Libre Frankie?

[TRS-80]

So, I have managed to collect (over some years):

(3) 14" T60 with Intel graphics
(3) 15" T60(p), mostly ATI graphics IIRC

One of the 15" is my current daily driver, which also happens to be my sole FlexView.

The other 2 of the 15" have died by now (I presume; hardware beeps). However their displays were still working fine as I recall. So I thought I would try and harvest the mobos from the (3) 14" and put those into the 15" chassis. In fact I sought out all (3) 14" expressly for this purpose.

I am well aware of the performance trade-off and recommendations about newer boards and other combinations of Frankies. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is 4:3 and Freedom (i.e., LibreBoot).

I made sure (this time around) I purchased hardware that was supported. All three (of the 14") are type 1951 or 1952 with Intel graphics, and thus, supported by LibreBoot.

I have been studying the forums on and off for years. But I was still not 100% sure if I will need to do anything special, or if those 14" mobos should go directly into to the 15" chassis? I thought I read that they are essentially the same board (except different GPUs, obviously). Then something about an interposer card, to make up the size offset?

Any gotchas I should be aware of, before I begin the surgery? Any and all tips will be appreciated!

[unixed]

The 15.0" machine planars may still be okay, you might first try just replacing the RAM with some known to be working. You are right about the planars, if you put them side by side you'll quickly see where the interposer card fits (it is where you insert the ultrabay devices); just transfer the card to the working planar harvested from the 14.1" machine. The hardware maintenance manual (HMM), obtained from the link at the top of this page, will help.

You need not be limited to that older chipset if you can convince the libreboot folk to get it running on the R500 with intel graphics (see here). It is much harder than the T601 frankie, but you can put that planar in a R60 and you'll have your flexview driver with the bonus of true SATA ultrabay connection and better CPU options out of the box etc.

[RealBlackStuff]

All 4:3 14.1" and 15" T60 can use the same mobos.
Only difference is the imposer that's needed for the 15" models.

[TRS-80]

Thanks guise for the reassurances. In combination with studying the forums (yet again) last night, and the HMM this morning over coffee, my confidence grows by the minute.

The 15.0" machine planars may still be okay, you might first try just replacing the RAM with some known to be working.

I will give it a try before I start taking things apart. Even if I don't want to use them, it will be good to know if they really work or not before putting them in the parts bin or listing them for sale, etc.

You need not be limited to that older chipset if you can convince the libreboot folk to get it running on the R500 with intel graphics (see here). It is much harder than the T601 frankie, but you can put that planar in a R60 and you'll have your flexview driver with the bonus of true SATA ultrabay connection and better CPU options out of the box etc.

Well, maybe a nice "someday/maybe" project, but for now I will focus on the hardware I have in hand. I do appreciate the heads up.

[TRS-80]

Hai guise! An update...

Well, I had some time the other day, and armed with your encouraging words, a couple small screwdrivers, and an egg carton to put the many screws in[0], I managed to disassemble one of the 15" all the way down to the plenum. I don't know what I was expecting (I am just a worrier, I guess, lol) but it was not difficult at all with the HMM up on screen nearby! I never got that far in to any of my ThinkPads before, but I can highly recommend it, as once you have gone that far (which is basically all the way) you no longer have any more fear of taking any of your ThinkPads apart!

I had done some extensive testing first, as suggested by unixed, on the "dead" 15", by trying all combinations of its RAM sticks, as well as no RAM and finally some known good RAM. The only change were different beeps when there was no RAM. So I guess that mobo is a gonner after all (it was an ATI graphics model).

After that, doing the same to one of the 14" was a breeze and went much faster (now I am an "expert" apparently ).

Meanwhile I got busy with some other things, but next step will be to (very carefully) clean everything off with compressed air, and then begin re-assambly, of course with new thermal paste, etc.

Yes, I know, no cause for celebration really until I get it back together and it POSTs, but for me it was a nice experience (a first!) actually even getting this far.

Am I not going to have to do anything with BIOS? The swapped parts will just be recognized automatically? While reading Libreboot instructions (yet again) I thought I had read something about there being information unique to each hardware written in the BIOS. Or should it still POST in spite of hardware changes?

[0] I actually ended up needing an 18 pack carton, one compartment for each step! There were a lot of screws, but it's quite easy to keep track of what's what, with an egg carton + consulting the HMM!

[unixed]

No need to change the BIOS. You can run a live distro from a USB key just to verify everything works before your libreboot efforts, that way if anything goes wrong you've limited the possible causes to the latter. Well done so far.

[TRS-80]

Thanks again, unixed.

In other news...

IT VEEEEEEEEERRRKS!

Finally got around to cleaning all the parts today. After that tedious but necessary step, I got motivated to attempt re-assembly. I took my time, and didn't force anything. A couple times I had to back-track and re-do one or more steps.

For example, the keyboard didn't seem to want to fit back in quite right. I realized one of the antenna wires was inside the little notch where the top right of the keyboard is suposed to slide into. That part of the routing wasn't really in the HMM, but you need to run the wire over that little notch.

