Possible T60 purchase, gremlins to know about?

[MayorMcCheese]

All,

I've been over at the T4x board trying to revive a dead T43 but, sadly, it's left us for a better place. Good old motherboard solder problem.

I did really like my Thinkpad while it was still alive and would like to get another one but with fewer inherant problems. Found a good price on a factory refurburshed T60 and, from a quick scan of board topics, it appears that it has a lot less inborn problems than the T4x series. Is this assertion true, would you buy a T60 again?

There is also a reburb R52 for a good price but it seems they have their fair share of problems too, is this correct?

Thanks for the input.

[Harryc]

T60s have fewer issues than the T4X series. What model are you thinking about? Post the (7) digit machine type/model # here.

[MayorMcCheese]

For the T60 it's a 2007-46U or 2007-CTO

The R52 is 1849-6VU or 2888-XX1

[Harryc]

Product: ThinkPad T60 2007-46U

Original description: T2400(1.83GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X1300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

That seems like a fairly basic T60. I don't see any inherent problems with that configuration.

[eyestrain]

Mayor,

I'm not an expert here, but like the old Pentium M computers so will give a little boost.

The 2888-XX1 R52 looks good to me, if the price difference is large enough to justify the older computer, with the slower cpu. If you're just doing basic stuff like internet and office, it's fast enough IMO. Note that it also has 10/100 ethernet instead of gigabit, which might not matter, but if you have or plan to buy a gigabit NAS it will slow down larger file transfers.

The R52 was just discussed in a T4x thread "Motherboard replacement recommendations" as also having the chance of southbridge problems. (including a couple of the same people as this thread now ) But seems to not be as common an issue as the GPU issue. And some people seem to think the larger case of the R series helps.

If you care about quiet, the R52 above should be quieter than the others, except perhaps the CTO (need serial # to look it up), unless you undervolt or fan control your laptop. Or unless the R52's hard drive is so loud, it's louder than the fan would have been were it on, which is unlikely.

On the other hand, most or all models without the ATI/Nvidia chip (such as the R52 I picked) won't output DVI when docked, so are more difficult to hook up to external monitors and get a good image.

[ajkula66]

First things first here...

2888-XX1 is a R51, not R52. That machine will perform somewhat close to your deceased T43.

Now, I don't know what makes you believe that you had a solder issue on that T43, MayorMcCheese. If I remember your posts from Lenovo's forum correctly, that machine had Intel graphics. Just bad luck, I guess. Everything and anything made by a human hand will eventually fail.

As for T60, they don't suffer from GPU detachment but have overheating issues. With that said, they're well-built machines altogether. They are faster than T4x/R5x units for the most part right out of the box and at today's prices (check this post in the Marketplace: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=86559 ) they're an excellent buy altogether.

Good luck.

[eyestrain]

2888-XX1 is a R51, not R52.

Missed that, yeah.

Recently read an old article from around when the R52 platform first came out, with testing finding that for practical purposes, the same listed speed cpu but with faster fsb and dual channel memory (r52 vs 51 basically) only was 5% faster, or maybe 10%.

[ajkula66]

On another note, be very careful with "factory refurbished" machines, even if you are getting them directly from IBM...lot of smoke and mirrors there...

Good luck.

[archer6]

My personal T60 & T60p models have been excellent. At my company we deployed over 100 of them, all but 1 ran cool, quiet & very reliably. Thus far they've proven the best yet for our corporate needs.

[MayorMcCheese]

Thanks for all your input, you're all a big help.

ajkula66, you're correct to recall me from the other forum, thought I recognized the name.

I think I'm going to pull the trigger on the T60. It's a good price, has a one year warranty and it will suit my purposes just fine.

Thanks again.