85 Comments

1. 

   I was excited when I received my shipping notification e-mail . . . until I read it was for the docking station (advanced port replicator.) It looks like my laptop is scheduled to ship on 2007-Aug-11.

2. After I placed the order, I realized that the docking station did not benefit from the 10% coupon, so I ended up paying about $20 more than I would have if I purchased it elsewhere. Oh well.

   I also realized that the free media card option I selected replaces the ExpressCard slot all together, so I could never use an ExpressCard device. So I called Lenovo and changed from the media card option to the ExpressCard. I’ll order a (removable) card reader from NewEgg that fits the ExpressCard slot, so I’ll have the flexibility to read media cards or switch to another card. To me, the extra $25 for the non-integrated reader was worth the added flexibility.

   Also, I received notification of my $44.07 cash back rebate from FatWallet today. Thank you FatWallett!

3. How come you chose the 14 inch versus the 15 or 15 wide? Did you prefer the size/weight of the laptop with the 14 better? I have a T41P with the 14 and am looking to upgrade soon. The X60s is vert attractive just due to size. I plan to use an external monitor so the 12″ size may not be an issue. Decisions decisions!

4. Kurt: All of the T61 models, and pretty much all of the T60 models, are now widescreens only. I had quite a debate between the 14.1″ and 15″ models. The advantages of the 14.1″ model are that it is almost 1″ less wide and deep, and about 1/4″ less thick, it weighs a bit less, and it costs less. The advantages of the 15″ model are larger screen, built-in flash card reader in addition to PC Card and Express Card slots, and more space for a larger system battery.

   I almost went for the 15″ model since I’ll mostly be using it around my house, but I decided I’d still like something slightly more portable and no laptop screen will compare to the external monitor I have, so why fuss of the slightly larger screen. Because I have the 30″ high resolution monitor, the T61 with the nVidia card and the dock were about my only option.

   At one point, I really wanted an X60 because it is so darn portable and yet still has a full-size keyboard. Unfortunately, it is not quite a powerful as the T60/T61 due to space constraints. Since I don’t travel that much and this is basically a desktop replacement for me, I decided on the T series. The biggest T-series advantages are the faster and larger hard drive and the nVidia video card, but the processor and chipset are slightly faster as well.

5. Carlton, too funny, I’m in the same boat with the same reasoning. Although I don’t have the monster size display yet. I was wondering if I could keep my T61 docked while at work and have two external monitors. I use an ergonic keyboard which puts me at a slighlty uncomfortable distance from the screen. The T41P I have now (just crashed yesterday) wouldn’t drive two external monitors properly. Maybe these new models would – I’d keep the Lid closed and only use it at home or when traveling. I’ve noticed the 15″ larger screen also goes to a higher resolution so the actual fonts aren’t any bigger. it seems to be a realestate debate more than readability. Well, I think I’m on board with the 14″ T61P as my T41P was awesome, although somewhat fragile. I’m sure battery life won’t be as good with the new model as with my 41P…..we need some new battery tech and lower power displays!

6. Kurt: you have two options for dual displays. Edit: three options, see comment 8 below. The simplest is to use one external monitor and the ThinkPad screen at the same time. The second, and much more expensive, option is to get a Thinkpad Advanced Dock, which allows the installation of a half-height PCI Express video card. These cards are very common and most can easily drive two 30″ displays (as long as the card support DVI Dual-Link connections.) When you dock with this setup, the PCI Express card runs the two external monitors; the internal card would run only the ThinkPad display.

   My advise for higher-resolution screens, to prevent tiny font issues, is to change the default DPI setting that Windows uses (Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> 120 DPI. This allows full use of the display resolution but it scales everything a bit larger in size, so the larger letters use more pixels and look even more crisp and readable. This is what I do with my 30″ monitor.

