How do you determine which MB you have - Penryn v. Merom?

[bighank]

Have a T61 with 2.4 GHz processor and Nvidia 140M GPU which was just replaced by Lenovo for a dead Nvidia GPU.
Also have a T61p with 2.2GHz Processor and Nvidia FX 570M GPU.
Both systems manufactured in 2008 but the T61 now has a "new" MB.

How do I tell whether I have a Penryn or Merom MB in each machine? Can I see this in Device Manager or BIOS or do I have to open up the beast and look on the MB? If so Where do I look?

Thinking about replacing processor to a faster one with more cache in either or both systems.

Advice please.

[portsample]

*bump* (yeah)

[TuuS]

Hi,

You need to look at the boards FRU number. Get them and I can tell you.

On some T61 units you can read it under the battery, on others it's under the ram chips, but on some it's on the bottom of the board, opposite of the ram... unfortunately difficult to read.

It's also possible to read the original installed board on a parts lookup....

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... ookup.page

I have most of these boards, even a few with 08/08 build codes (updated gpu).

You can also run a Penryn chip on a meron board using modified bios. Although not ideal, and I believe you'd lack some of the advanced thermal protection of the penryn, it has been done by many and is reported to work well.


edit:

ps. Your "new" motherboard is actually a refurbish/remanufactured board. There haven't been any "new" boards for these things in years.

[bighank]

Did some research.
The T61 has a MB with numbers 42W7876 or 44C3928 which appears to be a Penryn MB
This system has a 2.4 GHz processor T8300

The T61P has a MB with numbers 42W7877 or P42X5086 or 44C3931 which also appears to be a Penryn MB
This system has a 2.2 GHz processor T7500
Are both these MBs capable of faster Penryn processors?

If I replace the T7500 with a T8300 the speed will increase to 2.4 GHz but the internal cache will drop from 4 to 3 MB.

Would performance increase or decrease doing this?

[Backslashnl1]

Even "Merom" motherboards support faster Penryns, so these should too.

I guess performance will be a bit better, and your laptop will run cooler and therefore more quiet.
For an even bigger performance increase you should upgrade to a T9300 or T9500, which run on 2.5 and 2.6 Ghz and have 6MB cache.

[TuuS]

Did some research.
The T61 has a MB with numbers 42W7876 or 44C3928 which appears to be a Penryn MB
This system has a 2.4 GHz processor T8300

The T61P has a MB with numbers 42W7877 or P42X5086 or 44C3931 which also appears to be a Penryn MB
This system has a 2.2 GHz processor T7500
Are both these MBs capable of faster Penryn processors?

If I replace the T7500 with a T8300 the speed will increase to 2.4 GHz but the internal cache will drop from 4 to 3 MB.

Would performance increase or decrease doing this?

Thats a good question. The Penryn processor has other advantages too, so I'd say between them and the speed, I'd go with the T8300 since your board supports it.

If you want to upgrade to T9300, I might have some avaliable. The T9500 isn't very common and would be quite expensive, so probably not very cost effective.