The silent Frankenpad

[lab]

With a new camera and editing photos in 16 bit color and to many Photoshop 'out of memory' made me decide for an upgrade of my old and thrustworthy T60p.

My main priority is to have a silent laptop, enough silent not to hear the slightest noise from it in a completely quiet room. I want to here the soft whispering from the wind in the trees, not a buzzing fan noise.

So a T61 system board with Intel X3100 graphics is the given choice, one with a T8300 (I hope) is ordered and on it's way. Later I will put an order also for 8GB ram and possibly also a P8800 cpu.

In the mean time I have taken a look at the bios and fan speed. Typical rpm's of the T61 has been reported to be: 2980, 3330 and 3760 for level 1-2, 3-5 and 6-7 respectively. This is on par with standard rpm's of the T60p and even the lowest is certainly not quiet. For my T60 to be silent I had to go all the way down to 1600rpm which is still able to put the CPU temp in the range of 45-55 Celsius in normal use.

Loading the ECP (7KHT24WW) portion of latest bios (7luj28us) into a hexeditor and with some help from Matlab I found this table, which is what I think is the rpm fan table for different T61 (and R61) models:

2800 3050 3500
2800 3150 3500
3000 3350 3900
3000 3350 3800
2550 2800 3200
2550 2900 3150
2800 3050 3500
2550 2900 3100

Editing the ECP rpm table and then correcting checksums have worked for the T60 and the ECP of the T61 seems to me very similar. However this is just guesswork and flashing with the edited ECP is a great risk of bricking the systemboard. I have not tested it yet and possibly I will try to get an inexpensive T61 to try it on before I flash my Frankenpad but in the mean time if anyone has a faulty nVidia board still usable for a test I am willing to send my edited ECP file (with fan levels set to 1800, 2500 and 3500 rpm) .


To be continued ...

[Qing Dao]

To reduce noise as much as possible, you want to reduce the heat output and increase the cooling capability. Reducing the heat output means using a good processor and undervolting it, which can be done in software. A T6900 or T6970 would probably optimal for this, as they are the fastest (2.5Ghz) late stepping Penryns with an 800Mhz FSB. And for not the faint of heart, undervolting the chipset, which I believe can only be done by modifying the motherboard. Increasing the cooling capacity means going with a heatsink from a T500 with ATI graphics. It is more robust. In addition to this, an excellent application of a very good thermal paste is the finishing touch. With a setup like this, and if you don't mind the processor heating up a bit, it would be dead silent at idle and barely audible at full load.

[simes]

Are you committed to the X60 series? Because I agree that the answer is to reduce energy consumption and therefore fan activity. I had an X60s until recently (the 's', of course, supposedly a slimline and lower energy machine). But the X60s runs hot and the fan has to work hard. So I have bought an X200s and fitted an SSD. The fan only ever runs at low speed and it is almost a silent machine.

[Johan]

Hint(s): If you wish to reduce the fan noise in your T60/1, then you might be interested in reviewing the suggestions in the threads New methods to reduce the fan noise in a T60 or in a T60p and My Frankenpad Conversion and Heat Sink Mods [+PICS] and Frankenpad T60/61 cooling question - and there are even more of these threads/conversion suggestions!

A particular interesting guide as how to fan-noise can be reduced in e.g. T60's is found in [GUIDE] Make your T60 with ATI run *cool*

Johan

[lab]

To reduce noise as much as possible, you want to reduce the heat output and increase the cooling capability. Reducing the heat output means using a good processor and undervolting it, which can be done in software. A T6900 or T6970 would probably optimal for this, as they are the fastest (2.5Ghz) late stepping Penryns with an 800Mhz FSB. And for not the faint of heart, undervolting the chipset, which I believe can only be done by modifying the motherboard. Increasing the cooling capacity means going with a heatsink from a T500 with ATI graphics. It is more robust. In addition to this, an excellent application of a very good thermal paste is the finishing touch. With a setup like this, and if you don't mind the processor heating up a bit, it would be dead silent at idle and barely audible at full load.

You still have to hack bios ECP to set fan speed.

[lab]

Are you committed to the X60 series? Because I agree that the answer is to reduce energy consumption and therefore fan activity. I had an X60s until recently (the 's', of course, supposedly a slimline and lower energy machine). But the X60s runs hot and the fan has to work hard. So I have bought an X200s and fitted an SSD. The fan only ever runs at low speed and it is almost a silent machine.

X200s seem like a nice little laptop but it's the 15" UXGA flexview with the 4:3 format that keeps me staying with thinkpad.

[lab]

Hint(s): If you wish to reduce the fan noise in your T60/1, then you might be interested in reviewing the suggestions in the threads New methods to reduce the fan noise in a T60 or in a T60p and My Frankenpad Conversion and Heat Sink Mods [+PICS] and Frankenpad T60/61 cooling question - and there are even more of these threads/conversion suggestions!

A particular interesting guide as how to fan-noise can be reduced in e.g. T60's is found in [GUIDE] Make your T60 with ATI run *cool*

Johan

Thanks for the links! Reading these and other threads I get to think that replacing heat sink and/or fan with one from a T500 etc. may reduce fan noise but only marginally so. And if the T61 is similar to a T60 in this compartment choosing an integrated graphics board in combination with an undervolted cpu should lower generated heat enough to be able to set fan rpm's to inaudible levels I think.

[Qing Dao]

To reduce noise as much as possible, you want to reduce the heat output and increase the cooling capability. Reducing the heat output means using a good processor and undervolting it, which can be done in software. A T6900 or T6970 would probably optimal for this, as they are the fastest (2.5Ghz) late stepping Penryns with an 800Mhz FSB. And for not the faint of heart, undervolting the chipset, which I believe can only be done by modifying the motherboard. Increasing the cooling capacity means going with a heatsink from a T500 with ATI graphics. It is more robust. In addition to this, an excellent application of a very good thermal paste is the finishing touch. With a setup like this, and if you don't mind the processor heating up a bit, it would be dead silent at idle and barely audible at full load.

You still have to hack bios ECP to set fan speed.

I meant that in addition to you simply editing the fan speed parameters in the BIOS. But you could also use something like TPFanControl.

[simes]

Are you committed to the X60 series? Because I agree that the answer is to reduce energy consumption and therefore fan activity. I had an X60s until recently (the 's', of course, supposedly a slimline and lower energy machine). But the X60s runs hot and the fan has to work hard. So I have bought an X200s and fitted an SSD. The fan only ever runs at low speed and it is almost a silent machine.

X200s seem like a nice little laptop but it's the 15" UXGA flexview with the 4:3 format that keeps me staying with thinkpad.

My mistake! I wrote my first post late at night and mis-read your T60 as X60. I do have a T60 too and like yours it is the 15" flexview, lovely machine but a bit heavy to transport which is why I had the X60s and now the X200s as well.