ThinkPad T61P fan/temperatures/noise

Hello everybody! In the end I decided to buy a Lenovo Thinkpad T61P instead of an Asus that I put my eyes on. I configured a ThinkPad T61 P edition at Lenovo.com and the final price is approximately 1500$. Are there any more taxes besides these that I am going to see only when my notebook will be shipped? Or is this the final price?
I have some questions regarding this notebook's cooling system. I saw pictures with it's bottom and I couldn't see any fan intake like the one on my 1520... only some small holes near the fan? My question is: where is this notebook taking it's air from? How is the fan system built? Do you have more details about it?
How are your thinkpads cooling? Is the fan noise audible, disturbing? What is the max temperature of the notebook under load?
Regards, ady

 

there is a review on t61p here if you care to look...

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3889

 

Thinkpad T61p 15.4" is pretty quiet, even when gaming. It intakes from the rear, left side and exhaust out the left side near the back.

There is a warm air that comes out of the port, but overall it stays pretty cool. Fan is quiet, I can hear the HDD over the fan.

 

Do you mean a 5400 RPM hard drive or a 7200 RPM? Anyway, in both cases, that is excellent news.

I do have another questio: What is the difference between the two models in the image below? Is it the Mobile Broadband of the second one? I couldn't find any other differences...
Do all Thinkpads have the hdd drive with motion sensor?
Do all thinkpads have the little blue light above the screen for the keyboard?

 

The loudest thing on my T61p is the DVD recorder drive. When it isn't spinning, the loudest thing is the Samsung 5400RPM 320GB HDD chirping.

I wish there were a quiet mode for the DVD drive to keep the RPMs down. It can be a bit annoying when watching a movie.

 

Grench, and how is it under load? What temperatures? That's the exact same type of processor I want to buy. I am curious how much did you pay for your laptop?

Oh, I forgot to attach the image in my previous post. Here it is:
Another time: What is the difference between the two models?

 

The difference in your circled items is mobile broadband.

There is a quiet setting for the optical drive, and it is accessible in the BIOS.

I have a 5400 rpm drive.

 

You still didn't answer my question about the hard disk: Do all hdd's that come with the TP T61 have a free fall sensor?
Does the T61 have a ThinkLight like the T60 has?

 

Question 1:
I have run it with the CPU pegged 100% fairly regularly lately with multiple virtual PCs running and a game in the foreground. Never noticed the fan other than that the air it pushes is pretty warm out the back left end. I'm not actively monitoring temps.

Question 2:
A lot. It is fully loaded. Original price was ~$2500. After getting a price-match compensation from Lenovo ~$2000. That doesn't count the $190 for the 320GB Samsung drive I put it in on day 2. (Day 1 was spent making backups and preparing for X64 install.) I have lots of bits in my machine price that aren't normal though (USB Numeric keypad, USB diskette, trackpoint caps, bag, SATA 2nd HDD adapter, Mogo mouse, etc...) so it isn't likely to match your price at any rate. I'm happy with it.

Question 3:
Answered by another person as well. The choice is between 'Intel Turbo Memory' OR a board to link you to a cell provider. You can't have both.

 

I'll have to check into my bios more closely. Thanks!

 

Thank you all for your answers! The final configuration sound like this (see the picture below):

Is the price ok? Is it the final price or there are additional taxes to pay?

I didn't see anything about a motion sensor hdd though... Do all thinkpads have one? What aobut the ThinkLight?
The only thing standing in the way of getting the T61p now is my inspiron 1520 which I hope that I will shortly sell.
Can't wait to get my ThinkPad!

 

The tax is 5% of the total price which is $1,612.80.

I believe all ThinkPads come with a ThinkLight as well as the motion sensor motherboard and software.

I'm not so sure about getting the Turbo Memory; that might be a waste of money. IMO, the fingerprint reader isn't really worth it. I would also recommend you get the DVD Burner (for burning recovery discs), you'll regret it later if you don't, I know I did.

Other than that, everything looks terrific.

 

Yes T61 definitely has the hard drive active protection. I'm pretty sure all Thinkpads do. T61 has the thinklight..

 

hope its not too late but its $1300 for the same specs using this discount
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=213025

 

I won't be able to buy the thinkpad so soon...for the discount offer ends by the 10th of march

Arkit3kt, why do you say that the Turbo Memory would be a waste of money? Is there a noticeable difference between the one with Turbo Memory and the one without?
I will get the dvd burner too, I just forgot to put it in that configuration.

 

Turbo Memory is like $30 right? I just believe that you can use that money for better things like RAM or towards a new, faster HDD.

I haven't seen any great improvements that TM provides except starting MS Office programs faster, which isn't that great.

