Custom T61p

[arty_harvy]

Lenovo Thinkpad T61p 6457 B64

Core 2 Extreme X9000 Overclocked to 3.2 Ghz
G. Skill 8 GB 667 Mhz
SeaGate Momentus XT 750 GB / 8 GB Nand
Quadro FX 570M 256 MB Overclocked to:
Core clock 600 Mhz
Shader clock 1400 Mhz
Memory clock 1040 Mhz
1920 x 1200 WUXGA Matte
Intel Advanced N+ 4965 AGN
Windows 7 Professional x64

Windows Experience Index:
Processor 6.6
Memory 6.6
Graphics 6.5
Gaming Graphics 6.5
Primary Hard Disk 5.9

I choose the Seagate over an SSD for the capacity. Is there much else I can do here? What about the Intel 5300 WiFi card? Can I install an internal Blueray drive? Thanks for any info here

[JeffCullen]

I'm using a 5300 thanks to Middleton's BIOS. I tried a 6300 and the system was hard-locking under heavy wireless activity. Not sure if the specific card I bought is defective or whether my T61p does'n't like the card... but the 5300 and 6300 performance seems very similar and are both appreciably superior to the 4965.

I know there is a Blu-ray drive for the T500/W500 as they use a SATA UltraBay Slim, but I don't believe there is one for our older parallel version. Personally, I like having a SSD in the SATA bay, and would put a slow 1TB drive (i.e. WD10JPVT) for storage in a Serial Hard Drive Bay Adapter, FRU 45J7902. TuuS has a few of these for sale in the marketplace... this adapter converts a 2.5" SATA drive to work in the PATA UltraBay slim. You can rip a fair number of movies to a 1TB drive at fantastic quality...

Other than that, I think you have it pretty much maxed...

[arty_harvy]

I remember installing a non-white list 4965 in a buddies thinkpad, and i had to tape one of the pins and installit in the secondary PCI-E slot. Doing this worked but caused the WiFi LED not to light up and the wireless switch only controlled the bluetooth.

If I install a 5300, will I have to tape the pin and install in the secondary PCI-E slot??

[JeffCullen]

If you install Middleton's BIOS (which hopefully you have anyway in order to unleash the SATA-II speed of your hard drive), the 5300 works perfectly in the proper slot, no taped pins. The on/off switch works properly. The LED behaves differently--with the stock 4965, mine blinked whenever there was network activity, which drove me nuts... with the 5300, the LED is on when the switch is on, and off when the switch is off.

I happened to buy a 5300 with a Lenovo FRU (intended for a T500/W500), but any 5300 would be fine. The 5300 came in both full and half height--preferable to get a full height card for our machines, otherwise you have to use an extension bracket which is what I did with the 6300 whilst trying that...

[miro_gt]

my 5300 is not a lenovo branded and works fine.

how do you cool down that thing .. lol ?

I'm surprised you can run memory at 1040MHz. Mine was giving problems at 975 or so. Good way to test GPU stability is to play Team Fortress 2. This was how I found out that my 625MHz GPU clock was giving issues after some 30 min of play, so I lowered it to 600. Memory went from 950 to 925.

P.S. what VID at 3.2Ghz on the CPU ? I'm guessing in the 1.2XXX range ? There's a program developed by Intel for loading CPU called LinX, check it out, works better than Orthos for that purpose.

[TuuS]

I have a similar T61p, model 6457 y74, 08/09 with X9000 cpu and wuxga, 8gb ram, intel 320 series ssd. I haven't tried overclocking it yet, but am thinking about trying. I was concerned with heat, but so far I haven't had any problems.

I'm not normally one to overclock my systems, I'm more of a fan of stability then speed, but I am interested in trying. What apps do you use to overclock your cpu, and do they work on locked cpus too? or only on the unlocked x9000? I know the middleton bios will all a little bit of overclocking using dual ida mode, but I haven't done much testing with this for reasons I've mentioned.

I actually built this system more out of curiosity then need. I have a W510 with quad core, and a T500 that both have faster processors, but I wanted to see how far I could push the T61 platform, which I believe is one of the best systems out there, despite the obvious nVidia issues.

As far as recommendations, as Jeff mentioned, moving your drive to the ultrabay and installing an SSD would be the best option, and if your still running the stock lenovo bios, get middleton's, especially if using SSD. I still have some of the Genuine lenovo ultrabay hdd adapters, which jeff can confirm are in like-new condition, as well as some generics.

[miro_gt]

^ throttlestop. Does not work on locked multipliers except the Dual IDA mode that can be used with the middletons bios.

either that, or pinmod the clock generator to feed 266 MHz to the CPU while still leaving 200MHz to the chipset side, so that it wont activate the intels anti-overclocking scheme of locking the CPU at the lowest multiplier, i.e. 6x . Requires to disassemble the laptop though, so not easy.

P.S. nothing better computer-wise than stable overclock, you just need to find out how to accomplish that.

[TuuS]

Thanks, I'll have used throttlestop, but only briefly.

Can you give me more info on the pinmod?

Also, a little off topic, but I have a T9400 engineering sample chip, do you know if it would be unlocked or not? Obviously it's not going in a T61, which is why it's off topic.

[miro_gt]

Thanks, I'll have used throttlestop, but only briefly.

