even if it gets a bit hot under max. load. But there's a distinction between X2100 and normal thinkpads. X2100 is not shy and happily pulls above 65W via this USB-C to round plug adapter. R60 will not be doing this. So while may machine is pulling up to 90W yours will be pulling up to 65W.

Ah! You might be able to get some iPad etc speakers, cut off the speakers you currently have and put in those transplanted ones. I'm not sure how good R60 speakers are but I understand people are generally happy with such mods. It seems the voltage/power of such speakers are just about right to work without any additional circuitry. You can use an online search engine to find posts on r/thinkpad subreddit about exact models of speakers people have been fitting into their Thinkpads. I strongly suspect that if a particular model of speakers works say in an X220 it should also work in your R60.

This is what comes to my mind on top of what RBS and dr_st - the real experts on the matter - have said. My knowledge is more theoretical while theirs is practical.

Would you like to treat us to a photo of your machine? I'd be keen to see it

[TripleLisk]

Thank you for your replies!

>Check that the fan is properly mounted on the CPU and that you use a decent paste, like Noctua NT-H2.
It seems that my problem was not with the fan assembly or thermal paste itself, but rather with the fact that the fan wasn't running fast enoughto deal with the temperatures, and even stopped sometimes when the CPU was idling. Fan control put an end to this and gave me mich more reasonable lower 40s and lower 60s, which is still a bit hot, but I guess it's okay for this CPU.
>BIOS 2.23 with WL removed
>If you can find an SXGA+ (1400x1050) screen, it's a drop-in replacement.
Thank you very much! But this BIOS is for 9456-ERJ. Will it work for my model?

>The heatsink used with the ATI models does appear to have separate heat pipes for CPU and GPU...
Unfortunately, it does not... And also, after checking the IDs I found out that I have an x1300 instead, so maybe that's why. I know that they're basically the same thing, with x1300 just running on lower frequencies, but for some reason XP drivers detected it as x1400 and vista driver (which I'm using now because I'm going to use it with 7) detects it at x1300. Interesting.

>Pls. make sure that 7mm SSD doesn't wobble in 9mm HDD compartment. Some extra sticky foam on SSD or carefully placed paper or - the proper solution - 7mm to 9mm step-up rubber rails (look at 2nd photo).
I'm using rubber rails, so there's no need to worry about wobbling, this was one of the first things I took care of, because mechanical wear is the worst thing to deal with!
>You could pre-order this which is already several years late (not sure if it's actually shipping anywhere yet.. probably not.. another few years of wait?). I think it should fit an R60. And the SSD to put in that might now be rare and expensive. Yet I'm thinking I should probably get one for myself at some point. If for no other reason then as a collector's item..
Interesting, but I think that my storage needs are satisfied with a 250GB SSD, at least for now.
>Some people were managing to get led mod kits for their screens - but this is rather involved project and I'm not sure if you're going to get hold of one. And even if you do butchering the screen and fitting that in is quite an involved process I understand.
I'm very comfortable with disassembling tech, especially so well-designed, so that might be an option! But for now, I'd prefer to keep it close to its original state.
>You might be able to find a 2nd battery fitting your ultrabay to replace that DVD. Alternatively/additionally there used to exist adapters that allowed one to put a modern SATA ssd in instead of the DVD but what I read on forum they have become rare as hen's teeth and on top of that since they convert SATA to PATA they must be quite slow.
Yea, they're going to be speedlocked by the PATA connector, so a second battery sounds like a better option.
>That is it I guess unless you're keen to go down T61 14" 4:3 motherboard rabbit hole.. Yours is 4:3 right?
Yeah, I don't believe they've ever made widescreen R60s. Besides, it won't ba en R60 then! So, at least for now, it stays as it is.
>Would you like to treat us to a photo of your machine? I'd be keen to see it
Shh! It's sleeping! https://i.imgur.com/mOur1ob.jpg
Besides, there's a couple of things that I'd like to take care of first. Namely, this https://i.imgur.com/JHfp1VD.jpg Or the fact that I'm still missing the HDD cover. So there's a lot things to do, and a lot to improve!

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes, that bios will work on yours also.

[dr_st]

>The heatsink used with the ATI models does appear to have separate heat pipes for CPU and GPU...
Unfortunately, it does not... And also, after checking the IDs I found out that I have an x1300 instead, so maybe that's why.

Curious. What is the FRU number of your heatsink? According to the HMM, preconfigured 9460 models always had the discrete version of the heatsink, but some 9460-CTO units (which yours seems to be based on) could have the integrated version.

In any case, you should be able to replace the HSF with the discrete version, and I suppose it would be plug-n-play.