T60 display design flaw???

Hello Everyone,

I am new to the Thinkpad line, so I decided to go over to the local Circuit City to do "hands on" with the T60 15.4 line.

While I was talking with a salesperson, he told me he hasn't been recommending this computer because he noticed a design flaw.

The LCD cabling is visible between the display and computer, you can actually touch the cabling because a moving panel in that area. In the particular model, the plastic is quite soft near the cabling.

I asked him if he thought that would be a major concern? He said lets find out. He then proceeded to poke and prod the area near the cable and the screen went black. There was some flickering and it went dead.

Has this been a problem for any T60 owners?

Is this fixed with the new R61 or T61 line?


This was the model:

Lenovo ThinkPad T60 15.4" Widescreen Notebook PC (6371-EXU)

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5600
• 120GB hard drive
• Burns DVDs and CDs • 2GB of DDR2 memory
• Built-in 802.11abg wireless
• Windows Vista Home Premium

 

The flat cable on the left side around 10 cm from the edge? Man, you need to have tiny fingers or a pen to make scratches on it, since the gape is around 4 mm (180 degrees angle, and you usually do not open the lid so much!!)...

We have used T60 models for over a year now, and I have never heard someone damaging it.

 

They have that on EVERY thinkpad except tablet, if they had problems with it, it wouldn't be there obviously.

 

That dude is a moron. Who the hell pokes and prods that area while using it on a day to day basis? Ive had it for almost a year and that revealed cable is of no concern. The gap is very tiny in any case and it wont get damaged unless you deliberately do it. I am hearing that the T60 has a better build than T61s. T60 is a great choice.

 

Thanks for all the input. I didn't think it was a problem, but I had to inquire.

The T60 series seems to be holding its value.A lot of the T60 configurations are much more expensive than the new 61.

What do to you think is the better value for the price?

 

Do your own research.
Never listen to the sales people on the floor.

 

Don't listen to people on these forums either. Except for me of course. Otherwise, my suggestion would be incoherent.

 

While I was typing into a notebook, it told me it hasn't been recommending this salesperson because it noticed he had a design flaw.

 

In our company, we still have no T61 laptops, but I can tell you about our experiences with the T60 models and not Z, X, T43, Dell, Sony etc etc...

We have around 45-50 T60 and T60p laptops at work. We have 14", 15" and widescreen models. They are very reliable, and if it happens something, it is only because someone makes a f**kup, such as feeding the computer with Coca-Cola, droping the computer on the floor, or moving the computer quickly when the LAN-cable or the power cable is still connected and the PCB inside cracks because of the pressure.

But...

T60 models have one BIG flaw. They have some kind of coding fault in the embedded controller or the BIOS that does not report over 3GB RAM to the OS installed. Dell and HP have exactly the same chipset (945PM) and they have no problems accessing the 4GB installed. Of course, you can not access the whole 4GB, since some PCI devices need some of that memory, but anyway, much more than 3GB. It seems like IBM/Lenovo will not fix this problem on the T60 models. Actually, they do not even want to hear about it.

Reading from the specs, the T61 models seem to be lighter, more power conservative and with other chipsets (newer) wich have fewer limitations compared to T60 models.

And as for us, we will buy T61/T61p models in the future, and no T60 laptops.

 

A BIG flaw???
What's so flawed about that?
4GB of RAM in a 32-bit OS is a waste to begin with.
3GB is the practical max.

 

From what I read the Santa Rosa chipset in the T61 is not any more effecient, thermally speaking.
But It's being advertised to feature a more advanced cooling system.
I'd really like to see some side-by-side tests performed on the identical T60 and T61.

 

I'm pretty sure XP limits it to 3GB of ram, not your hardware.

 

Oh, really? Then maybe you can explain how Vista x86, Windows Server 2003 R2 STD x86, Suse 10.1 x86, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn x86 and Debian3.1r6 show 4GB (3.7-3.8GB accessible) on Dell XPS M1710/M2010 and HPNX94xx and 74xx? We even opened a T60p and compared the chipsets with Dell XPS M1710, and they are exactly the same type.