7. I currently run two monitors, one plugged into the T41 mini dock and the native screen. Ideally I wanted to run maybe two 19″ external monitors. One powered from the DOCK, the other from the video out on the laptop itself. So, the “primary screen” would be 1 19″ monitor. I don’t want the LCD to be primary unless its opened up. This way I don’t have to screw around with three screens. My goal was to maintain a two screen setup, and NOT use the LCD screen at all unless the laptop is stand alone.

   When putting the T41P in this mode, it kinda sorta works but there seems to be a driver issue where it gets confused which display is primary and the resolutions get mismatched. I guess I’m picky! I suppose the Laptop Screen and 1 30″ monitor would probably be fine.

8. Kurt: I stand corrected; there is a third option for dual monitors. You can connect one external monitor to the VGA out and one to the DVI out (on the dock.) You do not need the Advanced Dock and external video card to do this. If you want to drive two DVI monitors at once, you do need the Advanced Dock and a half-height PCI Express video card. Hope this helps!

9. Another update: $56.29 credit from American Express TailorMade and my new laptop should arrive on Aug-15. Not that anything else is scheduled for that day. 🙂 (more details on that one later)

10. Hi, I am also looking to buy a t61. I am struggling with whether to get the higher end nvidia card or the standard intel card. I don’t do any gaming (currently) but want my new computer to work well with itunes, vista business version, viewing videos online, etc. so that it isn’t already out of date on the day I buy it (my last computer had trouble rendering the “album” view mode in itunes). Most of the time i will have my laptop docked and connected to my 20″ external monitor (1600×1200).

    Do you think I should go for the higher end graphics card, and if so, what size battery does one need to get to handle that? Also, if I am traveling and want to make the battery last longer, is there a way to “turn down” the video card so that it doesn’t burn as much juice? I guess I am less concerned with good graphics when I have the computer out of the docking station. The Lenovo rep was saying the nvidia card can make the battery lose over an hour of life vs. the intel card (!). Thanks.

    -Alex

11. Alex: The reasons to get the upgraded nVidia graphics card are the need for superior 3-D performance and the need to drive a higher-resolution monitor (30″ 2560×1600) that requires DVI Dual-Link.

    You don’t have a monitor that requires Dual-Link DVI and the only possible 3-D application you’ve listed is the Aero interface in Windows Vista. With standard (pre-recorded) video and non-game applications, I see no reason the upgraded card. The Intel graphics card will run the Vista Aero interface (I believe, double check this), but the nVidia card is a little faster. So would the nVidia card be worth it to you? I don’t think so. Battery life is more important. I’m not using the nVidia card for anything 3-D; it’s too bad the Intel card doesn’t support DVI Dual-Link.

    My two big complaints with my T61 right now are: 1) Battery life – I have the highest capacity 7-cell battery and it is giving my only about 2.5 hours. 2) Vista – it’s slow even with 2 GB of RAM and I’m getting all sorts of random bugs, such as sleep mode sometimes not working, not being able to resume from hibernate mode (reboot loop), fingerprint reader drives crashing, etc. I’m going to keep playing around with Vista, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I switch to Windows XP before long.

12. Carlton/Alex, I ordered a T61 also with the Nvidia Card. I figured unless I was gaming it wouldn’t take the extra juice over the built in card and leaves more options for later. Regarding battery, my T61 hasn’t arrived yet, but will be the same as Carlton’s except I ordered the 14″ standard screen instead of wide – call me old fashioned, I like the vertical height the standard ratio offers. Anyway, I vista-fied my T41P until the 61 arrives. At first my battery life was awful…..here are some of the optimizations I made. Keep in mind, I don’t care about snazzy graphics, games, etc…I just want my OS to run fast and stable with long battery life.
    1) Disable System Restore – this can slow the system dramatically
    2) Disable all indexing, I use Copernic Desktop Search instead of the built-in windows indexing. It’ll kill your battery life depending on settings.
    3) Disabled All special effects, Under Performance Options I have “Adjust for best performance” checked which disables all the garbage. I also turned off transparency, Aero, and all that.
    4) Disable UAC, its just annoying 🙂
    5) I run Mcafee Vscan but NOTHING else, and I only use the default access protection. Norton System works or those full suites are always scanning and draining the battery. Some of those apps really eat the CPU cycles.
    6) Optimize Power settings. This had a HUGE effect, the default Vista settings just don’t REALLY save power. I prefer to have long runs when on battery – some key things…..dim the screen as much as you can tolerate, I start out at the dimmest when on battery and brighten when necessary. I have the screen go dark after 1 minute, hard disk idle after 3, sleep after 20. Wireless is set to max power savings, CPU setting – 25% MAX – these are powerful processors (works fine on my Pentium M 1.8),

