Does lenovo T61 have any common problems?

I'm thinking about buying 1 year old (no warranty) Lenovo T61 (7664-ryu) in 17 hours. I had couple years ago T40 and T42 and both ones motherboards got broken, so I would like to make sure that T6*-series dont I have this kind of problems.

 

well the T61 were designed to prevent the failures that occured in the older T4x series by including an internal magnesium rollcage in both the screen and chassis, which prevents flexing when you hold the laptop with one hand and the screen open.

The T61 with the screen closed can support up to 80 kilogram without damaging the LCD. People have driven SUV over their T61 with only a broken screen, so physically it is pretty strong.

However, i would avoid the Nvidia GPU version, due to the fact these GPU are defective, which may fail if you stress the GPU with graphic intensive stuff (i have sold all my Thinkpad with the Nvidia GPU to avoid headache down the line). But if you get the Intel X3100 version of the T61, then it is a rock solid machine and will last for a while.

 

The T6x generations, as lead_org said, resolves the motherboard flexing issues of the T4x generations.

I have heard of several people saying their T61p laptops run very hot, and there have been GPU failures from Nvidia's defective line of 8x00 GPUs. But, again, like lead_org said, if you have an integrated graphics model, then you'll be fine.

 

I got my T61p in late 2007. It, with the largest CPU they made, is stable as a rock. I don't know what GPU the t61 has as Lenovo warranty switched boards after I got out of the hospital.
Renee

 

I would like to have nvidia's GPU, cause they have best Linux-drivers :/

 

well if you don't run any graphic intensive stuff then you maybe spared from the wrath of electromigration induced Nvidia GPU failure. Even Nvidia have said that customers should upgrade away from their affected GPU models as soon as possible.

 

I cant find even one T61 for sale in Finland with X3100 card. Is the T60P with ATI FireGL V5200 and T2600 any good?

 

Have you tried Ebay?

 

There is something, but I would't want to pay 22% taxes and 50$ for shipping. And after that I would have to buy finnish keyboard and charger for allmost 100€.

 

Ahahahahahaaha, we'll see when my T61p GPU fails my friend.. then we'll see.

 

hopefully everything is okay, i have just sold my second T61p.... i just can't stand the thought of my Thinkpad failing on me due to manufacturing defect.

 

My T61 is solid as a rock. It's going on two years old this February. Not a single problem (knock on wood).

 

Mine is over two years old, and the only problems so far are loose hinges and hissing noise from the board (both since day one, I think).

 

Ones with NVDA cards are likely to got out. Be careful if you are buying one on eBay. It may work but may fail. It could have had the motherboard replaced but that does not mean its not prone to future failure. This is widely known among the tech savvy.

 

My spare t61 using discrete Nvidia NVS 140M though, not sure if it's affected. It is very solid. Only downside it's still running on windows vista that came with. With windows 7 even better.

 

Yes it is. The NVS 140M is based on the G86M core which is defective.

 

I really wish there were representative(!) numbers to give us a feeling of when the time bombs we're sitting on might go off.

 

oh dear, anything can be done? can warrant for a fix or replace from lenovo? it's still under warranty

 

Mine is also fine except for the fan coming on a lot. Have to keep the room like an icebox and it comes on less frequently. What I'm peeved about is Lenovo refuses to take responsibility like Dell then sends a spin doctor to ths forum when the chatter builds to the point where a prospective customer might see it have this influence their purchase decision despite the fact Lenovo switched to ATI cards. Othwerwise before people calling in to Lenovo got nasty treatement and this problem was swept under the rug. The chickens have come home to roost.

 

This is not true, the proprietary nvidia driver has a lot of annoyances, and lacks in several aspects (although probably better than fglrx)

The real way to go is with the open source drivers (radeon, radeonhd, intel, nouveau), nouveau is the nvidia version of the open source but is by far the most behind in terms of development, and things like 3d won't happen. But for the radeon with the r500/r600 line 3d is great, and r700 is catching up too.

The flat out best linux driver is for the intel cards, (intel supports these open source drivers that's why), and with the latest xrandr you should be able to do the switchable graphics thing too, the real way to go is with intel in linux, if that isn't enough for your hard core 3d demands (it should be), nvidia blob, fglrx, or radeon drivers would probably be sufficient.

 

Even if you get the motherboard replaced it will come with the affected GPU, just a new one.

 

Or a used one.

 

You wouldn't have to buy a new charger. The keyboard's not too expensive.

However you would probably be running the wifi card illegally without some corrections. Oh boy the FCC (if used in the US) would give a one-way ticket to gitmo for your crimes!!

I have a Dell with an affected nVidia card and I've actually seen it go crazy due to nVidia's faulty graphics card. After about 10 BIOS updates, it runs fine, but the fan NEVER shuts off

 

That was the main "FIX" in a lot of cases from the articles that I read

The best they can do is to keeps the GPU cool, but that is not even an ok fix. Heat cycling will happen and the problem will occur, just will take a little longer.

 

yeap that just lead to premature failing of the fan just after warranty expires in addition to the GPU.... so it is still a ticking time bomb with a slightly longer delay timing.....

also electromigration will still occur, it just take slightly longer for the GPU to fail, just after the company's liability period.....

 

can you please explain to me what electromigration is?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

this article should explain this whole problem better than i could. It is basically due to momentum transfer of moving electron and ions, which causes loss of material in the circuits....