Used T61, good idea?

So my ol' trusty T43 Thinkpad has unfortunately seen it's last days.

I really liked that laptop and it lasted me a good 6 years. I've now been given the following deal on an off-lease T61 Thinkpad, just under 2 years old.

Specs below:
IBM T61 C2D 2.2 GHZ, 2GB RAM/80 GB HD/ DVDRW 15.4 “ LCD
$350
60 day warantee

This machine would be for daily personnal use: web surfing, streaming, word processing, music downloads.. No gaming. My main requirements are durability and speed.

Don't know much about the T61 but from what I've read they're good machines. Does this seem like a good deal?

Thanks for the help!

 

As long as it's not Nvidia equipped T61 it will be a great laptop for you. You can have a look at T400 also, as this is a bit younger, but has Penryn CPU.

 

Thanks, I'll look into it!

 

Ya make sure it doesn't have the Nvidia chip. Anything from Napa/Santa Rosa platforms with Nvidia you don't want. For 350 you can get a base model T400 on Ebay.

 

can someone explain why having the NVIDIA card would be a bad idea?

i'm eyeing a t61p on ebay which has the nvidia fx 570m. any problem with that?

 

Because NVIDIA accidently shipped their GPU's at the time with poor solder bump that fatigues over time (sometimes accelerated by extreme heat usage) that can cause the GPU to completely fail without warning. This affects the G84/G86 chipsets, the FX 570M is one of those chipsets (G84). This isn't a Lenovo problem specifically, it affected many other vendors such as Dell, HP and Apple too. It's also not easy to fix as the GPU is soldered on the motherboard, most problems are remedied with a whole motherboard replacement but for out of warranty systems this can be very costly, sometimes more than the value of the whole machine itself.

It's all down to whether you want to take the risk, it may last throughout its expected life cycle without problems, it may not for others. My Uncle has one of the affected systems (R61 with faulty NVIDIA Quadro chip) but is still working fine at this moment. But generally for the sake of convenience most people want the assurance that their system can last without the fear of knowing it can fail without warning, so they avoid them completely as a result.

 

I used to have one T61 with Nvidia, it was a great laptop. I swapped CPU from T7200 to T9300 and that was nice boost in power. Thermal sensors were a problem as bios was giving me a message at startup but Middelton hacked bios solved that problem.

After reading so many posts on this and thinkpads.com forum, I have decided to sell it and bought T410.

I do not know if this T61 I sold is still operational. During my usage, it did not indicate any problems. I guess, it's just a bit of a luck

 

Pity that I can't find a T61p without the NVIDIA at the moment. So apparently there are ways to prevent it from breaking down?

 

there was never T61p without dedicated graphics. T61p was "pimped" T61.
There were T61 with intel graphics and nvidia. T61p used to have high resoultion screens as well.

 

Nope. There are ways to better the odds and to delay its demise, but there is no real fix.

Just get a T61 with an Intel GPU. There are plenty of those about.

 

Lenovo did replace the boards of the T61s with non-defective NVIDIA chips, AFAIK. I had the board replaced on my T61 twice, once for the NVIDIA chip issue and a 2nd one because they thought I had a bad RAM slot (both under warranty). My new board hasn't given me any problems and I believe the NVIDIA NVS 140M is the A2 rev., which is supposed to be free of issues.

 

Hm. I was under the impression that, since it was a problem with the fab process of the NV GPUs themselves, that it wasn't something that could be fixed without a new GPU design. I know that Apple and Dell certainly didn't replace them with non-defective GPUs -- which I would expect them to do if a revision of the GPU without the problem was available. (I know this because my former MBP didn't escape unscathed...)

 

it wasn't a fab process that is causing this issue. Rather the problem is with the solder bump material that joins the GPU silicon to the chip.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1004378/why-nvidia-chips-defective

 

Huh. You learn something new every day.

Also, from that article:

 

@ThinkRob, i am not sure what the person said is true or not. There were several revisions after this debacle occurred, which had a different bump material. But i guess at the time of writing and the information available the person might be correct.

 

Yeah, if they revised the chip design, that would certainly make sense that they were fixed. Thanks for the clarification!

 

Hello, I don`t think there was a die redisign. It was the fixing. I understand the T61`s built during and after end of 07/08 did not have this problem. It is well covered here and elsewhere and included the 140 and 570 GPU`s. So if your prospective purchase has an August or later 08 build date you should be fine.

 

Well then now I'm confused. The linked article above seemed to imply that the problem couldn't really be fixed without a redesign, and that anything else (such as Dell and Apple's fan fixes) was just a workaround to delay the onset.

If the chip wasn't redesigned, and if the above article from The Register is accurate, then -- as far as I understand -- none of the chips are immune to the problem (although better cooling, etc. might reduce the occurrence.) Am I missing something?

 

it is not a redesign of the silicon, but the bump material had to be changed.

 

I have a few of the T61 units with the new nVidia chip, and a few with Intel graphics. You can still find them, but any seller that has one dated 08/08 or newer, is going to want a premium for it. The prior nvidia models can be a good buy too, as the prices are very low, and if you keep it cool, it could last for many years. All in all, a clean one owner, well kept t61 built in the troubled perior (prior to august 08) would be a good buy at $200. Expect to pay twice that for an august or newer model, and naturally a high spec unit will command a premium on top of that.

The 14.1" units generally sell for less.