Thinkpads Forum

Hello,
I have two nice 4x3 thinkpads, a T60p and a T61. I only really use the T60P anymore, and I'm wondering if it would be worth swapping any of the T61 parts in. The only bad thing about the T60p is the fan noise, so I'm planning on opening it up in the near future anyway (to try to clean the fan and/or just get a replacement).

Here are the specs:

ThinkPad T60 (2007-WLY)
Based on 2007-CTO: T2500(2GHz), 2GB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 15in 1600x1200 LCD, 256MB ATI FireGL V5200, CDRW/DVDRW, 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth/Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 9c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

ThinkPad T61 (8892-01U)
T7100(1.8GHz) Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 14.1in 1400x1050 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, WinXP Pro

Thank you for your suggestions!

You can use the fan from a T61p in your T60, quite a few people were happy with the result.

Apart from that, hard and media drives and battery are also swappable between the two.

That T61 would likely be an easy sell, and provide you with funds to max out the T60p if desired (C2D CPU, SSD etc.)

Good luck.

If the T61 has a manufacturing date of 08/08 (YY/MM) or later (you find this after the S/N on the bottom), you could move the T61 mobo into the T60 chassis.
Plenty of how-to instructions in this forum.

Thanks for the suggestions. The t61 was manufactured in 04/08... So close.

Would swapping the CPUs make sense to get me to 64bit?

Not close at all, 4 years off! Your 04/08 is 2004/August.
I indicated 08/08 which is 2008/August (YY/MM) or newer!

And the CPUs are NOT compatible, so can NOT be swapped.
For the T60 you need T7200/T7400/T7600.

Are you sure you got that date right?

As RBS suggested, 04/08 is August of 2004, and there were no T6x series at that time...

Hi Guys,

I'm sorry. It says 08/04 and I swapped them myself. Leave it to IBM to make this ridiculously confusing (2008/04 would be so hard?)

First of all, if you want a T61p fan, I have them and am selling them extremely cheap and in great condition.

Second, you can use your 08/04 board, it's unknown for sure if any from that era have the improved nVidia chip, some reports are that they were slowly introduced as far back as febuary, and there seems to be a drastic reduction in nVidia failures in these GPU's after febuary 2008, which is consistant with the reports that they slowly rolled out the new design. Even if you have the less reliable GPU, you can still use the board, but I think my friend RBS was advising you that putting all that work into a system using a board that may fail would be unwise, but on the other hand, there were millions of these unreliable nVidia chips made and I beleive less then 1% have failed, and since you own the board already, why not do it? worse case you'll need a new board someday, but that could happen regardless of the system its installed in.

Third, I've never seen, nor heard of an 08/08 (or newer) nVidia board for a 4:3 T61. My guess is they don't exist, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Also, there is no way to tell the date with certainty unless it's in the system and the serial numbers match, the board isn't dated, only the laptop, and the date on the nVidia chip itself is inconclusive.

There is also a possibility that you could find an nVidia board that was rechipped by Lenovo, which is probably your only hope of getting one with the improved GPU. I wouldn't mind finding one myself, but even the boards that are properly rechipped do fail, the process of fixing them requires extreme heat and can easily cause damage elsewhere on the board, and there are also factories in Asia that are installing counterfeit nVidia chips on these boards and flooding them on the market, so if you want a T61 with discrete graphics, you're best going with a widescreen. If you can live with the integrated graphics, then the Intel doesn't have any of these issues.

Lastly, you can do a CPU upgrade on your T60p, it will help to go with a 64bit chip, but the t60 series will still be limited to 3gb of ram, but with a 64bit OS, your apps will be able to use all 3GB, unlike most 32bit windows versions that require major tweaking to get an app to use more then 2GB.

ps. If anyone has any proof that there was ever an nVidia T61 or T61p 4:3 made in 08/08 or later, please let me know.

Don't forget that the screen on the t61 is off center to accommodate the dual Wifi Antennas. I don't know if that would fit in a t60.

Also, the T60 accepts only 667 FSB processors, while the t61 accepts 800.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_Cor ... 28Merom%29

Here's a list of which Merom processors you can use

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On a side note, if no one minds me asking, why do so many people take interest in swapping t61 parts into a t60 chassis?

In closing...here's what it comes down to:

if you don't mind doing the entire FrankenPad mod with a board that is not necessarily failure-proof, go ahead and do so.

Depending on what your needs are, you might be better off selling the T61 in its current shape and

a) Maxing out the T60p to its theoretical limits or

b) Performing the FrankenPad mod with an Intel-based T61 board.

Good luck.