Upgraded T61

[Dawnbreaker]

Hello dear ThinkPadders!
I'm planning to speed up a little my old (but gold) T61. My budged for upgrade is restricted due to several reasons (one of them, not the main of course, is that it has Nvidia 140 chip which was manifactured before 08/08). The upgraded components so far are:

* 4GB RAM - done
* Hard drive swap - added the original 7200rpm 100GB ThinkPad T61 drive in the main bay and moved the 250GB 5400rpm Fujitsu in the caddy.
* Intel T8100 - done
* Replaced the old wlan card with Intel 4965agn
* Added a brand new 60GB Kingston V300 SSD

Updated: 09-04-2014

[ajkula66]

Why would you put a SSD in the UltraBay and not in the main bay?

If you want a small SSD there are much better choices, the one you linked is pretty much bottom of the barrel...

[Dawnbreaker]

Well suggest me another 32GB SSD then. Thanks

[ajkula66]

Well suggest me another 32GB SSD then. Thanks

What's your budget?

Where do you plan on obtain the SSD from?

On a different note...$25 for a no-name DIMM from China? Really?

[Morten]

The trouble with the small SSD is you probably wouldn't want to carry it over to a newer thinkpad, so if or when the current one dies, the cash is wasted. The SSD market is really coming into age right now, and you could pick up a 120 or even 240GB SSD for a very reasonable price, especially if you think of it as an investment that will carry over into your next laptop. I like the intel 520/530 series, and I regularly see the Samsung 840 series recommended by forum members. Avoid the cheap brands.

Also, speed picks up so immensely that you may want to just start with the SSD and skip the RAM upgrade until you've experiences the T60 with a good fast SSD.

[Saucey]

32GB is pretty small if you're going to install Windows 7, but if you have a second HDD to save data then that a OK.
As for that ADATA SSD, I've had one of them fail (A premium model), and the current plainjaner I'm using with my W700DS might be the source of a BSOD, but it works wonderfully w/ 120GB.

[Dawnbreaker]

Thank you for your advices, especially for the ADATA Solid-State Drives. I decided not to buy one.
However I bought 2x2GB Kingston sticks (they were used on another T61 before) here from Bulgaria.

Now I have 5400rpm Fujitsu hard drive, which is kinda slow. And I can't afford a good SSD (Intel or Samsung), because they are pretty expensive for my budged. The question is - am I going to feel any significant performance boost if I replace my current hard drive with a 7200rpm one (you can also recommend me some new hard drives from ebay)?

Thanks.

[ajkula66]

I'd argue that you're better off with a small SSD - 64GB should do it - even a lightly used one along with moving your current HDD to UltraBay.

Something like Crucial C300 or Intel X-25M in that size should run you no more than a decent new 7200rpm HDD would, and give you much more of a performance boost...

My $0.02 only...

[Dawnbreaker]

Thanks for your advice, but for now I'm staying away from the SSDs (too expensive for my budget). Perhaps I'll buy one in 3-4 months..

Anyway, this turns out to be a bigger upgrade than I thought in the beginning - I'm gonna replace my Merom T7500 in favor of T8100/T8300 Penryn. Middleton bios is already installed.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Why replace a T7500 with a T8100 or T8300?? You loose an MB of cache and loose 100 / gain 200 MHz in clock frequency.

[RealBlackStuff]

The Penryn CPUs (T8100 and up) run a lot cooler than Merom CPUs.
Performance-wise there is next to no difference between T7500 and (T8100 or T8300).
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo ... -Duo-T7500
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo ... -Duo-T7500

[Cigarguy]

Yeah cooler running CPU is always a benefit, especially in a small space as a laptop. Quieter machine and less power usage too.

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Aaah; the equal TDP fooled me. So, how much less power draw? Since I have to take apart my T61 to swap the mobo anyway...

Just a pity all the T9300's are just a few bucks above the VAT import treshold

[Cigarguy]

Aaah; the equal TDP fooled me. So, how much less power draw? Since I have to take apart my T61 to swap the mobo anyway...

Hard to give you an exact figure. But everytime I've swapped a Merom CPU for a Penryn I've notice at least 10-15 deg C temp drop. However, part of this can be attributed to giving everything a good clean and applying new TIM. The T9300 is well worth it.

[ajkula66]

The T9300 is well worth it.

+ 1.

Having ran just about every CPU imaginable on T61/p units and their FrankenPad cousins, I'd go for T9300 as an upgrade every day of the week. The very best price/performance ratio by far.

Having said that, T8100/8300 are dime-a-dozen nowadays and nothing to sneeze at performance-wise...

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Aaah; the equal TDP f(ooled me. So, how much less power draw? Since I have to take apart my T61 to swap the mobo anyway...

Hard to give you an exact figure. But everytime I've swapped a Merom CPU for a Penryn I've notice at least 10-15 deg C temp drop. However, part of this can be attributed to giving everything a good clean and applying new TIM. The T9300 is well worth it.