    I am getting runs close to 4 hours with my standard battery, 5 with extended. NOTE, I am a super mobile laptop power user constantly on battery for long runs. Over the years I’ve noticed a battery stays “good” for less than 1 year. My last extended battery was at 52% max capacity after 9 months usage.
    Anyway, I’ll report back after I get my T61. I hope the battery life is better than 2.5 hours!! I know the new processor probably draws much more power than my Lowly Pentium M, I hope not that much more!!

    Let me know how it goes with the optimizations!!

13. Kurt, thanks for your thoughts on how to extend the battery. I will use these when I get my computer and when it is out of the docking station.

    Carlton, thanks for your response as well. I ended up going with the invidia card because I really like visuals in general, and didn’t want to compromise on that with a brand new computer. The lenovo rep said that the intel card compared to nvidia would be more “sluggish” with some aspects of business vista (specifically the aero interface). I also read in some other places that said this as well. Finally, I wanted to make the laptop a little more “future-proof”, in case itunes or google earth use more 3-d features, in case I want to try out a video game, etc. The price differential was not large, and I will just adjust my power settings when out of the docking station to make the battery last longer.

    I wish I didn’t have to make such a large trade-off of performance/battery life, to be sure, but hopefully someday we can have the best of both worlds…

14. I played around with the power settings; the defaults were all messed-up and the CPU was not set to throttle back. I also decreased the default screen brightness when unplugged. I don’t know exact battery life, but it’s well of 3.5 hours. I’ve been using it on and off all afternoon with WiFi and bluetooth enabled and I’m still going.

    Kurt: thanks for the hints! I haven’t made all the changes yet, but I’m already seeing improvements. There is an auto defragmentation program (DiskKeeper Personal) that I need to disable as well. . .

15. There are few power management concepts that have changed over the years with the thinkpads and Windows. Prior to the T6X series and when using XP, IBM power management took over the windows settings and dynamically moved you to power save mode when on battery. With Vista, at least on the older thinkpads, this works differently now. I notice the IBM utility actually configures a custom Windows Power save mode but doesn’t dynamically change it. So….you have maybe three choices now. Balance, Performance, and Power save when looking at Windows power saving. The idea I figured out, was that the computer is no longer switching modes like it did before and who wants to do that manually! So now we know the power mode is static no matter which one you choose, but within the mode there are battery/plugged in settings. So, I chose one – the one called Power Source Optimized (Customized by IBM I think), you could choose balanced or whatever. For plugged in mode I pretty much maxed everything out. For battery mode I went stingly on just about everything. I think the brightness is one thing you can’t set directly in Windows right now, but the IBM power management overlay allows you to do it….

    I rec’d my T61 today…..I replaced the default hard drive with a Hitachi 7k200 – 25% faster than the closest rival, but IBM doesn’t ship it for some reason. Anyway, the computer looks good and should be fast. My docking station got stolen at UPS, so who knows when I’ll get it. More to come.

