Questions about T61p screen and gaming

Hi, I'm thinking of getting a T61p because it looks like there are some nice discounts right now.

Can anyone give feedback on the machine regarding these questions?

- How is the screen? I'd get the WSXGA+. I think the screen brightness and viewing angle is really important. Are the screens matte or glossy?

- How is gaming with nvidia Quadro FX 570M 256MB? The only game I really play is World of Warcraft. What kind of settings can I play at with smooth framerates right out of the box without changing drivers or tweaking anything?

- Should I get turbo memory?

- Is changing RAM difficult? I read the manual and it looks pretty involved taking off the palmrest and all... Lenovo's RAM price seems kind of high.

- Are you happy with your T61p? Is there anything you do not like or common issues?

 

Screens are matte finish. I have the Samsung version of the WSXGA panel in my T61p. Viewing angle is good, but truth be told, it is a tad bit dim compared to some of the glossys you see in the Sony and consumer level HP models. Don't get me wrong, it does the job, and I have no complaints, though.

Gaming should be just fine on the Quadro FX chip. I've been running Civ IV, Heroes of Might and Magic V, and Galactic Civilizations II on the machine at native resolution with everything pretty much maxed out. You should have no problems running WoW at native resolution. This is with the stock, preloaded drivers, as well.

Don't bother with Turbo Memory, especially if you're planning on upgrading your memory anyway.

Taking off the palmrest to change/install new memory is a snap....the little guide that ships shows exactly how it's done, and it's easy to do if you have a screwdriver that fits those little screws at the bottom.

I'm happy with my T61p. I'd hate to have to use a notebook without UltraNav now, it feels...wrong somehow About the only complaint I could think of is that the WiFi tends to break connection for some unexplainable reason, and I have to turn it off and back on to re-establish connections, through the Fn+F5 options.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks, that does help. What is UltraNav? I've never gotten used to those rubber buttons in the middle of the keyboard. Is it the same thing?

 

UltraNav is the system comprised of: the Trackpoint, that red bit in the center of the keyboard. It's there to move the cursor about. The three buttons above the touchpad, the middle of which is a scroll button (it can be switched to a zoom feature in the Control Panel/Mouse/UltraNav tab), and the conventional (albeit somewhat smallish) touchpad and buttons below it (note that the touchpad has no "scroll" areas marked off on it, as well).

The advantage of UltraNav, is, once you get used to it, you don't need to move your hands from the keyboard to move the cursor/pointer along, you can do everything (including vertical and horizontal scrolling) using the Trackpoint, and the three buttons directly below the keyboard itself.

 

That's UltraNav, yeah. You don't have to use it, and it doesn't really get in the way, but give it some time and you may find that you like it better than the touchpad.

I play WoW at native resolution, everything maxed save for AA. I can usually ru n with 4x AA without too much trouble (30-50 FPS most everywhere save Shatt) but it'll bog down in 25-man boss fights unless I have it off. I don't notice the difference so much at 1680x1050.

The screen's not the brightest or most vibrant thing in the world (LG screen here) and the viewing angles aren't going to blow you away, but it gets the job done.

My biggest gripe with the T61p, five months in, is the fit and finish of the palmrest. It's got a tendency to squeak a fair bit. You're supposed to be able to fix it by tightening the screws or wedging some material underneath, but it hasn't really bothered me enough to mess with it. Overall, though, quite happy with it -- it's a sturdy little bugger that'll handle most anything you throw at it.

 

Compared to any glossy screens, the matte will always be bit dimmer. But for a matte screen its bright enough - what I mean is I doubt you'll need to turn the brightness all the way up. I have mine on at 80%.

As for the age old Samsung vs LG debate, keep in mind alot of the complaints on Samsungs were from the older models of few months back. If you were around the forums during those times, you'll see a post about someone complaining about their Samsung screen every 3 days or so.