How much was the battery runtime gain?

On if it's worth it: there is a difference between €35 and 1.21*(€35+10); that's what it's gonna cost if customs have their way.

[Dawnbreaker]

T9300 was too expensive for my budged. The cheapest Penryn variant on ebay was a 20$ T8100. I made the switch from the old Merom-t7500 today and everything is working smoothly so far. With thermal paste re-applied on the new cpu, nvidia chip and intel chipset everything is running cooler.
My question is - is the new Penryn cpu going to get proper cooling & thermal readings on my Merom board?

[Cigarguy]

My question is - is the new Penryn cpu going to get proper cooling & thermal readings on my Merom board?

I have T61 boards that takes native Penryn and a few that are native Merom, after switching out the old CPU with a T9300, I religiously stress test each system. Never notice cooling or thermal issue. All operate at roughly the same range. Of course I took the time to clean everything and reapply thermal paste since I was taking everything apart to swap CPU anyway.

[RealBlackStuff]

As long as you apply Middleton's BIOS to a Merom board, any of those Penryn CPUs will run fine in ANY T61 motherboard.
Regardless, ANY T61 mobo gets a Middleton BIOS from me!

[Dawnbreaker]

Thank you for the quick response guys! The conclusion is that Middleton BIOS rulezzz!!

These are my temps when running daily tasks like browsing, listening to music, watching youtube videos & etc


Compared to my old Merom T7500 doing the same tasks there's a significant drop in the temperatures, about 10C drop.

[gehageh]

Thank you for the quick response guys! The conclusion is that Middleton BIOS rulezzz!!

These are my temps when running daily tasks like browsing, listening to music, watching youtube videos & etc


Compared to my old Merom T7500 doing the same tasks there's a significant drop in the temperatures, about 10C drop.

What temperature monitor have you used?

[Dawnbreaker]

AIDA64 (sensor information).

[latuman]

Hiya, first post. I have T61 model 7659-BK4. It's not listed with supported devices for Middleton's BIOS, but will it work anyway? I'm almost certain it will, but I thought I'd ask.

Also, if my laptop has the latest bios already, do I need to downgrade to an earlier one and then to middleton's to make it work? Thanks. My great plan is to get an ultrabay, put some big enough drive there, add another 2GB RAM stick in this to bring it up to 4GB and install a 120GB Samsung 840 SSD. Don't you think this sounds good?

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
The the 5th BIOS that begins with T61, T61p: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/ ... ost6501443
Go in the BIOS, make sure Config/Network/Flash over LAN as well as Security/BIOS update/Flash by Enduser are ENabled and NO passwords set.
BIOS 1.29 is more than good enough, 1.30 does not do anything useful.
I never had a T61 with BIOS 1.30, always older, but I suggest just trying it.
Make a CD from the ISO and use the laptop's internal CD-drive.

[latuman]

BIOS 1.29 is more than good enough, 1.30 does not do anything useful.
I never had a T61 with BIOS 1.30, always older, but I suggest just trying it.

Are you talking about middletons bios? Or do I need to revert or what? Why wouldnt I just install the most recent one?

EDIT: Oh well, I took a brave pill, downloaded the modded bios and ran it through windows. It seems to have flashed just fine. Any way to verify that it actually stuck?

I actually did a boot CD and booted and flashed first, then forgot the CD in and it did it a second time and since it gave no real feedback about old or new versions I ran it through windows as well. What a mess!

[RealBlackStuff]

Middleton only made T61/T61p 1.29 and he also said 1.30 was not worth his time to make another BIOS.
(Lenovo made 1.30, which will likely be the last ever T61 BIOS for that model.)
And running a BIOS flash within Windows is NOT recommended at all.
Too many Windows-crashes causing bricked BIOS...

[latuman]

After countless of successful windows flashes in the past, I felt quite confident . Now to hunt some cheap HDD and SSD, latter of which is probably not going to be very cheap at all.

[Saucey]

After countless of successful windows flashes in the past, I felt quite confident . Now to hunt some cheap HDD and SSD, latter of which is probably not going to be very cheap at all.

HDDs are almost coming back to the prices that they were before the tsunami that hindered productivity years ago.
Still the rate is slow, but because of their price hike, SSDs had become more desirable.

Happy hunting!

[Dawnbreaker]

Few months later the upgrade is no longer considered 'small' - upgraded my wlan card to Intel 4965AGN (the old intel 3945 sucked big time!!) and bought a brand new Kingston V300 60GB SSD.
Actually every upgrade I do goes that way - I have no intentions to upgrade more than one component at first place and then I end up with replacing almost everything This situation is no different.

Lets hope the machine will run smoothly for another year or so = the longer , the better!

ps. I've added all the things I've replaced to the first post.