Thinkpad T60p mod to nvidia graphics T61 motherboard

[kamaleon]

Dear tpadists

I have a T60p 15" UXGA flexview.
IIRC there were some users that managed to fit a T61 motherboard on my kind of machine. Which models exactly allow to do this? I would like to mod my machine so it's able to deal with H.264 streams. Was it the 14" wide T61? Were there any others?

Thanks in advance!

[richk]

I have not done it, but I know something about the motherboards. The UXGA screens are the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio models, so you would need the one from the 14" (not wide-screen) model. I believe the T60 interposer card (used to extend the optical connectors for 15" case) would fit, but I have not tried it. The 4:3 T61 did not come in a 15" model, so there is no way to get a 15" base that exactly matches the motherboard. The mounting holes are a little different on the motherboard so the process is not perfect. The T60 and T61 do not use the same CPU or fan. My suggestion would be to buy a T61p 15.4" wide screen WUXGA model and sell yours to cover a lot of the cost.

[spacejunk]

I have done the T60P upgrade with T61 motherboard on two systems and here's are a couple of tips.

1) The 4:3 T61 motherboard will fit but the modem socket have to be removed as it interferes with a mounting hole on the T60 frame so no modem. Also two mounting holes in the frame is missing on the motherboard so the mounting holes on the frame will have to be filed down or the motherboard will not sit flush in the frame.

2) Have to use the PC card cage from the T61 because the card cage from a T60 is different than the one from a T61. FRU 42W3436.

3) Use the fan/heatsink from the T61 with the retention brace from the T60. This part is a nit but a portion of the retention brace should be filed down to allow it to sit flush on the heatsink. This is due to the shapes of the heatsinks being slightly different and the edge of the T60 retention brace is raised so one edge will press on the heatsink sooner than the other edges. Again it's a nit and it will work fine without filing.

[dr_st]

Generally, while it is possible, as was suggested above, I would advise against upgrading a T60 to an nVidia-based T61 motherboard, which is known to be more prone to failure than the T60 ATI-based GPUs. Especially if the goal is H.264 support.

A dual core T60 should be able to handle H.264, even most 1080p videos just fine without any GPU assistance, provided that an appropriate software decoder is installed. Libavcodec (ffdshow) is pretty good now, but CoreAVC is still faster.

I had no problems playing 1080p on my T60 with T7200 and Intel GPU. Heck, I even got a Pentium4 single-core (but with HT) 3GHz system to play 1080p content without stuttering (but not with other tasks simultaneously).

A more compelling reason to upgrade (from my perspective, that is) would be to get support for 8GB of RAM, compared to the 3GB limit on T60.

[spacejunk]

Actually my temps went way down with the new board. The fan on my old T60P with a T7600 was always on and now it hardly turns on. Also the T61 fan is quieter. I believe the T61 discrete fan improved over the T60 fan with extra row of fins on top of the heatsink where the T60 fan did not have them. My main reason for the upgrade was to get to 8GB RAM. The FX570m graphics performance did not improve over the V5250 I had in the T60P.

[LegendaryKA8]

^+1 on the previous post. It's been a little while since I've done the checking, but the 14.1" 4:3 T61p had a lower-end graphics card than the 15.4" 16:10 T61p... while the wide version is actually on par with the W500's FireGL V5700, the GPU in the 14.1" T61p is only slightly more powerful than the T60p's V5200/V5250. If you're looking to do this for a GPU upgrade, you'll be better off sticking with the T60p board.

[spacejunk]

The FX570m on the 4:3 T61P boards only have 128MB RAM and 128-bit memory interface (256MB and 256-bit on the 15.4" T61P) so the performance is crippled. Definitely would not upgrade for graphics performance. The Penryn CPUs will offer a slight improvement over the Merom or Yonah CPUs. It's an expensive upgrade since the T61 4:3 boards are hard to get for a reasonable price (over $700 for the FX570m board from IBM).

[dr_st]

The way I understand the original poster, it's not about 3D graphics performance, but more about HD video acceleration, which is supported by the nVidia 8M series, but not by the older generation ATI GPUs on the T60.

So in terms of HD performance, the T61 would have a noticeable advantage. I just think that it won't be very meaningful, since the CPUs are already plenty powerful for the tasks.

[kamaleon]

Heck, I didn't get the "new reply" messages so I didn't bother checking the thread!

Thanks peeps for your input, I appreciate this.

So first things first

- the 14" wide motherboard won't fit? I need the 14" 4:3? Any Type numbers I should check out for?
- Coreavc 1.2.0 stutters madly on my T60p. I was thinking maybe a CPU upgrade (i have a yonah 2.0Ghz) would be able to assist but then there's the silence / fan issue too. I would love my T60p to be as silent as my girfriend's R51

With an nvidia geforce card I could do hardware acceleration on the H.264 streams, plus the silence, plus with the core 2 duo I'm sure I would be able to run H.264 with no stutters. Granted that the geforce cards on the T61 FX570m or Quadro NVS 140M do have the appropriate PureVideo VP??!! Actually, can anyone here run DXVA Checker on their Quadro NVS 140M or FX570m and report this? That would be ace!

[ajkula66]

Yes, as previously stated, you do need a motherboard from a 14" non-wide T61p.

I would join the ranks of forum members advising you against this upgrade, though. Any T61/p motherboard with a nVidia GPU is likely to fail at some point in time, and there's no known fix apart from replacement. In my book, you're investing money and effort in a time bomb, but it's your ThinkPad...

Throw in a Core 2 Duo and see whether that solves the issues you've been having...

Good luck.

[kamaleon]

Do you know if this mod can also be done on an R60 chassis? Putting a T61 14" 4:3 into a 15" 4:3 R60?

[ajkula66]

I don't have a T61 by me, but would tend to think that the placement of USB ports is different when compared to R60...