The Samsung screens shipping now are alot better and are virtually equal in quality to the LG. In fact some might even prefer the Samsung to the LG now.There was a comparison done not too long ago by 2 forum members with pics posted of the LG and Samsung that you can read about here.

UltraNav is IBM's fancy term for their combination pointing devices which consist of the red pointing stick (trackpoint) + programmable touchpad.

 

Thanks for the explanation on UltraNav. I can see how it can be useful.

I read a few posts about people saying their T61p overheats and shuts down. Is that common?

 

Doesn't Ultranav also mean it incorporates their "legendary" keyboard? I absolutely love it. I used to hate the eraser mouse but with ultranav it just feels so much better, but I still prefer using the touchpad ever since i used my friend's r51. I believe their touchpads are unmatched! lol.

Something nice i like about my LCD screen in my 14.1" 4:3 t61p is that i can "overclock" the LCD screen's refresh rate up to 150hz. This provides the most smoothest experience ever. It rivals my own crt and beats it in highest res + refresh rate match. 1400x1050@150hz(T61P) vs 1280x960 99hz(viewsonic crt). Actually when running at 150hz it produces feint yellow vertical lines in dark greys. However at 100hz there are no visual artifacts. I was looking for this "feature" when i was buying another laptop as i just had an asus v6j that was capable of doing this but it has too many other problems. I seemed to lucked out with buying a t61p and i am glad i did.


Just make sure you have antialiasing and anistrophic filtering completely off. However this still may not give you the performance you want. Since the quadro isn't designed for gaming, you are almost certainly going to have to do some tweaking like installing geforce drivers. I don't play wow but in cs source with all settings low i avg 100fps on the stress test(but this doesn't say much).

 

That's one of the best things about this T61p. It runs pretty cool and quiet. There's no doubt that shoddy workmanship can creep in on the odd assembly but that's a matter for QA.
But the cooling system on the T61p is quite sound ( pun not intended).

Now the one thing I also like about thinkpad's 570M is the card is very overclocking friendly. With the right fan control tool (a must) you can achieve some crazy overclocks.

 

I'v yet to have my T61p overheat and shutdown. So far I have been playing Supreme Commander, burning a DVD, and downloading torrents and have never had heat problems.

Although to be honest it does get quite a bit hotter than my old macbook, you can feel it on the palm rest after a while.

Still, the computer is very cool and quiet.

Ram changing is a joke you unscrew 2 screws and and the palm rest falls right off. Don't even sweat it.

I'm not very happy with Vista 64, I get far to many freezes in some applications. Also the Santa Rosa whine is still here and you can hear the CPU whine in a quiet setting.

 

I don't think T61's overheat and shutdown. There were a number of BSOD problems, including some faulty motherboards, and Turbo memory problems, that some people assumed were overheating problems. They were not overheating problems. It seems that the other crash problems have been fixed in the later models.

 

What are these options?

PC Card Slot & Express Card Slot
PC Card Slot & Smart Card Slot [add $18.75]

Which is better? I assume Smart Card since it costs more, but what is the difference between a smart card and express card?

 

ExpressCard is a new slot technology that will eventually replace PCMCIA. ExpressCard uses less voltage and has higher throughput, 2.5 Gb/sec.

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

There are very few devices that support it now, but they will become more prevalent over the next couple of years.

 

Get the express card.
Smart card are for high security environments so unless you work in a place like the Pentagon you'd be wasting your money on it.

 

Thanks for all the info.

Do you think the T61p 15.4" version is heavy? I've heard people say it's heavy and others say it's not.

 

It is certainly noticeably heavier than the 14" models. It is not heavier than a 15.4" model should be...There are always trade offs.

