
Wi-Fi and processor upgrade on ThinkPad T60 laptop
WIFI
The regular Mini PCI-e Wi-Fi card (model WM3945ABG) in my ThinkPad T60 laptop supports standards no higher than 802.11g, but I want 802.11n. The replacement procedure will make us aware of several problems.

Problems:
- The BIOS does not allow you to put any horrible cards, but only those that are included in the white list. If this issue is not resolved, an error message will appear and the download process will stop.
- Some Mini PCIe Wi-Fi cards have three antenna sockets, but the ThinkPad T60 has two antennas. In this case, one slot will remain free. There is no particular problem here; pure theoretical speed in this case is not very important.
- The new Wi-Fi card is likely to be shorter in length than the “native” one, so you need to think through the mounting system before proceeding with the replacement procedure.
- If there is Bluetooth in addition to Wi-Fi on the new card, it will not work due to the peculiarities of the power wiring on the ThinkPad. We simply continue to use the old broomstick, because it is located separately, i.e. not on the wifi card we pull out.
In one popular chain of stores, the following kit was handed over as a bonus to the desktop motherboard:

This is a GC-WB150 PCI card for a desktop PC, where the “Mini PCI card” that suits us is the “heart”. As you can see, the version is with two antennas, so the question with a free connector does not arise.

To remove the daughter from the Mini PCI card, you need to unscrew a couple of screws and disconnect the antennas.

Before disassembling a laptop, you need to flash a modified version of the BIOS to eliminate the whitelist.
First you need to go into the BIOS settings and remove all the passwords (supervisor, boot, disk), as well as disable the Security chip and disable the input on the fingerprint sensor. Consistently, on all three pages of the BIOS: “Password”, “Fingerprint”, “Security chip”. What for? Rumor has it that sometimes something can go wrong . In general, there is the prospect of ending up with a password-protected laptop without the ability to log in. I did not check the reality of such a situation, but simply turned off all protection during the BIOS firmware.
- Let me remind you that it is sometimes impossible to unlock the ThinkPad without replacing the motherboard, changing the drive, or some hardware tricks. Remove passwords! Disable Security Chip! Check out the download!
Also reset the BIOS to factory defaults by pressing F9, as recommended by the manufacturer. Check the normal loading of the laptop for the absence of requests for entering a password or authentication using the fingerprint sensor. After activating the factory settings, you may receive an error about the impossibility of downloading via PXE. Just press ESC and load further.
Next, we need a modified BIOS with disabled hardware whitelisting and a utility for firmware.
The archive is downloaded in the form of ISO, using WinRar we extract the file $ 01A3000.ROM from there.
The firmware utility will first expand to the directory you specified, and then offer installation. We refuse the installation by unchecking the box.
- Do not rely on the battery, connect the laptop to the network!
In the folder with the utility, run WinPhlash.exe (from under the admin account), in the bottom field specify the path to the file $ 01A3000.ROM. Next, click the "Flash BIOS" button.
After flashing the BIOS, we restart the laptop, make sure that everything is fine, turn it off, remove the battery (as recommended by the manufacturer for all upgrade operations), and proceed to replace the Wi-Fi card. It is necessary to unscrew the five screws on the underside of the laptop, remove the palm rest and keyboard.
We disassemble to point "6". Caution, do not tear off the cables. The keyboard connector is optional. The laptop is ready to upgrade:

Unscrew the screws securing the Wi-Fi card, disconnect the antenna connectors. Raise the far end of the card and pull it out of the slot.

We put our new card, connect the antennas, and fix the previously provided method. I just picked up a bar with two holes, but the best option is to make a special bracket and screw it to the standard holders with two screws. But I was too lazy.
Since the card is short and the bottom of the keyboard is metallic, we will provide isolation. I put a rectangular piece of tape on top.

For comparison: the difference in the length of the old card and the new one.

We assemble the laptop, load the OS, install the Wi-Fi driver (no need for Bluetooth). In the case of Windows, the driver came up from the disk, which was bundled with the card, but can be downloaded from the Gigabyte website . In the equipment list, the card is visible as the Atheros AR1111 WB-EG Wireless Network Adapter.
Wi-Fi Upgrade Result:
- When watching a movie on a local network, episodic lags disappeared.
- Internet speed on a laptop through a WI-Fi router DAP-1155 is now 20 Megabits Download (the maximum on my tariff), 20 Upload. With the old WM3945ABG card there were 16 and 14 respectively.
- A well-known glitch went away when WM3945ABG in mode of energy saving gave insignificant speeds like 160 kilobits. Until you guess that you need to look at the properties of the adapter, you’ll break your whole head.
CPU
I had a Core Duo T2400 Yonah processor installed with a clock frequency of 1.83 GHz and a maximum power consumption of 31 watts. It’s more profitable to put a more powerful processor on our old man, but with a low price, namely the Core 2 Duo T7200 Merom (2 GHz, 34 watts). The price in Chinese online stores is about 400 rubles, while the “maximum” for the ThinkPad T60 - T7600 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz will cost no less than two thousand.
A month later, the T7200 came from China.

In general, processors for T60 are suitable such:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2 GHz), T7400 (2.16 GHz), T7600 (2.33) - 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz
Intel Core Duo T5500 (1.66 GHz), T5600 (1.83 GHz) - 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz
Intel Core Duo T2300 (1.66 GHz), T2400 (1.83 GHz), T2500 (2 GHz), or T2600 (2.16 GHz) - 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz
Intel Core Solo T1300 (1.66 GHz) - 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz
Before replacing the processor, do not forget to buy thermal grease. The T7200 has 3 watts higher power consumption, so paste the paste especially carefully. Looking ahead, I’ll say that the breeze on the left side of the laptop has become a little warmer, so I’m going to change the paste to some better than the one I have.
The process of disassembling a laptop to replace the processor can be found on the same link above as for the Wi-Fi upgrade. We take out the panel especially carefully under the screen - it is thin and can break. If it doesn’t go, then they didn’t unscrew the corresponding screw.
Time to remove the cooling system. Do not forget to clean the fan.

Ready to upgrade. It seems to me that the paste was not applied very well. We will delete everything and spread it again.

The process of changing the processor is simple, they turned the black lock on the socket, pulled out the old CPU, inserted a new one, pressed it with a finger, closed the lock, assembled the laptop in the reverse order.
The result of the processor upgrade:
- The laptop has become significantly faster , although it would seem that the difference in processor speed is less than 20%.
- On youtube, the video began to look more comfortable, I often put 720p - it does not stumble.
By the way, the T7200 supports 64 bits, though I don’t know why this is necessary, since we are limited to three gigabytes of memory.
As an OS on T60, I recommend Linux Mint Xfce (32-bit) - the best system (IMHO) for our old man. It is Xfce, not Cinnamon. However, I continue to use Windows XP, which was equipped with a laptop.
And finally, just a picture of my ThinkPad T60. Incredibly attractive technical device with the “right” keyboard and 4: 3 screen. Sometimes I just admire him and regret that the design of current laptops is completely different.

I thank the users of Allexandria , kothor , FryPpy from the IBM / Lenovo ThinkPad T6x, X6x and R6x branches, their operation"IXBT forum for guidance and help.