T61 NVS140Ms still alive?

[Medessec]

I just wanted to kinda fling this idea around and get some opinions...

I've been hunting constantly, as I usually do, because I have an unhealthy Thinkpad addiction. But what I've noticed is that there's actually a lot of functioning NVIDIA T61s on ebay that pop up from time to time and I even saw one on FB Marketplace. I definitely say I see them more often than Intel GPU T61s, by a ratio of at least triple (for every 4 4:3 T61s I find for sale, 3 of them are NVS140Ms). That said, it only seems to be the NVS140M and not the better Quadro, which would support what I've been told before that it's somewhat heat-related.

Just wanted to ask, does anyone have a weigh in on this? You guys seeing the same sort of thing? What's your experience with NVIDIA T61s up to this point?(16 years from new ) Wondering if extended use does eventually see them as dead, and maybe these units have all just been in storage for the longest time, or maybe some good ones did make it out of the factory? Or at least better ones... combined with good services/dusting keeping the fan working and the GPU/CPU cool for its working life.

I have two working T61 4:3 NVS140Ms in my own collection for frame of reference. Both spend 95% of their time in storage, but power up with no issues at all every time. They have been serviced though(dusted, repasted, cleaned).

[RealBlackStuff]

AFAIK every single one that uses the NOS T61 14" NVS140M motherboards from ~2011 is still alive.
No idea about pre-2008 ones.

[TPFanatic]

I have a pre-08 4:3 NVS140m board inside a 15" T60 case. Aside from a busted USB port it worked last I tried it earlier this year....

[Gonzaleitor]

Here, in the south the Intel T61s are much more common. I have 2 of those. Maybe if i get near an Nvidia working one i'll have three...

[huohuo]

I think the cause of that phenomenon might be just someone clearing their drawer, and it just happens to have a nvidia chip.
I personally have an working T61 with 140m (manufactured 07) and it's working flawlessy, the reason why these chips fail as we all know is the bad solder that just melts under high temps. The way to protect the faulty chip is extremely simple, just don't let the temperatures rise to an extremely high amount. Some people actually cared about their machines (or just hadn't used them) through the years, hence why there are still some nvdia chips out there.

[astral]

On these it’s the underfill that’s bad, not the solder. I think it’s been known that if you keep temps under a certain level (I forget what that was) they won’t fail. Depends on the laptop whether the cooling is beefy enough to keep it under that threshold.

[Medessec]

On these it’s the underfill that’s bad, not the solder. I think it’s been known that if you keep temps under a certain level (I forget what that was) they won’t fail. Depends on the laptop whether the cooling is beefy enough to keep it under that threshold.

Makes a lot of sense. I've made sure both the NVIDIA T61s I have, are set up really well with cooling.

Perhaps it is also just that the lower tier NVS140Ms will naturally do better, I haven't seen a single FX570M in years except failed ones.

[olex126]

Medessec..

I'm working on a T61 Wide (6457-WSY) at the moment with a 256Mb FX570M....Guy brought it to me claiming "random freezes"...once I realized what the motherboard/graphics combination was, I kind'a suspected what was going on...

Ran it for a bit just doing normal browsing, some videos, etc...no problem...graphics and CPU temps were well within normal-high range, both 70- 80 degrees or so, but nothing really alarming and only one sign of a momentary cursor freeze...

Ran Furmark....BAM!....didn't take only about 15 seconds to run the temps up to 100 degrees and immediate shutdown.

When I explained the problem and that there really wasn't a cure, he said he had used this computer daily for the last two years just for light office work and that the problem only started within the last week.... I guess there's still a few of these old FX570M units still chugging along...he was lucky it lasted as long as it did...

In the end, he took his hard drive and left me with the rest... so I've inherited a T9300 chip, 8 Gb of RAM, and a T61W battery in pretty good condition...unfortunately, the screen has dimmed almost to the point of causing permanent eyestrain, and the hinges have broken out from the base on one corner, so the display is pretty much toast. Parts machine only from here-on in!

Regards.

Dave

[RealBlackStuff]

Sharp WUXGA (from e.g. Dell D800 series) to the rescue.
I mentioned details a lot several years ago in many posts on the forum.

[Medessec]

Medessec..