Keyboard bezel was a bit tricky at first, until I did it a few times and got the hang of it.

Going back to one of first re-assembly steps, re-installing the board asembly back into the frame, it tells you not to do anything with the hex nuts on the VGA port until the last step. Well, if you do that you risk not having them fully nested in their little slots (hung up on the little springs), and the board is then not all the way down into the frame and then if you start tightening all the board screws, you could maybe put some stress on the motherboard while it's in the wrong position... Well, luckily I noticed! I still tightened the hex nuts last, but making sure they are loose enough, springs back out of the way, and they are nested all the way down in their slots should be the first step there, not the last.

Anyway, after some hours of anxiety, the moment of truth! Press power button and... nothing.

Swapped in one stick of known good RAM. Still nothing.

Taking a moment to have a think, I knew the 14" mobo, CPU, and RAM were good. The 15" though... Then I remembered I had swapped the 15" CPU into the 14" mobo because it was a T7600 (2.33 GHz) and the 14" was orignally only a T2500 (2.00GHz). So, off come some parts (again) and swap CPU, new paste, yadda yadda. I try with only one stick of the known good RAM, just to be sure... And it POSTs! Then I swap the 3 GB RAM back in and it posts again!

So then I boot into Debian Live on a USB stick and just play around, do some stress testing, etc. and everything seems to work!

I don't even have any screws left over, nor rattling around in the case!

Now, I can't help but wonder if that 15" mobo might actually work, and the problem was just the CPU all along. I have another pair of 14" + 15" here that I plan on doing the same thing with, maybe I will try and do some more testing when I get those all apart. But for now, I need a break. And possibly a tasty, delicious, cold adult beverage.

Cheers,
TRS-80

[RealBlackStuff]

Some older T60 BIOSes don't take a Core2Duo, only Core2
To run a C2D, you need a newer BIOS.
I don't know how much Libreboot keeps/wipes of the original BIOS.

[TRS-80]

Some older T60 BIOSes don't take a Core2Duo, only Core2
To run a C2D, you need a newer BIOS.
I don't know how much Libreboot keeps/wipes of the original BIOS.

Aha! I have been wondering what "C2D" means (best I could come up with was "Crash To Desktop" but that usually did not make sense in context, lol). So thanks for solving that mystery.

LibreBoot wipes the whole BIOS, AFAIK. However they recommend backing it up first (which I will do). They also recommend upgrading to the latest BIOS, before flashing LibreBoot. Not for the BIOS, but rather for some other Embedded Controller (EC) software(s) that they do leave alone. Therefore I also plan on upgrading to latest stock BIOS, before flashing LibreBoot. And when I do, maybe I try that CPU one more time, for science.

Thanks for the insight, RBS.

[unixed]

If you press the <F1> key on startup the BIOS will show the current BIOS and embedded controller (EC) firmware version. The latest versions are 2.27 and 1.07 respectively. If your EC version is current then you have no need to "update the BIOS" -- running the BIOS update CD or executable does indeed do that but also separately writes the EC machine code. Libreboot replaces the BIOS only. You can date your BIOS/EC version and view the changelog here.

You might want to check the pins of the T7600 and also the orientation of the CPU, there are markings on the socket and CPU that must align.

[TRS-80]

If you press the <F1> key on startup the BIOS will show the current BIOS and embedded controller (EC) firmware version. The latest versions are 2.27 and 1.07 respectively. If your EC version is current then you have no need to "update the BIOS" -- running the BIOS update CD or executable does indeed do that but also separately writes the EC machine code. Libreboot replaces the BIOS only. You can date your BIOS/EC version and view the changelog here.

Yeah I was (sort of vaguely) aware of most of that, so thanks for the detailed refresher, and the link.

You might want to check the pins of the T7600 and also the orientation of the CPU, there are markings on the socket and CPU that must align.

In fact those were precisely the very first things I did, after getting the CPU cooler back off.

[TRS-80]

OK, so I will need to update at least one of my BIOS/EC, therefore currently scrounging around for a writeable CD of all things, as apparently the old ThinkPad BIOS update software requires that. There is evidently some workaround to do it via USB stick, which I may attempt as I probably have many more of those lying around than writeable CDs (in 2021)!

I also got to thinking about hardware upgrades of course. So far I have been able to install 3GB of RAM in each, from scrounging things together (including parts I think I bought previously). But RAM seems to be readily available and relatively cheap, so no problem there should I need to order a couple more 2GB sticks.

Same with CPUs, they seem to be readily available and relatively inexpensive. Am I correct in my understanding here that my limitation should be the chipset (-> 667 MHz FSB on this table), and therefore the fastest CPU I can put in to these would be the 2.33 GHz T7600 previously mentioned? In fact, I think this is why I bought this particular chip off eBay some time ago (now vaguely remembering).

By far, the biggest limiting factor nowadays seems to be finding decent displays.

[TRS-80]

Currently struggling with updating BIOS. I do not have any Windows machines here, nor CDs that I can burn. So I am trying to do this from Linux, using a USB stick. I have found quite a lot of info on the Internet about this, but none of the following methods have seemed to work for me on T60 so far:

- Extract image with geteltorito and burn that to USB stick with dd.
- Burn Lenovo .iso image straight to USB stick with dd.
- Use grub4dos to create a bootable USB stick, then copy the ISO over to it.

