T60 frankenpad

[McDonnell]

Hi All

I have come accross some brand new T61 penryn boards made after August 2008.

It therefore seems quite obvious to me that I should convert two of my T60s to more powerful machines. (already traded my T61 for my wifes T60).

I have bought two motherboards and I have to fully working 15" T60s. My question is now of what other parts I will need besides the CPU and Memory which is something I have in stock.

Do I need to purchase a T61 fan? And is it possible to fit the T500 fan in there as I have 2 of those lying around (1xIntel and 1x Intel/ATI)?

Really appreciate your help :-)

[Tasurinchi Community Moderator]

You should contact forum member TuuS, he's the über guru regarding T6x frankenpadding! 

[ajkula66 Guru]

A CPU from a T60 will not work on a T61 board.

You do need an appropriate fan as well, the ones from T500 don't fit properly.

The boards that you've bought are for a 14" 4:3 non-widescreen T61, correct?

[McDonnell]

The CPU I was referring to is an T9300 I have from another laptop. So that should work.

Ok then I will have to buy a T61 fan, is there any difference between the fan in 4:3 and 16:10 T61 units?

Yes the boards I bought are all 4:3 non-widescreen. 

So I guess what I will need is the below items:

Board (OK)

CPU (OK)

RAM (2x2gb OK)

T61 Heatsink and fan (FRU???)

Everything else I should be able to re-use from the T60?

[ajkula66 Guru]

The fan will depend on type of graphics on the board. Any "discrete" fan from a 14" or 15.4" T61/p will work.

Happy FrankenPadding.

[McDonnell]

Great! Well then must be the only things I need.

What about all those brackets and stuff that is on the board. Can those be reused from the T60?

[TuuS]

Besides the board you'll need the CPU, PC card assembly, cpu support bracket and it would be ideal to use T61 wire harness, but you can use the T60 if your reroute it a bit. It's also possible to use the T60 fan, but they aren't as efficient at cooling and on a discrete board you'll want to remove the grey pad from the gpu platform and replace it with thermal paste and assure it's adjusted to fit properly, but it's better to use the T61 fan.

If you need any of these parts you can send me a PM and I'd be glad to help.

ps. You'll also need to modify the frame and in order to use the T61 discrete fan you'll need to modify the retainer bracket. Here are photographs of the mods you need to perform.

Frame mod consists of removing one of the modem mounting "stand offs" (screw holes) and grinding down one so the frame doesn't contact the board on one of the mounting points.

http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_mod/IMG_0350_reds.jpg

Don't be tempted to try drilling the motherboard to relocate this mounting hole, it's been tried and will destroy the board.

A small piece of metal needs to be removed from the bracket and the grey pad removed fromt he top of heatsink in order to get the larger T61 heatsink to fit under the T61 keyboard without any bulge. It's a tight fit, but with this mod you can get it all back together without any noticeable keyboard clearance issues.

http://www.e30tuner.com/assist/frankenpad/fpad_hs010.jpg

You'll also need to remove the modem. If you require one for dialup internet or fax you can get a pcmcia card very cheap.

Happy Frankenpadding

[McDonnell]

Thanks Tuus, help much appreciated!

I have ordered the following things:

Pc card assembly
CPU support bracket
T61 fan

I already have 2x2gb RAM and a T9300 from another laptop so I guess I should need any thing else.

However I have a few questions. When you say I should remove the grey pad from the top og the heatsink, do you then mean the thermal pad? And wont there be a too big gap if I remove it and replace it with thermal paste?

Also I am not quite sure what the 2nd picture in your post is. Is that the GPU bracket (same as on T60) just with a cut in it so it can press the heatsink further down to avoid the gap and just using thermal paste instead of the thermal pad?

Once again your help is much appreciated :-)

[TuuS]

---

McDonnell wrote:
Thanks Tuus, help much appreciated!

I have ordered the following things:

Pc card assembly
CPU support bracket
T61 fan

I already have 2x2gb RAM and a T9300 from another laptop so I guess I should need any thing else.

However I have a few questions. When you say I should remove the grey pad from the top og the heatsink, do you then mean the thermal pad? And wont there be a too big gap if I remove it and replace it with thermal paste?

Also I am not quite sure what the 2nd picture in your post is. Is that the GPU bracket (same as on T60) just with a cut in it so it can press the heatsink further down to avoid the gap and just using thermal paste instead of the thermal pad?

Once again your help is much appreciated :-)

---

The T61 doesn't use a thermal pad on the gpu, only on the chipset controller (discrete models only), the gpu uses thermal paste just like the cpu.

The grey pad I was referring to is to insulate the keyboard from the heatsink on your T61 discrete fan. The notch is cut in the T60 bracket so it clears the T61 heatsink and prevents it from causing  the keyboard to bulge. The T61 heatsink is a tight fit in the T60 which is why you should remove the grey pad. The T61 retainer is two pieces, one of which will not work on the T60 and on the T61 the heatsink directly contacts the keyboard, but on the T60 the retainer will separate them so it's important to avoid any unnecessary bulge.

It's a tight fit, but if you do it as I suggested it will all fit nicely together.

ps. There are two different pc card assemblies, one with pcmcia and express card, and one with pcmcia and smart card, hopefully you ordered the correct one to match your T60 case. If not, I have several of each.