16. Im looking into buying a T61 and I have a dell 24″ monitor. As I understand there is no dvi port on the laptop but one can be added via the port replicator/docking staion. with the Nvidia card are you able to drive your 30″ monitor at max res? I was looking at this http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_nvs_notebook_techspecs.html and it says max digital display res for this card is 1600×1200 and max analog is 2048×1356. Id just like to know if thats the case or if thats talking about internal display only.

    thanks

17. Carlton, do you notice your memory usage under Vista? Maybe Vista is more aggressive with Memory usage, but mine is using 1 gig before I open any apps…. a similar config on my T41P, with VISTA, used 512 mb. The new system has twice as much memory. I wonder if the system recognizes that and tries to load more into memory….. I haven’t tried a true battery test yet, but should do so this week.

18. Kurt: I’m getting about 800MB memory usage (of 2GB total) with nothing but the default programs loaded at startup. If I remember correctly, Vista does more caching to improve performance. I’m using Windows Vista Home Basic, so it may give slightly different results. I’m either going to upgrade to Vista Ultimate (to get more of the Vista features) or downgrade to XP.

19. Has anyone else had a problem with the power management features? I cannot add or delete a new power plan in Windows or Power Manager. I cannot access any of the Vista power management functions directly. When I go to “presentation mode”, it still puts itself to sleep after a while. I usually work with my laptop plugged in and run a lot of things that don’t require me to be at the keyboard so I don’t want it to go to sleep when it is processing. I was able to keep my old Dell notebook awake with no problem, so I am not sure what is going on here. Is it a Vista problem or an IBM problem or both?

    Thanks,
    Allan

20. The Thinkpads have their own power overlay which adds/removes extra power plans to the built in windows plans. There must be an API somewhere as I’ve not figured out how to do this manually. You can modify the built-in windows plans themselves by going to start/settings/control panel/power options then modifying each option. Note, if you are NOT using the thinkpad power management, Vista itself will only change within a mode…. so lets say you are on “power saver” – there are two sub modes called Plugged in and On Battery. You can customize those to your liking.

    I personally prefer using the Thinkpad utilities. So the easy way is when giving a presentation right click on the green battery and choose Maximum Performance or Presentation setting. You can also modify those settings if you wish via the Thinkpad utility, but the defaults are generally good. I’m unsure if Presentation Director automatically changes the power mode – I’ve not yet used it on my new T61. I know it didn’t auto switch on my T41P…I had to both flip the power mode to Max performance AND then open presentation director to give my presentation.

21. I restored the factory settings and all of the power options came back. I think I must have installed something that messed up the registry. I am watching what I install this time.

    Thanks,
    Allan

22. Here is a list of Vista performance tweaks:
    http://mostlysavingmoney.com/2007/06/top-10-windows-vista-speed-tweaks/

23. SUCCESS!
    I successfully am using botht he analog VGA and digital DVI inputs on my T60. Thanks for the recommendations. I’d consider the other option (Thinkpad Advanced Dock) if I perceived any degradation of the analog vs. digital inputs, but I see none to date.

24. Robert, that’s great news. I’ve never been able to tell any difference between VGA vs. DVI video quality either. Glad to hear it is all working.

25. I am considering a T61 or T61P and have now read this thread. Could you please help me by clarifying the Dual DVI options:

    1) As I understand it, the small dock (“IBM Advanced Mini-Dock”) provides a pass-through DVI dual-link. This will give the built-in LCD + built-in VGA out + 2 DVI high-res monitors (or a 30″ dual-link, like your Dell). That’s 4 at once – is that correct?

    2) The “big” dock (“IBM Advanced Dock”) gives you the above, plus a half-size (meaning “half length”, not “low profile”) PCI Express 1X slot. In this you can fit a graphics card with dual DVI dual-link, letting you drive the above, plus 4 DVI monitors (or 2 30″)?

    I know that this is the extreme case (and I don’t need that many monitors) – but it’s pretty hard to identify where the limitations and gotcha’s are in this kind of setup.

    Thanks for any insightfull feedback.

26. Morten: What you listed is not the case. Dual-link DVI is a single DVI connector with all of the pins in the connector active, so it can address twice the number of pixels on a single monitor but not two monitors. So, at most, the Advanced Mini-Dock could do 3 monitors (internal screen, VGA out of laptop, DVI out of dock).