The main problem seems to be that the USB stick is not recognized as bootable media. I have also checked all relevant BIOS settings, as far as I know (there are not too many, on T60).

When I realized none of these things worked, I searched some more and found some threads here on these forums which seemed to suggest that burning a CD is much easier / more reliable for this era of machine.

Unfortunately, I don't have any writeable CDs handy. I am not even sure any local shops even still carry them nowadays?

Not sure how to proceed at this point, but I will keep plugging away, pending replies.

[RealBlackStuff]

External USB CDRW/DVDRW-drives are cheap and available almost everywhere.

[TRS-80]

It's not the hardware, but rather the media I was wondering about.

Every ThinkPad I have here seems to have a CD-RW/DVD unit included. And I know some of my desktop machines have them, too.

I guess I will check the local Walmart or whatever on my next venture out from my Internet connected bunker.

Thanks for quick reply RBS.

[TRS-80]

OK, I can confirm the consensus that burning the BIOS Update CD is the way to go. Piece of cake! *

Next steps (I guess?): Seeing if that C2D CPU starts to work, and then, LibreBoot!

* Other than needing to run out to the store to buy some media, should you not have any on hand.

[TRS-80]

OK, this will probably be my final update to this chapter, as my free time will be dramatically lessened soon, and I have juuust about accomplished all I set out to do.

First, yes the Core2Duo T7600 (2.33 GHz) was indeed recognized by the new BIOS, and POSTed! So thanks again for that pointer, RBS!

Second, a PSA / warning, for anyone following along wanting to do this process later. Do not do as I did and ignore the warnings about CMOS battery that are right there in the Libreboot documentation! Especially on machines of this vintage, where they are almost surely dead (assuming they have not been replaced yet). I very nearly had to get the SOIC clip and Beaglebone out late last night to do a recovery (and of course, extract the plenum from the machine, which is a lengthy, tedious process). Luckily, the guys were in #libreboot and saved my bacon, getting me restored back to stock BIOS. In fact I owe swiftgeek a favor now, which reminds me, I need to take care of today...

Incidentally, the procedure to check the CMOS battery is as follows: Disconnect power adapter and main battery from your ThinkPad. Remove the palmrest and keyboard to gain access to the CMOS battery. With a volt meter, backprobe the connector while it is still plugged in to the main board (this will give a realistic / accurate reading "under load"). If it's too close to 2.0V or below, it's better to replace it.

And that is where I am at on Libreboot installation. I will do some testing, but I figure the batteries in pretty much all these machines are in the same boat (age wise) and therefore will need to be replaced. Which means putting off this part of the project for another day.

Only thing left is to install these nice brand new Samsung SSD which I ordered just for these machines, and then install Debian and set up the system(s). I have a custom Makefile as a part of my dotfiles repository which will instantiate an entire system setup from just a couple words on the command line. It's quite a neat tool that I have been tinkering on for some time now.

Besides the CMOS batteries I ned to order, I already ordered some more T7600 and 2GB sticks of RAM[0]. And I have my eye on some more donor machines, and other parts. Panels (and/or backlights) are an ongoing issue and will require longer term research and experimentation. But these are all projects for another day.

I would again like to thank RBS and unixed for their very helpful advice. Not just in this thread, but in so many others over the years. And other guys on the forum, too. This is a very special place, which I fell in love with almost immediately the first time I stumbled across it all those years ago.

Even though I have been studying and wanting to do this for literally years, my personal knowledge on ThinkPads took a giant leap forward through the course of this thread. You guys will probably laugh, as someone said in another thread "it's all been done already years ago" and I do feel a bit late to the game. However it was still very rewarding in the end for me, personally, and I can highly recommend "diving in" and "getting your hands dirty" to anyone who is contemplating it.

Cheers,
TRS-80

[0] Something else I learned in the meantime, apparently Libreboot supports slightly more RAM than the stock BIOS does. Previously I would always put 2 + 1 GB sticks, but now I will start putting 2 + 2 GB sticks, because of this.

[atagunov]

Besides the CMOS batteries I ned to order

My understanding was btw that if we're talking about T60/X220/T520 (my machine list) you should be able to plug in pretty much any relatively recent Thinkpad CMOS battery at all - since they all have the same connector, same voltage, all have sufficient capacity and none of these laptops constrains the battery size too much?..

I'm mentioning it here to say that you don't need to match FRU exactly for the battery and moreover the "proper" FRU for T60 will mean very old batteries

[TRS-80]

Good to know, thanks.

I pulled the trigger already last night on 5 or 6 pack of the cheapest ones I could find on AliExpress. I will try and remember to report back (in a new thread) how they work out.

Batteries are one of the few areas where I still have a strong preference for OEM. I guess I just assumed they would not be available any longer. And I am running out of time to thoroughly research things now. I almost made a thread to discuss it, but just decided to quickly order them instead.

Cheers,
TRS-80