 

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I purchased a T61p today.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9300 (2.5GHz 800MHz 6MBL2)
Genuine Windows Vista Business
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT
NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL)
2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
160GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (supporting Centrino Pro)
Integrated Bluetooth PAN
6 cell Li-Ion Battery
6459: Express - 1 Yr Depot Warranty[7]
year depot 9x5 Next Business Day

It came out to $ 1,558.70 before taxes and shipping

 

congrats...i hope you love your machine as much as i love mine...!

the only complaint i really have on my t61p is that the right palm rest gets a little to warm for me...primarily when it's plugged in at least. (it may just be that i rest my hands on it more when i'm at my desk instead of taking it with me...i dunno) oh ya and the fan stays on all the time when it's plugged in too but it's not a big deal for me.

 

My 15.4" T61p works flawlessly . No overheating, although you will be uncomfortable if you game with it directly on your lap. I have played Bioshock, & COD4 with no problem with all options maxed out, even though COD4 keeps wanting to turn them down. This is with 2 X 1GB RAM and t9300 processor. Silent Hill 2 however ,refuses to play, not sure why.

 

Cool. I think the only times I've ever used my laptops on my lap is at the airport.

For me as long as WoW plays well I'm good

This is actually the 3rd laptop i purchased in a month (Dell XPS M1530, Compal JFL92) so I'm hoping to get a good laptop to keep this time.

 

You too? XPS M1530 and Latitude D630 here. Hopefully third time is a charm!

 

ehh what was wrong with the M1530? 3 laptops in a month that's crazy!

 

Poor build quality, for one. For example, the antenna wire was so thick with tape that it made the keyboard and console cover uneven and apear to have waves. It was also very noisy, hot, and was a lackluster performer.

Yeah, 3 in a month, tell me about it. I've purhased dozens of laptops in my lifetime and never had to return one. Now I return 2 in 6 weeks.

 

That's too bad..hope you have better luck with the T61p. I've read about possible similar issues on the T61p which I'm sure are true ( the slight bulge above the F4 and F5 keys ) altho I don't have that problem on mine. Hopefully I haven't jinxed you .

But the nice thing about Dell is you have your 21 days. I recently recommended a Dell for a relative of mine based mainly on the CompleteCare and the 21 day guarantee. Hope it doesn't come back and blow up in my face.

 

kboyer. My config is almost the same as yours too except for the screen resolution.

The M1530 also had a really bad screen and some electrical issues. I know the T61 uses the same screens but at least they are matte.

I too have never returned a laptop until these last two

 

Dell's return policy is good. You can usually get out of the restocking fee too.

I hear Lenovo's is not very good. It makes me hope even more that I get one without any big issues.

 

I'd be interested in hearing about how you like the T61p compared to the Dell XPS 1530...on seeing the specs of the 1530, I almost regretted buying my T61p a month or two prior. I'm pretty happy with my T61p, but mine does overheat (with symptoms ranging from serious artifacting to total lock up) with gaming. It seems to do so more often on battery power (perhaps due to increased heat from the battery), and more often on FPS-type games than with WoW. Would be interested in hearing if yours does the same, or if it is problem-free for you.

Total side note: I am pleased with the battery life. I'm able to squeeze a full 5-6 hours out of my 9-cell, with the screen brightness turned down, wifi turned off, and unneeded services/processes stopped. Quite sufficient for keeping busy on those long cross-country flights. And the power manager lets me easily keep it charged 40-60% during regular use, which should help minimize capacity degradation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery#Guidelines_for_prolonging_Li-ion_battery_life).

 

I just got a T61p and installed and ran Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

Here is recent T61p with 570m 256mb DDR3 3DMark06 Score:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=223227

 

Make sure you post back here (maybe on it's own thread) your impressions of the T61p compared to the two POS you sent back. I just bought a T61 and am as happy as a puppy rolling in sh!t but I have nothing to compare it to, it's my first.

 

The new T61p should be here tomorrow. After having two less-than-satisfactory Dells, I'll be giving this ThinkPad a good inspection and will be happy to post first impressions and comparison. I hope I'm as happy with it as you are!

 

Yeah I had pretty much the same feelng when the M1530 came out but then after seeing all the complaints about grainy screens from the WSXGA+ Samsung panels ( one which I would have gone for not knowing that most wsxga+ are samsungs) I'm glad I didn't. I've had a grainy screen from a previous Dell before and it was horrible.

