14 inch frankenpad question

[mortimer]

Hello Folks!

I have a perfectly working T60 Libreboot with a 1400x1050 screen and perfect panels and whatnot that I put immense care into assembling.
Unfortunately I have been lamenting its lack of performance lately. Ive been crawling ebay for a while and managed to find a 4:3 T61 motherboard (42W7648) and a C2E X9000.

I am aware that on the traditional frankenpad I would need to pull chunks off the magnesium frame. Has anyone ever done a t61 mobo swap into a 14 inch 4:3 T60 chassis? I am still trying to find information on how the T61 will fit into the T60 chassis, including if I will need a new heatsink, and whether it would be easier to get the T61 magnesium frame or use the T60 Magnesium frame.

Regarding the merit of retrofitting my T60 vs buying a full 4:3 T61: I havent been able to find a fully working 4:3 T61 for a couple of days and would like to keep the thicker and sturdier T60 chassis that I gathered all pristine bezels for. Additionally, when I see someone with a 15 inch T60 its pretty obvious whats going on, this would be somewhat of a 'sleeper' build :p

Thanks!

[RealBlackStuff]

The easiest way around this would be, to get a 14.1" 4:3 T61 base and upper keyboard bezel (or a complete 14.1" 4:3 T61 bottom halve with e.g. defective mobo and hopefully a fan) and transfer the complete T60 lid onto that T61.
For using the X9000, you need a T500/W500 fan, others could use a 'regular' T61 fan.

If you want to stick the T61 mobo into the T60, unless it came with the mobo,
you also need to buy a T61 PCMCIA slot (42X3828), such as this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/302553784368
as well as a T500/W500 fan for the X9000, such as: https://www.ebay.com/itm/192906199514

Then you need to gently wiggle the modem-connector from the T61 mobo.
Now put the T61 mobo in the T60 base, and check around the 'old' modem location where a magnesium post sits tight on the mobo.
That post needs to be carefully 'shortened' by about 2 mm, using e.g. a Dremel with a cutting disc, such as: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/322520384697
Then put a piece of electrician's tape over the spot where you removed the modem-connector and where that post touches.
There is no matching mounting hole for that post, you don't need it.
Put in the T61 mobo in the T60 base, don't mount the 'new' T61 keyboard bezel yet, but transfer the rest from the old T60.

Borrow an Intel T7100/T7300/T7500/T7700 CPU and mount that onto the T61 mobo with the fan.
Boot and go into BIOS to check the BIOS version.
If it is not 2.29/1.08 download this file to make a bootable iso: https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/p ... uj27uc.iso
Make sure you have a working battery installed.
Run that CD.
Download Middleton's modded T61 BIOS: http://www.mediafire.com/file/f9w4kv0k3 ... .08%29.rar
It also contains a file to make bootable .iso.
Run that CD.
Be patient and let it finish, on some machines it may reboot and want to start all over again. If so, stop that, remove the CD and reboot.
Only now is that machine ready to put in the X9000, along with a T500/W500 fan and fresh thermal paste (preferably Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut).
Enjoy.

[mortimer]

This is interesting, I had planned on using the middleton bios, do I really need to ensure I am running 1.08 before running the middleton ISO?

Thank you for the information regarding the magnesium frame, I had read about that but thought it was only relevant to the 15 inch t60 chassis. Good to know ahead of time I will be doing some grinding.

Is there anything stopping me from using my T60 keyboard bezel?

[RealBlackStuff]

Cosmetics basically.
A T61 base with T60 keyboard bezel would show a gap near the left hinge.
A T61 KB bezel covers that gap, that's all.

As to the modem connector, my given info may only apply to 15" T60 with T61 mobo.
So check the T61 modem in a T60 chassis first, it may be OK to leave it.

[TinkerMan]

Or you can do it the easy way, like I did it, you dump the modem. I personally hadnt used one in the last 15 years. this way you wont need to mess up with the chassis.
as for the fan, here is a brand new one, not used. I bought the same item from this seller twice, perfect object.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOR-IBM-Lenovo ... 2749.l2649

[mortimer]

Did the swap! Posting details for the next builder to find this thread off a search engine.

My 14 inch 4:3 t60 now has a 14 inch 4:3 t61 motherboard in it.
There were two screwholes I had to dremel flat on the T60 magnesium frame, both up near the top center of the board.
I got an image of the first one, The second one is down ant to the left of it on the picture, circled in red.

https://imgur.com/2laxqjA

For those who read this thread in 5 years after picture upload services finish murdering old forum threads, the two screwholes are both in the top middle area. One is on the underside of a little dangley bit coming down from the top of the magnesium frame, the other one is slightly above it and to the right, the end of the row of three screw holes (the one with the smaller hole).

The T500 fan fit in perfectly with no modification, with a t7100 my t601 is silent and cold (yes cold). We will see how it fares with an X9000. (will update when I recieve). (Big thanks to RealBlackStuff for linking me to the t500 fan)
Middleton's bios flashed correctly over an old bios, if you are reading this and debating whether or not to update your bios before flashing middleton I 10000000% reccomend that you play this one safe and update first.

WIth the Downgrade in CPU from a merom t7600 to a penryn t7100 I can definitely say that It was still worth it.
The IO speed increase with middleton's bios leads to shorter load times, and the de-whitelisted bios means I can have wireless AC.
I cannot wait to get a Core 2 Extreme into this build!

I personally chose to ditch the PCMCIA bracket, I might be able to hijack power pins off it to power a mpcie->usb-C adapter card that i can mount in its place (a very harebrained scheme)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-PCIe-to-U ... 2621440555

[RealBlackStuff]

What (if anything) happened to the T61 modem-connector?

[mortimer]

This build did not require any modification of the t61 motherboard. The only thing that needed to happen was the dremelling of the two screwholes.

[Meeks]

Hi.
Im having a similar project: my 4:1 14.1“ T60 (2007-63G) bought in 2006 started to slow down after Win10 and anyway work-wise I would welcome more RAM. Last nail in coffin was a Win10 update which jams the system to eternal re-boot cycle a minute or so after login. So I thought about solving the problem with an upgrade.
Few days back I found a 4:1 14.1“ T61 with Intel GPU and the same size of display. I’d love to keep the old chassis AND and only replace the guts. Obviously more questions arise as I proceed and will see the forum for these. But for now the main question is: can I fully use 8 GB of RAM with T61?

Sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere...

Cheers,

>m

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes, any T61 can take 2x4=8GB RAM (pc2-5300 or pc2-6400).
But to use 8GB, you also need to install a 64-bit OS.