T61 Win 7 (64) with SSD upgrade questions

[bradtb]

I presently have a T61 (for wife) with a 100GB Hitachi along with another T61 (for me) with a 500GB Seagate - both running WinXP (SP3).

On the wife's machine  -  my plan is to install a Samsung 830 128GB SSD, then do a clean install of Win 7 64 bit.  The drive is SATA 3, but without doing a Middleton BIOS update, I'd be held to SATA 1 speed to the best of my knowledge.

Will Lenovo ever develop T61 BIOS updates that will work in the Win 64 bit arena and open up SATA 2/3 speeds?

I could do the Middleton update in the present WinXP (32) configuration - then do the above upgrade.

Is there any downside to doing a Middleton BIOS update with regard to future T61 BIOS support from Lenovo?

Are there any other concerns I may not have mentioned ?  Do I appear to be on the right course of action to maximize my T61 performance for a couple years ?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide !

>Brad B

[bradtb]

I presently have a T61 (for wife) with a 100GB Hitachi along with another T61 (for me) with a 500GB Seagate - both running WinXP (SP3).

On the wife's machine  -  my plan is to install a Samsung 830 128GB SSD, then do a clean install of Win 7 64 bit.  The drive is SATA 3, but without doing a Middleton BIOS update, I'd be held to SATA 1 speed to the best of my knowledge.

Will Lenovo ever develop T61 BIOS updates that will work in the Win 64 bit arena and open up SATA 2/3 speeds?

I could do the Middleton update in the present WinXP (32) configuration - then do the above upgrade.

Is there any downside to doing a Middleton BIOS update with regard to future T61 BIOS support from Lenovo?

Are there any other concerns I may not have mentioned ?  Do I appear to be on the right course of action to maximize my T61 performance for a couple years ?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide !

>Brad B

[ajkula66 Guru]

I don't work for Lenovo, so take what I'm about to say as personal opinion only.

You're on the right track when it comes to upgrade path.

I don't believe that there will be another BIOS release for T61/p, let alone one that would enable SATA II speeds. My understanding is that the chipset itself is not capable of SATA III.

Modded BIOS is on all of my T61 and X61T units and I like it a lot. YMMV.

[bradtb]

George  -  Thanks for supporting my thoughts.  I'm looking to utilize a good platform with a more current OS and more reliability from an SSD with SATA 2 (from Middleton) being an extra.  Maxing out to 4GB ram as well.  Getting ready to do one computer this week.

>Brad B

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

Do you know if the system is actually a T61 or a T61p?  With the latter, up to 8GB of RAM is supported by the chipset (although 4GB is the official limit).

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[TuuS]

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goretsky wrote:

Hello,

Do you know if the system is actually a T61 or a T61p?  With the latter, up to 8GB of RAM is supported by the chipset (although 4GB is the official limit).

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

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Actually both T61 and T61p boards will support upto 8gb. When these system were first made the ram was limited by the size of available chips, 2gb being the largest made so with 2 slots, the max configuration was 4gb. You can now buy 4gb chips (although expensive), and upgrade upto 8gb. 

I'm typing this on a T61 with 8gb, and the T61p next to me has 8gb, an X9000 (2.8ghz) cpu and SSD. 

[mrEE]

I shall copy your upgrade of a stock t61 with the addition of 4gb ram. Which specific samsung 830 128g package do I need. Amazon gives three choices 1. the ssd drive 2. the desktop upgrade 3. the ssd drive laptop kit.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

As far as I can tell, the difference between the three options are as follows:

1. SSD Drive:  A "bare kit" containing just the SSD (may also contain a link to download disk cloning software--not sure about that)
2. Desktop Upgrade:  A kit containing power and data cables to connect the SSD to the desktop, a 2.5" to 3.5" mounting bracket to install the SSD into a hard disk drive bay inside the desktop chassis, and disk cloning software.
3. SSD Laptop kit:  A kit containing a USB to SATA adapter, what appears to be a 2.5mm high plastic "filler" to allow a 7mm high drive to fit into a 9.5mm high laptop drive bay without wobbling around, and disk cloning software.

Any of the three kits will work, but you might want to choose one over the others depending upon what you wish to do:

• If you are going to do a "clean install" of Windows and not use or copy any data from the old hard disk drive, you might just want to get the "bare kit." 
• If you are planning on doing a clean install (as above) and also re-using the old laptop hard disk drive in a desktop computer, than the "Desktop Upgrade" kit is the one for you to use.
• If you are planning on cloning the old hard disk drive to the new SSD (or even just copying some files from the old HDD to the new SSD) than the "SSD Laptop Kit" is the best choice.

Regardless of which you choose, you may also want to consider buying an external USB enclosure to put the old  2.5" hard disk drive into, for use as extra storage, backups and so forth.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[metalik]

TuuS,

regarding the support of T61 & T61p for 8 GB of ram: it would be DDR3 rated @ 800, correct? As far as I know there no such thing as DDR2 SODIMM PC2-5300 - which is what this Intel chipset supports officially - PLEASE correct me f I'm wrong.

[hausman]

metalik,

The 61-series ThinkPads use PC2-5300 667MHz SODIMMs. PSREF says maximum 2x 2GB, however 4GB modules are available and work to provide up to 8GB (on 64-bit OS.)

[sarbin]

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hausman wrote:

metalik,

The 61-series ThinkPads use PC2-5300 667MHz SODIMMs. PSREF says maximum 2x 2GB, however 4GB modules are available and work to provide up to 8GB (on 64-bit OS.)

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just curious... is the modified BIOS needed for this?

regards.