Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone, I remembered my dad's old IBM ThinkPad T60 (4:3, 14,1"), which is like broken and want to repair it. Yesterday I found the charger and charged it. When I booted it for the first time after like 3-4 years, there wasn't problems, that my dad said it was having. I was seeing only purple vertical lines of like 1cm in length going from top of the screen to bottom and in some of the places there was green rectangles. After I looked at the BIOS (specs, other things) and restarted the laptop, problems which my dad said, came back. The showing screen (like bios rectangle and other things) were going from top to bottom very fast that it looked like the screen was blinking very fast. I think those lines are "artifacts" which mean that the VRAM of the GPU or the whole GPU is failing. I have looked for a replacement motherboard, but I didn't find anything. I don't want to buy those insane i7 64gb ram motherboards for 1k$. As I know, my dad got this laptop like 16 or more yrs ago from auction for up to 20€, and it was running every day after he bought it. It served him well. I just want to have this laptop working for like old games, which I remember playing on it. What should I do? Thanks in advice

Welcome to the Forum.

I have a T60 mobo, FRU 42T0122, with ATI Radeon X1400 graphics 128MB.
In perfect working order.

Also have a T60 mobo with Intel graphics, CPU and fan, mounted in a wonky 14.1" 4:3 base.
Need to look up the details.

Both are for sale, but shipping from Ireland to Lithuania unfortunately is not cheap.
PM me for details if interested.

Thanks, I have heard about frankenpad t601? Will t61 motherboard fit in my t60 14,1" 4:3 case? Is it worth it? Thanks

The answers are here: viewtopic.php?t=117700

Thanks! Uhh im looking at t61 laptops and i see that a guy is selling his t61 with dock, charger, fully functional, 4gb ram, 300gb hdd, but it doesnt have a battery, for 50€. Would my t60 battery work with it and is it worth buying it? The motherboard alone for my t60 would cost like 50€? Thanks again

RapRam wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 14, 2026 8:22 am

Thanks! Uhh im looking at t61 laptops and i see that a guy is selling his t61 with dock, charger, fully functional, 4gb ram, 300gb hdd, but it doesnt have a battery, for 50€. Would my t60 battery work with it and is it worth buying it? The motherboard alone for my t60 would cost like 50€? Thanks again

T60 batteries work in non-wide t61's and in 15" wide T61's. The 14" wide T61's use a completely different battery.

It does sound like a bad GPU, but it also sounds like it might be a bad monitor (instead or in addition). Plug your old T60 into an external monitor and see if the problems manifest there as well.

Replacement T60 14" screens are still available from a few sellers. Replacement motherboards are a lot harder to locate, unfortunately.

Thx, I will test, but im testin and see that cpu is 54 °C? Is it ok? Ill try changing the cpu if problems still be there. And also, the gpu is ati x140 i think.

RapRam wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:28 pm

Thx, I will test, but im testin and see that cpu is 54 °C? Is it ok? Ill try changing the cpu if problems still be there. And also, the gpu is ati x140 i think.

On screen glitches like you describe can manifest in a damaged/dying LCD, or from a dying GPU. I doubt they're due to a dying CPU. Seeing if the glitches show up on a monitor plugged into the VGA port will tell you if the LCD is to blame.

If the glitches show on an external screen, then keeping the GPU cool might help for a while, but ultimately it's going to take the last step between "only partly dead" to "all dead."

I'm not sure if that GPU temperature is too high for a T60. If it was a desktop, then I'd say it's normal. Removing the cooler and replacing the thermal pads (and refreshing the thermal paste on the CPU) will probably lower temperatures somewhat, but fundamentally GPUs run hotter than CPUs, especially in a laptop.