I'm working on a T61 Wide (6457-WSY) at the moment with a 256Mb FX570M....Guy brought it to me claiming "random freezes"...once I realized what the motherboard/graphics combination was, I kind'a suspected what was going on...
Ran it for a bit just doing normal browsing, some videos, etc...no problem...graphics and CPU temps were well within normal-high range, both 70- 80 degrees or so, but nothing really alarming and only one sign of a momentary cursor freeze...
Ran Furmark....BAM!....didn't take only about 15 seconds to run the temps up to 100 degrees and immediate shutdown.
When I explained the problem and that there really wasn't a cure, he said he had used this computer daily for the last two years just for light office work and that the problem only started within the last week.... I guess there's still a few of these old FX570M units still chugging along...he was lucky it lasted as long as it did...

In the end, he took his hard drive and left me with the rest... so I've inherited a T9300 chip, 8 Gb of RAM, and a T61W battery in pretty good condition...unfortunately, the screen has dimmed almost to the point of causing permanent eyestrain, and the hinges have broken out from the base on one corner, so the display is pretty much toast. Parts machine only from here-on in!

Huh, interesting! I assume this is fairly recent by the way you're telling it. It would line up with the idea that likely- some of these machines have just been left alone for the longest time, and then yanked out and repurposed.

I'm still just wondering how much of a difference it makes to really nail down the cooling of your T61. I'd imagine an FX 570M if given any sort of an open door to fail- cooling slightly out of tolerance, heatplate pressure isn't absolutely perfect, or the software chugged through it (FurMark) hits it fast and hard causing hotspots, it will fail.

But an NVS140M is a different story. Looking at both chips on TechPowerUp(NVS140M, FX570M) the NVS140M only had a 10W TDP... that's way less than even some old exposed chips. So in the T61, it was an actively cooled 10W exposed ceramic die chip. Set up to be indefinitely reliable I'd say, if it weren't an NVIDIA chip from 2008. But... it could be close to that?

[olex126]

RBS...

Thanks for that!...I pulled a T61W from my repair pile (7663-13U) (sitting for ages, almost forgot I still had it!).

This one has the fan error, but a good screen....NOT sure of the NVS140 condition though, since it hasn't even got through the BIOS on startup before shutdown occurs due to the fan...didn't have time to play with it when I took it in, and it was only dealing with the aforementioned T61W that I even thought to look for it.

I can do a fan transplant from the dead unit to this one and see how the rest of the machine holds up....not holding out too much hope though .

Medessec...

The only history I have on the bad T61W is that my guy purchased it locally through Kijiji and used it for two years doing office work until it failed...could have been rung through the ringer by a gamer when it first went bad and he decided to dump it. As I said, temps were never out of line for the fifteen minutes I tested it (before the Furmark experiment!).

I'm not sure if there's an answer to the high temps, 'cause even though this one lasted two years doing spreadsheets, documents and the occasional web browsing, it still finally succumbed to the fatal substrate problem. An under-unit fan cooler might help....is under-volting the FX570M possible to lower the temps?
Don't know, never done it.

Thanks for the input!

Regards.

Dave

[TPFanatic]

will that T61p boot up again or it sounds like it is now terminally failed?

it's very common for old ThinkPads with old thermal paste to work just fine for years in a suboptimal cooling state. i have one such R61e-T60W FrankenPad project where I just didn't bother properly pasting a heatsink to it, and the thing actually boots Windows and runs a web browser fine, just hot and noisy AF. A stress test will certainly crash it in its current state, but with a repaste it'd make a quieter IBM typewriter.

Awhile back dad and I bought a box of 4 T500s to give everyone in the family, and I had to repaste every single one. When I was in the dirty business of flipping ThinkPads on Craigslist, I likewise had to repaste every one of them since the OG stuff was long uselss.

[Medessec]

This one has the fan error, but a good screen....NOT sure of the NVS140 condition though, since it hasn't even got through the BIOS on startup before shutdown occurs due to the fan...didn't have time to play with it when I took it in, and it was only dealing with the aforementioned T61W that I even thought to look for it.

I can do a fan transplant from the dead unit to this one and see how the rest of the machine holds up....not holding out too much hope though .

If it's actually displaying the BIOS Fan Error before shutting off, then it's at least functioning. But yes you'd have to run it up and at least try some web content with the driver installed. I wouldn't even try to run FurMark on a possibly good NVIDIA chip, unless the cooling situation was 100% solid (new paste, OEM screws tightened to correct tension, fan is dead quiet and pushes air just fine). And even then I'd try stabbing it with lighter loads first to see how bad the temp spikes.

