Thinkpads Forum

I had an X60s briefly but decided to pass it on to family. I'm thinking again of one for myself having got used to using Debian 7 but I really don't like being stuck with a lack of real fan control and the noise. I returned a T43 where the fan just didn't go off, common apparently, and my own non Thinkpad netbook drives me mad too with its fan. Does pwmconfig work with these Thinkpads? I'm intending ot use an SSD and the Xfce desktop and the situation the fan will bother me most in is in a library where I'm just using a text editor, normally with the brightness only a few notches from its lowest.

The X60, X60s, X61 and X61s are all of interest if there is one that might suit me better out of these.

Having had two T22 laptops die on me in a year I had begun to think of leaving second hand machines alone but it does seem that if you want to avoid Windows newer laptops' hardware can be a nuisance, like my netbook's Atom N2800 cpu, and fan noise is mentioned a bit too frequently in reviews of new 11.6 inch laptops. I did consider the X200(s) but a netbook or an 11.6 or 4:3 12.1 inch machine is as conspicuous as I feel able to look working in cafes and libraries...

Thanks for all comments. (Didn't think I'd be using this forum again after the two deaths till the happy day of being able to afford a brand new Thinkpad!)

tpprynn wrote:I had an X60s briefly but decided to pass it on to family. I'm thinking again of one for myself having got used to using Debian 7 but I really don't like being stuck with a lack of real fan control and the noise. I returned a T43 where the fan just didn't go off, common apparently, and my own non Thinkpad netbook drives me mad too with its fan. Does pwmconfig work with these Thinkpads? I'm intending ot use an SSD and the Xfce desktop and the situation the fan will bother me most in is in a library where I'm just using a text editor, normally with the brightness only a few notches from its lowest.

The X60, X60s, X61 and X61s are all of interest if there is one that might suit me better out of these.

Having had two T22 laptops die on me in a year I had begun to think of leaving second hand machines alone but it does seem that if you want to avoid Windows newer laptops' hardware can be a nuisance, like my netbook's Atom N2800 cpu, and fan noise is mentioned a bit too frequently in reviews of new 11.6 inch laptops. I did consider the X200(s) but a netbook or an 11.6 or 4:3 12.1 inch machine is as conspicuous as I feel able to look working in cafes and libraries...

Thanks for all comments. (Didn't think I'd be using this forum again after the two deaths till the happy day of being able to afford a brand new Thinkpad!)

I used Debian 7 and Red Hat 6 on my X61 with no issues. If anything, I feel it runs a bit cooler than Windows 7. I do have an SSD, but have only noticed marginal decrease in temps from that. Never got into XFCE, generally a GNOME guy.

I'm sure X60s and X61s will run cooler (direct correlation with fan speed & noise), but I use the X61 with Penryn and noise is audible in a quiet room, nothing obnoxious, just light background noise. I don't think you'll have any issues with the options you gave.

Edit: The fan doesn't bother me on this machine....it's inaudible compared to the the electrical noise from Intel speedstep. That, really grinds my gears.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed still works on SL6 and Fedora 20.

When I first got my X200 in beat-up condition, it emitted a high pitched whine when running the fan. It was annoying in the library. I purchased a new fan from eBay for ~$5. While I had the heatsink out, I gave it a good cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and laid down a new coating of Arctic Silver. The fan is barely audible now. The point is, don't give up on a machine when a cheap part replacement will probably save you a lot of headache.

I do have an issue where the fan doesn't turn on sometimes at boot, but research indicates that is a known motherboard problem which I'm not replacing anytime soon, and it is easily resolved with a hard reset.

Just tested the LCD on the X60s with a Chakra Live (laptop not assembled, just mainboard + LCD plugged together running of a USB drive). Fan appears to go on and off normally while the system is running