As for gaming on battery , I'm not sure that's a good idea. As a rule I never game on battery. To get any decent performance it'd have to drain the battery and all that for 1 hour or so of gaming? Not worth it. Besides the T61p wasn't designed for gaming so trying to game on battery is just compounding the issue. But that's just my $0.02

 

I've never had my T61p overheat or even get uncomfortably warm while gaming. It's as cool as a pickle in a hamburger (read not totally cool, but not hot)

I've played Bioshock, Crysis, and 7 days worth (yes 170 hours) of Team Fortress 2.

Granted, I have my laptop plugged in while gaming. I don't play on battery.

 

I've heard people say their T61 overheats and others say it's cool. Maybe it depends on the environment too? I don't care if it heats up but I do care if it crashes.

I'm sure gaming on battery brings the heat up more since the CPU is probably working harder plus the battery is being used.

 

lol, 7 days of TF2. I had to quit after about 1, I knew it was becoming a problem. Fun game, though my T61p malfunctions did make it a bit easier to quit. I always played while seated on my couch, on AC power, with the laptop sitting on my legs. (Perhaps not ideal for cooling). My T61p would heat up almost uncomfortably, but as you say, never feel "too hot". Despite this, my main problem was the geometry artifacts I'd get. Specifically, I'd start getting random 2D polygons popping up as if they were "stuck" to odd vertices on my character's model, often completely obscuring my view of the game. I had similar things happen with my old 9800 Pro, and it was unquestionably due to overheating on my 9800 (the problem went away when I removed the heat sink and dried up old thermal interface material and replaced it with arctic silver compound). I think the problem is related to the graphics system overheating, not just because of the errant polygons, but because it occurs much sooner at native resolution (10-20 minutes into a gaming session) versus 1024x768 (maybe an hour or two). I suspect it does vary, based on quality of construction. Maybe there's something I could do to improve mine, but I'd be hesitant to mess with the internals like that on a laptop.

 

If it's still under warranty, I'd definitely send it in. T61p doesn't really have vents on the bottom so that shouldn't be the problem.

I actually bought some flexible cutting boards from Ikea to use as a laptop mat. It works great and it came as a set of 2. I use one under my laptop and the other as a mousepad .

 

Are the new thinkpad screens still high quality? I recently bought a Dell Vostro and the screen was terrible compared to my almost 6 year old Thinkpad T30. The Dell screen was way too bright and the colors were washed out (this was the LG screen btw).

 

I would send it in, but after hearing so many complaints from people who sent theirs in, I would prefer to avoid that for anything short of a serious hardware problem. This totally seems like the sort of thing that they could make even worse by taking it apart and reassembling it shoddily.

Great suggestion the the cheap DIY laptop mat, though! I'll look into that.

 

I actually like the Dell screens that I've seen. They are more vibrant and brighter than Thinkpad screens.

Couldn't you adjust the brightness lower on the Dell?

I find that sometimes my 15.4" T61p isn't quite bright enough in certain lightning situations.

 

I just got my T61 yesterday and tried it out.

The screen is nice. It's not the best screen, but it's good. It is much better than the Dell XPS M1530 I had before. I have very little light bleed. It seems bright enough and there's not much graininess. I can actually see the pixels on the screen instead of sparkly dots. I'm pleased with the screen.

I tried out World of Warcraft and it plays well. It can go all the way up to the highest settings at native resolution but still looks nice and plays well. The only thing is that I played it twice, the first time I played for about 2-3 hours and there were no issues at all. The second time I played for about 10-15 minutes and my computer just shutdown. I didn't get a chance to try it again. I'm not sure if that is related to heat or if it is going to continue (I hope not!), but it scared me to have the machine just shut down the day I got it.

I do notice the left side vent feels pretty hot. When I played for 3 hours it felt about the same but didn't shutdown.