Can you give me more info on the pinmod?

Also, a little off topic, but I have a T9400 engineering sample chip, do you know if it would be unlocked or not? Obviously it's not going in a T61, which is why it's off topic.

get some practice with throttlestop to see about what voltage each multiplier requires and where it puts you temperature-wise, and when you get some successful results and feel confident, I'll show you the rest, as it's harder - requires soldering of two wires on both sides of one tiny resistor. Once you do that, you can lie the chipset that you're using 200MHz bus and you actually feed 266MHz to the CPU, thus achieve higher clock with same multiplier Credit for that goes to Bihn for finding the connection diagram between the chipset and the clock generator from some chinese forums out there, lol, as the connection go in one of the mid-layers on the main board and is almost impossible to track where it connects to.

as far as your T9400 ES - those are hit or miss, like any other ES chip, but will come with locked multiplier for sure. There's only one ES that runs in the regular intel line of CPUs for our socket and is unlocked, but it's rare and pretty hard to find, and it's a Merom - T7600 with certain spec only, not worth the trouble. With that pinmod you can still run it on a T61, but again not worth the effort to make it work.

if you want to overclock and try your luck for high performance while cheap somewhat then you need a T9300. With 266Mhz bus and disabled IDA this chip will hit 3.2 Ghz, perfect clock for the thinkpads cooling abilities. With my T9500 it will go to 3.45Ghz - too much to cool down, unless you live in Alaska, heh. If you can not disable the IDA then it gets to 3.45GHz and significantly higher VID, so will heat up quite a lot more and thus may not be OK. The T9500 running like that will get into the 3.7GHz range - way too high, will require liquid cooling so forget about portability of the laptop.

while in the topic, the perfect solution would be a X9100 with E0 stepping - that thing has the ability to run cooler than the other X9100 at higher clock, so will be fun to play with. I've seen people running in the 4Ghz range with chip like that while still managing temps under 85 deg C or so, on a 17" laptop though and not lenovo. If only I could get my hands on a chip like that ... but it runs expensive as hell. Runs cooler than X9000 in case you're wondering, and X9000 you can run fine up to some 3.2 GHz, or it gets too hot.

sorry for the "not exactly on topic" discussion. But certainly a SSD will speed the OP's system by quite a lot.

[arty_harvy]

Hey guys. Sorry been away from my computer for a while but Ill try to catch up....

I will be picking up an Intel 5300 soon. Thanks for the info guys

I have Throtle stop multiplier set at x16, and the VID at 1.2500 automaticly on boot, and TPFanControl set at 63. GPU clocks are at stock speeds 99% of the time. If I play games, I will over clock the GPU but down clock the CPU to 2.0 Ghz, and set TPFanControl at 64. 3.2 Ghz is absolutly not stable under full load, but it will survive the benchmarks that I run. Doing regular web browsing ect @ 3.2 makes the system extremely snappy.

Edit: I am and always will run the Middleton BIOS!!!!

[miro_gt]

I have Throtle stop multiplier set at x16, and the VID at 1.2500 automaticly on boot, and TPFanControl set at 63. GPU clocks are at stock speeds 99% of the time. If I play games, I will over clock the GPU but down clock the CPU to 2.0 Ghz, and set TPFanControl at 64. 3.2 Ghz is absolutly not stable under full load, but it will survive the benchmarks that I run. Doing regular web browsing ect @ 3.2 makes the system extremely snappy.

heh, that's why I asked how do you cool it down, lol.

... and getting too hot is why I went with T9500 rather than X9000. I dont change settings on my system, it boots up working locked at 2.8GHz (does not go lower at idle) and with GPU/GDDR3 overclocked to 600/925, and I dont touch it anymore. If I want to play games, I just play those. My TPFanControl smart mode is pretty smart to figure out when things will get hot (and that is when temps hit 65 deg C) and activates automatically the 64 setting for the fan to hit some 4500 rpm, great stuff right there, heh.

no matter what I do, my temps stay below the 80 deg mark at room temperature, and that's why I love this laptop Only in the case where I run LinX the CPU hit like 84 deg C on the 5th minute, but that program loads the CPU to the top, even more than Orthos (at which I get about 80 deg C top).

I've tested that any CPU multiplier that requires more than 1.1000 Volts to run will heat up the CPU too much. And 2.8Ghz I run at 1.0750 Volts, which is two steps above where problems showed up (at 1.0500 V)

P.S. dropping CPU performance affects your GPU performance as well, which in turn drops.

[Binh]

Core 2 Extreme X9000 Overclocked to 3.2 Ghz
Windows Experience Index:
Processor 6.6
Memory 6.6
Graphics 6.5
Gaming Graphics 6.5
Primary Hard Disk 5.9

Could you, please, post detailed stable voltage for each frequency / multiplier?
It is strange that my overclocked T8300@3.2Ghz gets the same 6.6 WEI score for Processor test. IMO Windows 7 does not take into account difference between 3MB (T8300) and 6MB (X9000) L2 cache. While SuperPI notices about that (10% difference between 3MB and 6MB).

Can you give me more info on the pinmod?

Detailed information can be found here

[arty_harvy]

I have dropped the voltave to 1.2125. any lower and I get BSOD.