    If you use the big Advanced Dock, you can install a PCI Express card that has 2 DVI outputs (can be single-link or dual-link, doesn’t matter) and control 2 monitors with that card, plus the internal and VGA ports. The ThinkPad Advanced Dock accepts a standard height (111.15 mm (4.376 in.)) and half length PCI Express Cards (167.65 mm (6.6 in.)) only.

    Now, whether or not the software can handle all 3 or 4 monitors at the same time, I’m not positive. I would guess that it could, but that is just a guess at this point. I could test out 3 monitors at a time if you need me to do so.

27. Carlton: thanks for your answer and the Adv. Dock info. I have researched quite a bit on “splitter cables” now. You can get them everywhere, but they will only let you run the same signal on two monitors. You can get hardware splitter boxes that split DVI DL (dual-link) to individual DVI signals, but these are expensive and also takes up space.

    As you write, the DVI DL signal is only for one monitor. Wikipedia explains this here. DVI DL uses separate pins for the “second part” – it doesn’t just run at double clock speed. Then I thought: if the driver could just route data for the second display to these pins, you would have two separate signals. Well, apparently this is not how it works.

    To run 3 or 4 monitors from a single card, one must buy cards with special connectors (and other types of GPUs). On a distance these looks like DVI – they are also white – but aren’t. ATi have some “FireMV” cards with special connectors (DMS-59 and (VHDCI). NVidia also has DMS-59 cards for 2- and 4 monitor setups called Quadro NVS 285 / 440. And Matrox is still in the market with their cards – which also have special connectors. At present, the 4 monitor ones costs $400-500.

    I am not the only one on the net that was confused about this (Google shows): your results are not very clear when you search on “splitter cables”, cable shops often don’t state very clearly that splitter cables will just mirror the signal, the connectors on quad-monitor-PCs look very much like plain DVI – but are not, an so forth.

    And last, but not least: yes, I would like to know, if the ThinkPad can drive 3 monitors. That sounds very interesting. From this thread it also sounds like the analog picture quality is good. Thanks for your help.

28. I have a T61p with an advanced docking station. I purchased a second hard drive to use with the docking station ultrabay HDD adaptor. When the second hard drive is inserted, My Computer does not recognize the second hard drive. How does a person enable the second hard drive? Many thanks.

29. Morten: I tried to connect two external monitors at the same time and had no success. When my T61 was on the Advanced Mini-Dock, I could access the dock DVI port and the internal screen. When it was undocked, I could access the integrated VGA port and the internal screen. The nVidia software has a “dual view” setting; it mentions nothing that would make me think it supports more than 2 monitors at once. It seems the VGA port is deactivated when the T61 is docked. If you want more than one external monitor, the best bet is the Advanced Dock with a PCI-Express video card that supports multiple monitors.

30. Frank: have you formatted the drive yet? You won’t see a drive letter until your format the drive. I’m not sure about Windows Vista, but in Widnows XP you do the following: Start->Control Panel->Performance and Maintenance->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Storage. Select the unformatted drive and initialize/format it (select the NTFS file system when prompted). Windows should then ask you which drive letter you want to assign to the new drive, or it will just auto-assign it.

31. Carlton: thanks for your help. I think that the nVidia chip must constrained by having “only” 2 RAMDACs. I have now also checked up on this at work where we have a lot of 2 and 3 monitor workstations (investment bank); IT techs used Matrox before and nVidia Quadro NVS 440 now.

32. Carlton – Many thanks. The hard drive is now formatted, recognized by My Computer, and it works flawlessly (and seemingly very fast)in the slim drive with the adaptor. All is swell. Thanks.

33. Can someone please verify that the t61’s nvidia quadro nvs 140 does indeed support dual-link dvi? Nvidia’s webpage seems to indicate otherwise (the max resolution listed is only 1600 x 1200): http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_nvs_notebook_techspecs.html

    Thanks!