I suppose you already have guessed that we have tried the x64 versions aswell. The 64-bit versions of these OS:es show almost the same amount memory.

JaeZTT, that is right, the 32-bit XP has its 3GB limit. It usually shows 3.15GB.

 

Its an X86 hardware limitation and not depend on the OS.

Addressing more than 4 GB of memory is possible in a 32-bit operating system, but it takes nasty hardware hacks like 36-bit PAE extensions in the CPU, together with nasty software hacks like the AWE API.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

 

Yes, and when we read further in the article, we will find:

"However, even with a 64-bit OS, you'll still be at the mercy of your motherboard's chipset and BIOS; make sure your motherboard supports using 4 GB or more of memory, as outlined in this MSKB article."

As I mentioned earlier, T60 models use the same chipset as Dell and HP wich do NOT have that problem. They show 4GB in the 32-bit OS, and not 3GB like T60 models do.

So the conclusion is that IBM ThinkPad T60-series have this limitation in BIOS or the embedded controller.

BTW, 32-bit versions of Vista support 4GB RAM:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/9/8/c988dce4-1971-4ad4-a1ef-df99e596a4cc/WVPG%20RTM.xps

 

I think you'd be very happy with a T60. Mine is a standard screen 14 inch model and I was concerned about the quality going down from the old T42's and such, but I have them side by side here and with the exception that the T42 uses an Alps keyboard and is really nice but a little loud a clicky, and the T60 using the Chicony and being also very nice but just the right amount of resistance and quiet balance and a brighter screen I feel they are essentially the same in quality, at least these two I have here. The T61's seem to be getting so much bad flack because it just came out, but I've not played with one to say. Better to wait on something to get a few bugs out of it unless you really want to be one with the newest. I almost got a T61 myself but canceled because I wanted the standard screen, I'm glad I did, I really like it. Good luck with your purchase. And yes I totally agree with the guys here that a lot of the floor personnel at the retail outlets don't know what they are talking about and will actually give you wrong advice at times (not always, occasionally you get someone very good) so it's good to do some research on sites like this.

 

That part you quoted in is talking about workaround for memory hole problem. The article stated clearly that it is a X86 problem.

See the link on the following MSKB article :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us
you need at least intel 965 chipset which T60 lacks.

Other vendor that did make their laptop can use 4GB of RAM with same chipset should have use some hacks that is considered unfavorable based on the article above. And Lenovo engineers might reluctant to implement it.

 

No, they have not made any ugly hacks.

On both Dell and HP, you can access the memory above the 3GB just as liniarly as if it was addresses from for example 1GB to 2GB.

Now, since you can NOT do such things inside an OS (the system writes where it thinks it is appropriate), the only option you have is to do that before the OS starts.

We have tried to access the address space over 3GB, but it is just not possible. We do not know if it is the BIOS or the enbedded controller that stop us from doing that. On Dell and HP, they have managed to push the address spaces that for example PCI and graphics need as far as they can close to the 4GB limit. You can for example try to write somewhere in the address space over 3.8GB and you will see that it exists something there. On IBM ThinkPads, those address spaces does not even seem to exist. Now, we do not have the knowledge about how or what "caps" the memory, maybe it is the BIOS or maybe something in the embedded controller. But something is for sure, they have exactly the same chipset and IBM does not care to fix this issue. I suppose that it is because it will cost them pretty much money, since they need to maybe rewrite, reconfigure and test a lot of microcode and they do not want to do that, since the 965 chipset is out, and soon, the 945 series will be old and no one will care about them.

But too bad for them; they have lost against HP and Dell in this matter. It shows that Dell and HP have more skilled developers.

However, this discussion is very off the topic. Sorry for that.

 

it's mathematically impossible to address 4GB with only 32 bits

4*10**9 > 2**32

 

2^32 = 4294967296

=

2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2 = 4294967296

 

The salesperson at Circuit City was giving you advice? (sorry, I can't write any more, I am laughing too much!)