X61T planar board in X60s chassis --> works w/ LED caveats

[axur-delmeria]

One of my clients needed a small, powerful laptop with good battery life.

The best I found was an X60s with Core Solo U1300 (1.06GHz) and a new 8-cell battery.
I had an X61T L7500 planar board (the one with the broken LCD and chassis) so I figured I could do the swap.

In another thread, Raceboy mentioned than the X61T planar will shut down immediately when a non-Tablet LCD was detected. The workaround was to cross-flash the non-Tablet BIOS, but then some of the indicator LEDs will stop working. He never mentioned which indicators would be affected.

Undeterred, I went and cross-flashed, and indeed the non-Tablet LCD worked.
I now have an X601sT.

As for the indicator LEDs, the ones that don't work anymore are:

1. Sleep
2. AC plug
3. Battery charge
4. Num Lock
5. Caps Lock

The ones that still work are:
1. HDD
2. Power-on
3. Wifi

Unknown status:
Bluetooth (unit doesn't have Bluetooth module, didn't want to open the lid just to install one for testing)

I hope the results of this experiment adds to our knowledge on these fabulous machines.

[Saucey]

An x61t will fit in an x60s chassis?! Had I known this I wouldn't ruined an LCD ribbon cable while trying that IPS mod while sacrificing the Thinklight. ops
Very nice!

[axur-delmeria]

Addenum: Thinklight doesn't work.

Another thing that doesn't work properly is Num Lock detection.

I tried to use notification software to overcome the loss of the keyboard status indicators, but discovered that Num Lock (via Fn + Scroll Lock) can't be reliably detected by these programs.

The Num Lock state will change, but it won't be detected by these programs, and the notification message won't appear. It usually is detected only once, on the first Fn+Scroll Lock keypress.

Also, since the Sleep LED doesn't work, when you put it in suspend, it will look like the system is turned off-- not a very good situation.


Whether it's a worthwhile thing to do depends mainly on whether you can live with these deficiencies or not.
In my case, it was brought upon by my client's limited budget.

An x61t will fit in an x60s chassis?! Had I known this I wouldn't ruined an LCD ribbon cable while trying that IPS mod while sacrificing the Thinklight.

I don't think using the X61T planar board swap will work, because what's needed is a different LCD cable.

[tjwasiak]

I would say X6x mainboards are quite cheap today so building such weird frankenpads as tablet mainboard into non-tablet ThinkPad is far away from being great deal. I understand installing SXGA+ tablet screens into non-tablets (I am thinking about doing it myself - unfortunately can not find Boe Hydix LCD cheap enough).

[axur-delmeria]

I would say X6x mainboards are quite cheap today so building such weird frankenpads as tablet mainboard into non-tablet ThinkPad is far away from being great deal.

I agree on the weirdness of this Frankenpad. I wouldn't have done it if I had the proper parts or the budget.

As for X6x boards being cheap, the sad fact is that shipping costs and taxes in my country would most likely double the price of anything ordered overseas.
In a third-world country filled with cheapskates, it's rarely an option.

[Droider]

It is an old thread but i have done the exact same swap of mainboard from a x61t with L7500 to X60s with L2400. I have all of the side effects as OP mentioned.

Eventhough i had flashed X61 middleton bios to my X61t planar before the swap, i didnt flash x61 ec to my x61t. I am wondering if anyone successfully flashed x61 ec to a x61t planar and if it is safe to do so ?

[axur-delmeria]

I haven't tried this mod since then, and at that time I didn't know the EC was separate from the main BIOS, so I don't even know if the EC firmware was also replaced during the BIOS force-flashing.

[Droider]

Well, i went ahead and flashed the ec.

Sleep,Ac plug, Battery charge works now as well as those indicators at the display cover which didnt work before. Thinklight still doesnt work but i can live without it.

I am satisfied with the result.

[axur-delmeria]

Could you provide detailed instructions on flashing the EC? I still have two X61T's with broken hinges, one X60 chassis with the nearly useless X60s Core Solo 1.06GHz inside it, and might want to play around with them.

[Droider]

It is easy, i connected the monitor and used winflash utility to flash the FL1 ( BIOS ) and then flash the FL2 ( EC )

[axur-delmeria]

Ooof. I was thinking about booting to a flash disk with DOS in it. That's how I did it before, but I can't remember the details now.

[mal.manuwendra]

Hi,

Unfortunately, I managed to brick my x60 trying to install libreboot. Had to replace the inerds with a x61t and experienced the same issues as OP.

I am looking at getting a dock. Guess the x6 will work? Or do I need the tablet version ?

Thanks in Advance,

Mal