T61 CPU Upgrade

[akkadian]

This may have been asked on many occasion but I'm curious to know what's the fastest CPU I can put in my T61. I know that it's a lot of work so it'd better be worth the trouble. I've got a friend that loves doing installs so I'm not worried about that. Of course it'd need be a significant upgrade to be worth spending the money too. My current one is a 2.0 Ghz Centrino (Merom) and I know that this model went up to 2.4 Ghz with the dual Centrino. I was curious, is there another CPU that could work for this laptop? Could I put in the 2.6 Ghz (Penryn) for example?

[richk]

No. You could put is a T7700 as you stated, but the Penryn uses diffferent thermal sensors and will not work on your board. I doubt that the benefit would be worth the cost.

[ZaZ]

Yes, if you're looking for a performance bump a faster hard drive or SSD is more likely to provide it than a CPU upgrade.

[akkadian]

Thanks for the input. The SSD options sounds better and easier to manage. I should've thought of that! That's how I sped up my EEE PC.

[bhtooefr]

No. You could put is a T7700 as you stated, but the Penryn uses diffferent thermal sensors and will not work on your board. I doubt that the benefit would be worth the cost.

Was there a different revision of the motherboard for Penryn, then?

[richk]

Only a few MB part numbers work with penryn. I believe those don't work with the older CPUs, but I haven't tested that

[Tseng]

If your T61 was manufactured after April 2008, then you have very good chances that your MB accepts Penryn CPU.

Another CPU option is T7800 / X7800. It is 65nm Merom with 2.6GHz. Just beware, it does generate quite some heat.

[bhtooefr]

Intel Ark actually says T7800 is 35 W, so that might do the trick.

[crazyfrog]

If your T61 was manufactured after April 2008, then you have very good chances that your MB accepts Penryn CPU.

T61 manufactured after April 2008 (with Penryn CPU) should be called 'T62'. But for unknown reason Lenovo kept naming it 'T61'. It caused a lot of confusions regarding the choice of Merom and Penryn in T61/p. I can provide a list of FRUs of mob which offcially accepts Penryn CPU later.

BTW, 'T62' does appear on system recovery discs released by Lenovo.

[marvel]

Curious about the temp in T7800, because of a pending upgrade urge

It shouldn´t be that big a difference to a T7300?

[bhtooefr]

T61 manufactured after April 2008 (with Penryn CPU) should be called 'T62'. But for unknown reason Lenovo kept naming it 'T61'. It caused a lot of confusions regarding the choice of Merom and Penryn in T61/p. I can provide a list of FRUs of mob which offcially accepts Penryn CPU later.

BTW, 'T62' does appear on system recovery discs released by Lenovo.

And Merom T60s should be T61s, making the T61 a T62, and making the "T62" a T63.

[crashnburn]

If your T61 was manufactured after April 2008, then you have very good chances that your MB accepts Penryn CPU.

T61 manufactured after April 2008 (with Penryn CPU) should be called 'T62'. But for unknown reason Lenovo kept naming it 'T61'. It caused a lot of confusions regarding the choice of Merom and Penryn in T61/p. I can provide a list of FRUs of mob which offcially accepts Penryn CPU later.

BTW, 'T62' does appear on system recovery discs released by Lenovo.

Do share what FRUs that would be?