Does turning down graphic settings help with heat? Does setting the power settings to energy saver also help? I set mine to Performance. Is there anything else I might do to keep the heat down?

I can definitely turn down the settings and performance if that will help. WoW's the only game I play. Usually I do development work and WoW's just a diversion.

For build quality I noticed that the right side of the keyboard is mushy. The palmrest can be pushed down a little and creaks and when I push down on the right arrow key the right side of the keyboard moves a little. Not quite the quality I was expecting given all the high praise about the keyboard. The seam between the palm rest and the keyboard is a little off. I read about this elsewhere and it sounds like an assembly issue. Something probably didn't get set right. It's not so bad that I want to do anything about it though.

I also noticed that on the right hinge, on the left side of the hinge there is nothing there. All the other hinges seems to have something connecting it to the monitor. But the right hinge only has something on the right side of it. Is this normal? If not, it's not a big deal to me either since the screen feel solid and stable.

 

The shutting down issue is likely just a random OS problem that caused the laptop to crash. Unless you see this issue pop up again which I wouldn't expect based on just one event I wouldn't be too worried about it.

The best way to ensure your computer doesn't overheat is to use it on a flat, stable surface such as a desk. Also ensure that nothing is blocking airflow from getting to the laptop. Having it in a cool environment around 67-72 F never hurts either.

While this is debatable I wouldn't expect turning the graphic settings down to have a noticeable impact on heat. (Hint, I said noticeable) In addition it is normal for the left vent to feel warm because I believe that is where the air from the GPU and CPU is pushed out at.

I can't comment on the hinge issue, but I hope the above helped.

 

Ah, well now it seems I can't play any games anymore. I don't know if it's overheating or not but when I play Warcraft it either shuts down my machine or starts acting strange. For example the sound starts stuttering and repeating and the game gets really slow and unresponsive. I haven't had it totally freeze other than the shut downs.

How can I find out the graphic card temperatures?

 

Rivatuner has a in game osd for gpu temps. pc wizard 2008 ( has cpu and gpu temps), everestm speedfan, coretemp are some other temp monitors.
what driver are you using for video?

 

I found a post about rivatuner so I'm using that now.

I'm using just the regular drivers that it came with.

 

Have you tried a fresh install of either Windows Vista or XP using the guides available on these forums? There is a good chance this will resolve your issues if the problem you are encountering is a software issue.

 

I haven't tried that. I'm using the machine as it came. My driver version says 7.15.11.155.

I see there is a new driver on Windows Update. Should I install that?

I just played Warcraft for about an hour and the Rivatuner says my temperature is 77. From what I've read that doesn't sound too high. Though it does feel hot. I only played an hour though. But no crash or issues.

On idle my temperature is around 60.

I have to buy DVDs to make restore disks before I try a fresh install.

By the way Hackez, just to check it out I tried the DOS pc-doctor and it failed on the Nvidia test. It was the only fail for the entire test. I don't know if that's a problem or not but, I also tried pc-doctor in Vista and it passed all the tests.

 

Before doing something involving like a full reinstall, try one of the gaming drivers from laptopvideo2go.com (read the faq on how to install). I recommend 169.28 as a start.

I'm familiar with the WoW problems...when I played it had the same issues...its a driver problem. Had to switch out drivers and it fixed it.

 

Good to know that. Thank you Hackez and morphy. I hope you are both right and the issue is just software. I will try the driver first and then a fresh install if that doesn't work.

T61p is really cool (not temperature). The more I use it the more I like it so far.

 

What's the volts and size of the adapter?

 

My adapter is 90W 20V.

 

Ah, doesn't look like the drivers helped. I did notice that the drivers give much nicer game performance when the game is able to run.

My machine still shuts off randomly when playing Warcraft. I guess my next option is to do a fresh install?

I'm starting to get worried though. I've been reading other forums with people who I have really similar issues with (random shutdown when playing games). It sounds like they all had to send their machines in for repair and even the repair is very hit or miss.