I just bought a few ThinkPads on eBay!

This is the T61 I bought.

This is the R60e.

The T61 will take the place of my M11x, and the R60e will be for my family. I think I got a really good deal on the T61, and a mediocre one on the R60e.

I can't wait for them to get here!

 

Congrats on the purchase! The T61 is a solid machine (I can vouch that! ), and the R60e is pretty respectable too for the money.

Check out the Hardware Maintenance Manuals for both the T61 and R60e which would come very handy for you. Being a T61 user myself, feel free to use my thermal paste guide for your T61 if its need a little cooling and good clean inside (see sig).

If you do plan to use a SSD, upgrade the Wi-Fi card or plan to drop in a Penryn processor at some point in the T61 then I do recommend the modified BIOS created by Middleton which opens more potential for your T61. This basically allows the T61 to run at SATA II speeds, removes the whitelist which enables any Wi-Fi card to be used and removes the "Thermal Sensing Error" that allows you to smoothly upgrade to a Penryn processor later on. I'm currently using this on my T61 and is very happy with the results.

Other than that all I can say is enjoy the purchases you made!

 

Congrats on the T61 purchace !
I LOVE my T61, and so will you !

 

This modified BIOS sounds pretty neat. I was planning on putting something like an Intel 40GB G2, or maybe a G3. Limiting that would be a waste. I might get an N wireless card eventually so that would also be helpful. I'm not sure if I should bother with a Penryn though, since this will be enough performance, but if Penryns will make it cooler (likely) and give it longer battery life I might get one eventually. I can't wait to undervolt whatever Core 2 I have in it! It's just not the same with my i7-620M.

I know this varies from model to model, but in the event that I brick my T61 is there any way to fix it? Also, has anything gone wrong for other people who tried flashing?

Thanks guys! I can't wait for it to arrive! There's just one thing I don't understand, which is why they would name so many models T61, I sort of understand it for the two that are both 14" screens, but I see that Mike has a 15" screen.

 

Generally most people who flashed their systems are fine but caution is still advised when flashing any BIOS. There are 2 ways to do it, either do it in Windows (32 bit only) or by the bootable CD-ROM method. I would recommend using the CD-ROM method by burning the ISO file and boot it on the ThinkPad. Very little can go wrong as resources are not diverted to Windows services that may distract the flash process. I personally did this method (twice actually to test stability) and it has worked flawlessly each time. Minor instructions can be found on a post I made back then.

 

As far as the screen goes, Lenovo used to have all of thier R and T models under one size. (Unlike now, where they have a T410 (for the smaller 14" screen, and a T510, for the bigger 15.6" screen). Before they just had one simple model name for BOTH screen sizes. (So the T60, T61, etc. all had both 14" and 15" models all under the same "name" if you will).

Personally, I like the new system better. That way it is less confusion of to what model you have. T510 = 15.6" screened model, W510, again 15.6", etc.
Whereas if someone says "I have a T61", you'll have no idea what size it is without them telling you.

 

Penryn CPU runs cooler and allows you to watch 1080p movie with the integrated GPU without lots of stuttering...

 

I absolutely can't wait to get this now! At first I was trying to buy something decently priced and durable that I can just throw around (and not be bothered if something happened to it), but now I want to dump money and new components into it!

It's going to end up like all my laptops do, which means I'll be paranoid about anything happening to it.

The CPU upgrade and wireless card upgrade will likely be the first two I do. The Intel 6300 N cards are only about $40. Maybe I can grab one for less on eBay if I give it some time. I never really thought about where Mobile Core 2 Duos became Penryns, but wasn't it when they went from x7xxx to x8xxx? I'll also look for one on eBay if so. I was thinking of going for a P series specifically, but didn't testing show that the power draw difference was actually only 3 watts? I see that you have T series Hearst, so I guess I shouldn't be too picky. I saw that thermal paste application thread earlier and those temperatures look great. Right now my favorite paste is Arctic Cooling MX-3.

I don't feel any rush to get an SSD right now since the Intel G3s will be out soon enough.

 

The T61 is only compatible with T8xxx and T9xxx that have the FSB of 800 mhz.

 

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

Edit: I looked around and the T8100s (lowest compatible Penryn) are going for a bit more than I'm willing to spend for a non-necessitated upgrade. My T7300 should be good enough (especially after undervolting!). I wonder if BabyHemi is still selling the wireless cards he had a while back. I'll have to see if his prices are similar, and if so I'll get one from him.

 

you can also look around the marketplace on forum.thinkpads.com if you have trouble finding it in other places.

You can find a R400 refurb from outlet.lenovo.com for around 400 USD with a P8xxx CPU, R400 is pretty much the same as the T400.

 

Which would be considered to be more durable, the T61 (the version I just bought) or the R400?