If it turns out to be failed, then... eh? We expected it to be fair, so hopefully not too much of a heartbreaker. But a thought I had was that maybe a chip swap with another G84 that's very similar to the FX570M would be worth trying? It's an idea I've dwelled on and been meaning to ask more about. Wouldn't be surprised if it's already been tried though. Anyone know anything about that?

The only history I have on the bad T61W is that my guy purchased it locally through Kijiji and used it for two years doing office work until it failed...could have been rung through the ringer by a gamer when it first went bad and he decided to dump it. As I said, temps were never out of line for the fifteen minutes I tested it (before the Furmark experiment!).

I'm not sure if there's an answer to the high temps, 'cause even though this one lasted two years doing spreadsheets, documents and the occasional web browsing, it still finally succumbed to the fatal substrate problem. An under-unit fan cooler might help....is under-volting the FX570M possible to lower the temps?
Don't know, never done it.

Yeah that is the other thing, with how old these machines are and how well they hold up otherwise, you never really know. The history could be anyone's guess. Could also be warranty repaired, either with a good board or another bad board. Could have been repaired by a tech with another FX570M chip. Could have been motherboard swapped. Or, maybe it is 100% original and just been used lightly all this time, or not at all.

My sentiment though has always been that if you can't 100% count on it, you can't daily it. So I've mostly avoided these NVIDIA machines like plague, except the two units I keep for tinkering and testing. They're occasional use anyways, and both have really good cooling setups.

[micrex22]

My Nvidia-based T61 (from the "bad date" period) is still working fine, it's a widescreen model.

Meanwhile the ThinkPads I HAVE had fail on me were my early T60p and one of RBS' T43p, both mobos became braindead and refuse to POST when given power. The T60p had a quirk where it would freeze but resetting it would resume it working again, one day it froze and never resumed POSTing again... must have been some sort of passive component, but without schematics and advanced understanding of the design it's anyone's guess.

So far the T61s have a better track record :p

[Medessec]

My Nvidia-based T61 (from the "bad date" period) is still working fine, it's a widescreen model.

Meanwhile the ThinkPads I HAVE had fail on me were my early T60p and one of RBS' T43p, both mobos became braindead and refuse to POST when given power. The T60p had a quirk where it would freeze but resetting it would resume it working again, one day it froze and never resumed POSTing again... must have been some sort of passive component, but without schematics and advanced understanding of the design it's anyone's guess.

So far the T61s have a better track record :p

Well that's definitely good to hear. By any chance is this an NVS 140M T61? It'd support my theory that the NVS140Ms, bad date or not, are too low TDP to provoke the failure provided the cooling and thermal interfacing is looked after. The FX 570Ms though, were essentially set up to constantly tango with their inevitable fate.

The T60p is a bit of a surprise, but maybe the early ones weren't as top notch. T43ps though, I've never had a good track record with dGPU T4x laptops. Being paranoid about it- all of my current T4x laptops (T42p, T43, T43p) all have a changed out thermal material over the dGPU plate and of course I've repasted the CPU. I scraped off all the old dGPU pad material and replaced it with 0.5mm Arctic TP3, and the temps are actually 10-20C lower than they were on moderate load. Huge difference, and idle seems to behave like I'd imagine it did when the laptop was new.

[micrex22]

Well that's definitely good to hear. By any chance is this an NVS 140M T61? It'd support my theory that the NVS140Ms, bad date or not, are too low TDP to provoke the failure provided the cooling and thermal interfacing is looked after. The FX 570Ms though, were essentially set up to constantly tango with their inevitable fate.

The T60p is a bit of a surprise, but maybe the early ones weren't as top notch. T43ps though, I've never had a good track record with dGPU T4x laptops. Being paranoid about it- all of my current T4x laptops (T42p, T43, T43p) all have a changed out thermal material over the dGPU plate and of course I've repasted the CPU. I scraped off all the old dGPU pad material and replaced it with 0.5mm Arctic TP3, and the temps are actually 10-20C lower than they were on moderate load. Huge difference, and idle seems to behave like I'd imagine it did when the laptop was new.