And worst of all, TM has been reported to be the cause of many BSOD's. Another reason I say it might be a waste of money is because you already have a sufficient 2GB of RAM and TM is really only significantly better for 1GB RAM systems.

 

I believe you can create a quote with the ecoupon discount applied and the quote will be valid for 30 days.

 

wju182, how do I do that?

Can anyone please tell me how do I quote the discount ballsofwhat was talking about? I do not know what to do in order to use the discount a bit later. It would be very helpful for me....

 

Anyone? It's kind of urgent since it's already the 8th on march and the discount offer ends on the 11th.

 

Once you apply the eCoupon, save your cart at the Shopping Cart webpage near the bottom below the checkout button.

 

As to the turbo memory:

1) It's only useful with Vista, so if you like XP or Linux don't bother.

2) If you want performance it's not going to give it, get a faster HD or more memory. Real world applications, I don't think you would notice Turbomemory a whit and dollar for dollar RAM will be a better choice.

3) Turbo memory would be useful on a high-RAM system to keep a hard disk from spinning up for temp files and autosaving etc... Good for battery, couldn't tell you how good though.

 

what about the HD? Would a 7200 drive be much more efficient? Is it worth the extra money? What Hdds do IBM use? seagate/WD/Hitachi/Fujitsu?

 

No, a 7200rpm drive will be much less efficient battery-wise. I would steer clear of them unless you're doing games or CAD/CAM or something like that.

I believe they use Hitachi.

And no, they are very much not worth the money or the battery as long as you're not doing disk intensive work. Just make sure you have enough ram so the swap isn't constantly active.

 

That's incorrect. Hitachi's 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives do not differ much in battery efficiency. If you have a choice, go with the 7200rpm, you won't regret it.

Where are you getting all your information?

 

I've got a 7200 RPM drive on my Inspiron 1520 (which I'm now trying to sell) and it first bothered me because it's making a lot of noise compared to my old inspiron 1300 5400 Hitachi drive. I'm not talking about the crakling of the HD... I am talking about a hum...something like a fan (I'm sure it's the hdd, and not the fan). The HDD on my 1520 is a Fujitsu. I got used to the hum over time..but it still gets annoying some times in a quiet room when I'm keeping the laptop on a wooden desk because the wood sort of..amplifies the hd's hum.
Anyway, I saw that Lenovo also use Seagate as HDD (I saw this in a review), and they said it is kind of noisy . Are Hitachi drives noisy? Do they crackle? How do I make sure the drive on my ThinkPad is a Hitachi and not a Seagate hard drive?

 

^ Go into Device Manager and google the disk drive number.

 

On my 1520? Why would I do that?

PS: I still haven't found out how to get that discount.... Can anyone help? This is the first time I do this...

 

I gave you an answer to this question.

Hitachi HDD's tend to be less prone to issues than Seagates but Seagates are good as well.

Lenovo tends to use more Hitachis than Seagates I believe, from what I've seen anyways.

 

On noise, I just got my T61 and the DVD burner is really annoying when watching dvds. It keeps spinning up and slowing down and then spinning up, over and over. I don't know why it does this but it is really annoying and loud too.

Mine is made by Hitachi-LG.

 

You can go into Power Manager and change the CD-ROM speed to Silent. Hopefully that will help.

 

I am not concerned about the optical drive because I usually copy dvd movies on the hard drive before I watch them. I am only concerned about the noise of the fan. How would you describe it? Is it audible? Does it run all the time?What about the temperatures? Case temperature/cpu temperature?

 

How would I describe my T61 (not p)?

Quiet as a mouse unless I'm gaming and then it gets hot at the vents and I hear the fan spinning forcefully.

 

Out of the box my T61p makes no noise. I installed a 3rd party (hitachi) 7200 rpm HD which makes a very very faint ticking sound during hardrive intensive actions but besides that the optical drive is the only source of audible noise.

I find heat, however, is a problem. Haven't seen any negative effects on the CPU but my palms, which almost never get sweaty, become exceedingly so after resting on the palm rests for a while due ot the heat being generated at this portion of the device, this being despite the rubber insulation at this point. Nevertheless I don't see any evidence of CPU overheating even when I get her up to 80% capacity, so it shouldn't be a performance worry.

 

In your thinkpad BIOS (Mine is Thinkpad T61, BIOS v.2.10), in the Power settings, there is an option to control DVD operation in terms of Silent, Normal, and High. If you dont regularly copy large quantities of data to and from DVDs, Silent will be quite noticeable an improvement for you.

 

I am getting my T61p repaired under warranty for this reason. It overheats and causes graphical artifacts and the laptop will randomly shutdown without any warning.