I'm feeling buyers remorse already (this typically goes away when whatever I've bought arrives). I'm done buying laptops, now I'll just be looking for parts. I'll check out the ThinkPad forum's marketplace, but I'd expect that a T8100 will still be ~$100.

 

I've read too that the T6xxx cpu could also be used on the T61p. It's based off a 45nm Penryn and is definitely cooler and more battery efficient than a 65nm Merom.

The T6xxx cpus are usually cheaper than the T81xx/T9xxx Santa Rosa CPUs.

 

I'm so confused now, I thought T6xxx were Meroms!

I'll have to start looking for those if that's the case. All I really want is the lower temperature and additional battery life. The only thing I wouldn't do is go to a Penryn that's clocked lower than my Merom.

Edit: now I remember about those, I had a T6600 once.

Edit number two: I found a T6400 at a good price, I'll see if I can buy it tomorrow, thanks Nando.

 

Durability wise, the R400 is about the same as the T61.

 

I'll stick with the T61. Getting the R400 would be a minimum of $477, and I'm planning on putting ~$80 into the $345 T61 I bought, which comes out ~$50 cheaper, and is enough performance for this machines purposes.

 

Apparantly the top 3 highest CPU you can put in your T61 is:

Core 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz, 6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB*
Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz, 6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB
Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz, 6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB

*Theoretical, "some" say they have tested this successfully.

The best bang for your buck would be the T9300, the X9000 being a Core 2 Extreme processor would be rare and very expensive (due to unlocked multipliers) and the T9500 can command a price premium for the extra 100MHz which you probably won't notice.

I bought my T9300 from eBay, taken from an Alienware gaming machine (so you can say I got a piece of Alienware in my ThinkPad! Thanks Dell! ). My T9300 runs a lot cooler than the T7100 (clock to clock) that I had initially, plus it plays HD movies effortlessly compared to my T7100. Team it up with a decent set of Thermal Paste (the MX-3 is very good) and you got a nice cool machine to work with.

 

Now I've made two more purchases, the first was a T6400 which I got for $38 on eBay, and the second was an Intel 6300 wireless card for $40 from babyhemi on here.

Apparently the T61 already shipped, and now so has the CPU.

Hearst, I just downloaded your guide so I'll be ready when everything get's here! I already have some MX-3, as well as the ArctiClean Kit.

 

I am a bit puzzled why some people are encouraging further upgrades.

The T6400 from the T7300 is a pretty lateral move performance wise, and I question how much more battery life you'd gain... And then, is the wireless N card really going to make a real world difference over the G card? I mean, perhaps you intend of consistently transfer boatloads of data over your network, but it seems like you"ve just spent 80 bucks on top what was an alright deal at $350 to only get marginal returns. At that point, you are probably paying for shipping a few more times for each part and could have spent $450+ for more than you've ended up with now.

I don"t mean to be overly negative, since I know its fun to tinker (I've done a T9400 to x9100 upgrade myself), but just for the sake of anyone else thinking of such an upgrade path, there might be better options out there.

 

I would also question whether the BIOS would support a T6400.

 

Out of curiosity, I checked Passmark and the T6400 is actually a more significant increase in performance than I had originally thought. That wasn't even for the performance though, or even battery life. My favorite part of it was just the fact that it was a Penryn, since I had bad experiences with my last Merom (T5750).

As for the wireless card, I've found myself in lots of places where I end up feeling I should've purchased a better one, and I can always put this in a future laptop (assuming whatever comes after N isn't out yet).

As for the shipping, both the CPU and wireless card were shipped for free. I certainly do see what your saying though. I just put $80 into a very cheap laptop.

I put some parts I particularly agree with in bold, since to be totally honest, this was a bad time in general to buy a laptop, considering how close Sandy Bridge is. I just needed something now so I bought it now, plus I love tearing computers apart and I needed some excuses.

I'm aware that the stock bios won't support it properly (or at all), but I plan to try it out with the custom bios Hearst mentioned (also, the removal of the whitelist will be necessary for the 6300). Worst case scenario I wasted $38.

 

Hearst, I have a quick question. How long does the bios flashing take? I'm not sure if it's done or not and I'm definitely not going to interrupt it.

the bottommost part of what's on screen says:

Start flashing...

which leads me to believe it either is or already has. It also make intermittent beeps.

The CD keeps spinning and stopping as well. Further up on the screen it reads "Driver was installed successfully", which could be referring either to the CD drive being usable or the bios having been flashed.

EDIT/UPDATE: It took a long time, so I eventually held my breath and powered off hard and then turned it back on. It booted successfully! Now all I need to do is ensure that it did in fact flash. It will become obvios in an hour or so when I have a wireless card that wouldn't work otherwise.