I think it was an FX 570M (yeah making it even worse and even more of a miracle it's still fine). The special "good date" T61 4:3 NVS 140M Penryn board I have works just fine (in said old T60p chassis that had the failed mobo lol). I don't think that board is ever going to fail.

The RBS T43p just died without reason while it was powered off: I had it stored for some years, moved, powered it up and nothing. It's possible someone exhibited it to blunt trauma or something without my knowing??? The second RBS T43p is still working though. It's very curious that T43s can spotaneously die without being powered up? Currently it's still sitting in my closet, no idea what I should do with it.

[Medessec]

The RBS T43p just died without reason while it was powered off: I had it stored for some years, moved, powered it up and nothing. It's possible someone exhibited it to blunt trauma or something without my knowing??? The second RBS T43p is still working though. It's very curious that T43s can spotaneously die without being powered up? Currently it's still sitting in my closet, no idea what I should do with it.

That's a real shame... but I've had that happen to a couple of my Thinkpads too. My 701CS in particular- 4 or so years ago it was working fine, but I booted it up recently and now even after a CMOS battery replacement, it can't shake an Error 611 from boot. Can't see the Hard Drive, Infrared or PCMCIA anymore. Took the motherboard out and... nothing. No visible damage or corrosion, except the light stuff that was around the battery. But I cleaned that up those years ago, and several times I ran it up, it booted to Win98 just fine.

It is possible for repair techs with in-depth knowledge of component level repair to attempt to diagnose it, with a board schematic you can poke around on the motherboard to see where the power is going when it's plugged in, see if maybe a fuse or some simple component like a diode, capacitor, resistor, etc. But far beyond the scope of a casual tinkerer, especially if the laptop is actually powering up but some component on the board is preventing it from booting correctly.

[micrex22]

That's a real shame... but I've had that happen to a couple of my Thinkpads too. My 701CS in particular- 4 or so years ago it was working fine, but I booted it up recently and now even after a CMOS battery replacement, it can't shake an Error 611 from boot. Can't see the Hard Drive, Infrared or PCMCIA anymore. Took the motherboard out and... nothing. No visible damage or corrosion, except the light stuff that was around the battery. But I cleaned that up those years ago, and several times I ran it up, it booted to Win98 just fine.

It is possible for repair techs with in-depth knowledge of component level repair to attempt to diagnose it, with a board schematic you can poke around on the motherboard to see where the power is going when it's plugged in, see if maybe a fuse or some simple component like a diode, capacitor, resistor, etc. But far beyond the scope of a casual tinkerer, especially if the laptop is actually powering up but some component on the board is preventing it from booting correctly.

I actually have a bunch of NOS 701C mobos, although there's also the secondary board with the battery and audio logic, I don't have any of those. A good portion of my 701C stash don't even power up, that "secondary" motherboard is very problematic esp. when those nasty nicad batteries eat at the boards. Don't have the time to troubleshoot and fix all of them, a nightmare to work on.

The 701C keyboards are also very horrible as they're not real IBM ones but made by Keytronic for the special folding mechanism. If you thought it was just because of age, nope! I also have NOS keyboard assemblies and they feel just as bad as used ones.

[Medessec]

I actually have a bunch of NOS 701C mobos, although there's also the secondary board with the battery and audio logic, I don't have any of those. A good portion of my 701C stash don't even power up, that "secondary" motherboard is very problematic esp. when those nasty nicad batteries eat at the boards. Don't have the time to troubleshoot and fix all of them, a nightmare to work on.

That's a real bummer, but not surprising. I'm hoping in the future with modboards kinda coming and going, that some cool custom solution to make the 701 sort of... "function" again does come about and make it possible for people to enjoy the 701 as more than just a static art piece, which I more or less feel like it's suited as.

Would Error 611 be rooted more in the bottom board, that the IDE interface is actually on? Or do you think it would be in the problem board? Or do you think that in your experience... it's anyone's guess

The 701C keyboards are also very horrible as they're not real IBM ones but made by Keytronic for the special folding mechanism. If you thought it was just because of age, nope! I also have NOS keyboard assemblies and they feel just as bad as used ones.

Yeah I feel like it's a real shame, but I suppose with an idea that crazy, even IBM couldn't pick and choose. They had to make do with whoever was crazy enough to supply the keyboard. Kinda defeats the point of an insanely cool keyboard that's slightly bigger than it would be on the platform to be cruddy to type on... but again. Maybe a better solution is on the horizon.