34. Merek: The nVidia Quadro NVS 140 absolutely does support high resolution, dual-link DVI. Check out this post for details (and a picture of it in action!):
    https://carltonbale.com/2007/09/review-of-my-new-thinkpad-t61/

35. I just ordered the T61P with the following:
    – Vista Pro Series
    – 2 GIGs of Ram
    – 15.4″ wide screen
    – 100 Gig hard drive

    It will not arrive until October. Any suggestions to avoid slow performance when I start it up for the first time. I had a T42 and hope this will be much faster.

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks Jim

36. Jim: Some options are to 1) get the 1GB built-in flash memory and use Vista ReadyBoot feature 2) Don’t shut it down (use sleep or hibernate) 3) follow the Vista performance tweaks and disable all of the services / programs you don’t need. Vista is an OK operating system, but initial boot speeds are not its strong point, even with ReadyBoot.

37. Jim, I’m a Windows Guy….and came from a T41P. With all the tweaks mentioned above my Vista PRO feels NO FASTER than XP did under the T41P. The only exception would be for a compute-intensive task that drills the cpu. I suspect loading XP would make a massive difference. In fact I run a VM under Vista that runs a few legacy XP apps that won’t work under Vista…now you all may think this is implausbable, but my VM is all around snappier and more responsive than the Host OS Vista. Figure that one out.

    So my advice is load XP if you want speed or hope Vista SP1 fixes things…. I really like this new Laptop though. It handles multiple montitors and all things hardware related very well. Battery life is good too.

38. thank you everyone,

    I may have to go this blog when I get the think pad for further help. I may be dissapointed.

    I hope the 2 gigs helps some.

    Jim

39. Hi guys,

    This seems to be an excellent thread regarding multi-monitor support for Thinkpads and the Advanced Docking Station, so I thought I would try my luck…

    MY GOAL: I want to run 3 DVI monitors simultaneously from an X61 notebook (while docked). I believe the only chance to accomplish this is to use the Advanced docking station, installing a PCI express video card with dual DVI outputs, and then using the PCI card for 2 of the monitors and the docking station’s DVI output for the third.

    MY CURRENT SETUP: I run 3 DVI monitors with no problem by using a Dell Latitude D810, Dell port replicator and a Digital Tigers sidecar, which uses the D810’s PC card interface (accessible while the notebook is docked). Everything works great, but I will be traveling more, want a smaller/newer notebook, and would prefer a setup where I don’t need to run the Sidecar into the notebook (also, the Sidecar demands a specific PCMCIA Carbus controller, Texas Intruments, and it seems like fewer and fewer notebooks are using the TI controller).

    QUESTION: Can I run 3 external DVI monitors using the X61 and the Thinkpad Advanced Dock? If so, any PCI cards that are confirmed to work with this setup? Any other issues or things I need to know?

    (the 3 DVI external monitor setup is important to me as I already have 2 setups, with Ergotron stands, etc, and they work seemlessly together in each of my offices – not looking to use the Thinkpad monitor at all when docked and driving the 3 monitors)

40. Robert: from Lenovo’s web site, it does not look like the X60/X61 supports the Advanced Dock, only a X6 Ultrabase, which is a portable, light weight (0.67kg) snap-on thing with optical drive or extra battery capacity in an “Ultrabay”. I think, you should verify Adv. Dock compatibility with Lenovo before putting your money in a X61… Odds are not good – I’m afraid – Lenovo does not suggest the bigger docks, when you search for accessories. :o(

    Also: the X61 hasn’t got the same powerful graphics card built-in that the T61 has – it only has the Intel on-chip one with VGA out – not DVI. The Ultrabase also only has VGA.

    My guess is, that Carlton’s setup is one of the lightest ones, you will find at present if you need the sophisticated docking options. The T61 14″ is 2.33kg.