Never did I mention that the T61 arrived, but that's a given by now! I love the hinge! The palmrest is creaks a little, but all in all I love it. The rubberized lid also feels great.

 

Flashing doesn't take more than 5 minutes at max, your reports suggest to me that all is well.

If the palmrest creaks then you may need to adjust it slightly so the tabs snaps on the chassis properly. I tried pressing on my palmrest and it feels solid with no creaks.

Yeah I like the rubber feel too, adds a premium touch to a fine laptop!

 

First the good news, then the bad:

The good news is the R60e is perfect! It feels very solid and is running Ubuntu Netbook Remix just fine. Even though the screen is only an XGA as far as resolution, it still looks nice. It also came with a nine cell battery, but I'm not sure how long that lasts yet. The very fancy packaging this had made it clear it was an off-lease one and not just a used one.

The bad news is that while the T61 was advertised as having Intel graphics on eBay, it actually has an Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M. That's the professional version of the Nvidia Geforce 8400GS/GM, meaning it's doomed. The seller stated that there are no returns, so I need to figure out how to use the eBay buyer protection program.

It's already idling at 52 Celsius, and I just put MX-3 on both the CPU and GPU. Although both the CPU and GPU are on the same heatsink, it's clear the GPU is the issue here since the CPU is easily staying under 40 Celsius (and this is the Merom).

Edit: If I can somehow get my money back I might just go for an X201 now.

 

hum another dodgy ebay selller.

 

That is a shame, I don't know how the seller managed to pull off the Nvidia Quadro 140M as Intel X3100 Graphics since they're totally different. The thing is even though the seller say no returns they have misled you with false advertising and that is against the law. Since you bought the system on the basis of avoiding the Quadro chip you can dispute this with eBay.

But first see if the seller is willing to accept the mistake and allow you to return the system and get your money back (or negotiate some sort of compensation). If you don't find the offer acceptable or the seller is playing hardball then your next step is to dispute it on eBay. Since the seller has clearly stated "Integrated Intel Graphics" on the listing, you have a very good case of false advertising as the system is definitely not as described.

 

this is not the first time someone got sold a machine with the nvidia GPU... second hand motherboard is constantly sold with the Nvidia GPU passed off as Intel GPU. And some seller would tell some buyers that the Nvidia GPU is better and if the buyer don't understand the whole Nvidia GPU issue would actually believe them.

 

I'll have to contact the seller tomorrow then. Hopefully he doesn't make this hard.

Even though I'm not going to have the machine much longer, the thermal paste guide was still great! It was only then when I suddenly became very worried. I was cleaning all the chips (CPU, chipset), and then I found one that said Nvidia. I looked closer and it said G86. The laptop was sent without Nvidia driver installed, so once I put it back together I downloaded the latest GPU driver and installed it. After rebooting I opened hwmonitor and to my horror it said which Nvidia GPU it was. I checked notebookcheck to see exactly what Geforce it was equivalent to.

I really like typing on this keyboard. It feel like a slightly stiffer version of my Dell XPS M1530's keyboard (which I had really liked, but also happened to have Nvidia GPU problems ).

I'm also happy that the T6400 didn't work (so I put the T7300 back in, not a big deal), and that I decided not to put the Intel 6300 in right away. That would mean I'd have to dig out my parts when all I really want to do is send this back now.

 

hmmm the t61 looked like a good deal at first glance. im not sure now though with the nvidia gpu

 

Did you try the various patches to get the T6400 going on the T61?

The NVidia GPU is a good reason to back out now and go a 4500MHD or HD equipped T4xx/X2xx/R series. They can do a US$280 GTX460 Optimus NVidia DIY ViDock which will giving you a serious gpu upgrade. Plus get a newer and more efficient CPU/IO setup. These newer T/R systems have SATA optical drive so are faster AND better for battery life if do a SSD+HDD setup or dual HDD setup.

You can have it all.. portability, gaming/accelerated gfx capability and a SSD+HDD setup

 

Nando4 are you tempted by the X200? you do know that it is selling for $899 at Lenovo.com.au right now....

 

I'd get this 2530P before paying AU$900 for a one-gen older X200. Though a development x200 would make a good testing ground for the DIY ViDock Optimus GTX470 setup AKA: pocket rocket, as well as trying a mPCIe SSD via a patched e-sata or ultrabase port like described here. Would make it the first SSD+HDD X200 in the world.

 

I didn't bother looking for new solutions once I was in there and saw the Nvidia chip.

The ViDock seems really neat, but I can't justify it with how much overlap there is with the M15x (in terms of how it would be used).

I sent an email to the T61 seller, and I'll give him a day to accept the return. If he doesn't, I'll start talking with eBay.

In other news, the R60e has been great. The nine cell battery get's at least three hours of battery life, which is nice. I used it instead of my M11x today and it fared fine.