Hello,

Just thought I would post my positive experience with finding a budget laptop that works very well with my Multiface 2.

The laptop is the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad T60 (T60p). Please note that this is a 4-5 year old model, but there are many available on the used market. I’ve purchased 2 in excellent “low milage” shape. Paid around $300 US for each.

The reasons I wanted this particular model are very specific:

1) It has the Merom chipset which can take a Core 2 Duo T7200 (this is what I have)/T7400/T7600 and has TI PCMCIA and Expressport.
2) It is basically an Intel/TI box. It has some Atmel security stuff and the Analog Devices audio chip, but you can disable these in the BIOS and/or Device Manager.
3) It is a sturdy unit.
4) Parts are cheap and plentiful...lots of documentation available on the web for DIY.
5) Can run a 64 bit OS with a C2D CPU.
6) Good battery life. There are 2 battery options...a 6 cell and a 9 cell.
7) Double insulated 2 pin 90W power supply (http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=690190).
8) Has the Ultrabay which can be used for a 2nd drive or battery in place of the standard DVD/CDRW.

This model is in kind of a “sweet spot” for audio laptops. It is fairly powerful (SATA 1/C2D)...but precedes the Penryn and beyond laptop chipsets (T61 for example) with all of the inherent and confusing audio symptoms. It is not a replacement for a high powered DAW...RAM is capped at 3GB (you can run 2 x 2GB interleaved, but the chipset will only address 3GB) and the T7600 is the fasted CPU you can install...but nevertheless it is a very capable performer.

I put a 60GB OCZ SSD on the main SATA bus and a 500GB 7200rpm drive in the Ultrabay. I have a very streamlined/tweaked (nLite) XP Pro-32 sp3 OS with all firmware and drivers up to date.. I have turned off all of the peripheral hardware in the BIOS except for the Intel wireless which I enable/disable in the Device Manager as needed. I also disable ACPI battery management in the Device Manager. I’m using the RME PCMCIA card although the T60 will also take the Expresscard. The T60 does not have built-in firewire, but because of the onboard TI circuitry, I’m fairly certain a TI firewire card would be troublefree for Fireface users.

Testing with DPC Latency Checker ( www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml ) I get excellent average readings of between 8-12 microseconds with the occasional 20-30 microsecond blip. I can record all 18 Multiface audio channels at 64 samples (3ms) of latency without a hitch...and with all inputs and outputs activated in software (Reaper). The Reaper performance meter reads at about 15-20% during recording. The MIDI response is as good or better than my desktop DAW. I have not tested maximum track/VSTI/plugin count but I’m sure I could easily mix a modest project if necessary.

The one annoyance is the fan which can be controlled somewhat with a dedicated app called TP FanControl, but this certainly is not your silent 120mm desktop variety. I’m looking into modding this for better noise performance.

So...suffice it to say that I am more than satisfied with the T60, with kudos to the Multiface 2 which lives up to its excellent reputation.

I hope this post may be of some help to those seeking a budget mobile recording setup...and a special thanks to Martin for all of his friendly and useful information.

Cheers,
Arrangeit

(PS: I’ll be cross-posting this in the RME forums)

Thanks for the tip and I have considered buying a model from this range before. To say how old it is, the price on Ebay is still relatively high I feel. Mind you last year each of my two Atari Falcon 030 cost A LOT more than this one, so I guess there is a healthy demand for these older laptops? I do not write electronic styles of music, so I guess this will have more than enough power for my needs if I bought one.


NCGM

Nice stuff! I went with the ThinkPad X60, as you know from that other longer thread. Main advantage is FireWire built in. I have absolutely no regrets. These are solid machines with much better performance than one might expect based on a naive evaluation of their age. My only upgrade will be to stick in a much larger drive.

The X60 runs rather hot but is very quiet. I am surprised you count the noise level as a negative on your machine. I wonder can they be that different?

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"The Drones" now available on BandCamp through Stolen Mirror.

Hi Neo,

I'll preface my comments by saying that I do not consider laptops to be very durable pieces of equipment, so I'm loathe to spend big bucks on one. I think the T60 vintage of Thinkpads is the best combination of performance vs. price...I can record all 18 Multiface II inputs simultaneously at 128 samples...what more could I ask!

I bought my 2 from EBAY sellers with 100% feedback and paid a bit extra for units in excellent physical condition. I figure a cosmetically well maintained machine means a careful user. The prices are higher because they are better machines, although still about half the price of a budget laptop. Keep in mind these were high end ($2500 US) business units at the time.

They have a magnesium subframe which makes them a bit more robust, but this is the sturdiest laptop I've ever owned. I've replaced the fan on one (it ran fine but was not as quiet as I liked) and upgraded the CPU's to T7600 (sold the T7200 chips)...total cost about $210 US for swapping 2 CPU's and 1 new fan. I'm comfortable opening up the laptop and doing my own work so that makes things easier.

If you are handy...I will say that the documentation on these is incredible. The Lenovo site has a complete manual including step-by-step instructions on disassembling the entire thing! The parts are cheap and plentiful as well. If you don't like to mess with the guts of your laptop, then that might be a determining factor in your purchase.

The T60 does not have onboard firewire although the X60 does (see robin746). The T60 does have the TI PCMCIA/Expressport so I'd guarantee a TI firewire card would work perfectly. If you do start the hunt you might want to try to get the lower powered X1300 GPU...it runs cooler and you won't need the GPU horsepower for audio. Some guys even prefer Thinkpads with the onboard Intel GPU which is cooler still.

The best thing though...if I dropped my T60 down the stairs tomorrow and smashed it...I'd just pull my T7600 CPU and buy another used T60 for $200!


Hi Robin,

I've fine tuned the TP Fancontrol app to customize my fan speeds and I'm satisfied with the results. They do run hot...but mine are well under the acceptable max levels. Not sure if this app is coded for the X60 as well.

I'm buying extra parts here and there when I spot a deal...I'll likely put together another T60 and have enough spare parts to keep the 'herd' healthy for many more years!

You said it best..."These are solid machines with much better performance than one might expect based on a naive evaluation of their age."

Cheers

If you are still around arrangeit but I just wondered which Ebay seller you bought from? Also did you consider any other model variants in the X60 or X61 range? I notice you need to change BIOS firmware / settings to install different operating systems, and many sellers have models with Vista which I do not want. So to save myself a bit of hassle, I would like to buy from a seller with a Win XP Pro option.

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

Thanks for posting! I always heard good things about the Think Pad/Lenovos. I didn't realize only 3GB RAM, though, I guess that means I have to cross it off my list (I think) as Cubase 6.5 is very greedy.

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Alexis -Cubase 6.5.0/SX3.1.1.944, XP SP2, 4GB RAM (1GB not accessible, but used just to balance the computer so it doesn't tip over); Delta 66 in Omni i/O Studio; Motif8; UAD-1

I think on my forum browsing travels I saw 8GB of RAM mentioned on these, so that would mean Windows 7 x64 and apparently this is not too great a combination right now. Anyone who knows otherwise feel free to comment!

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

I've just bought and received yesterday a customised IBM Lenovo X60s from Ebay. It has 2GB RAM and 160GB SATA drive. Absolutely stunning machine and very happy indeed, but there is no Windows COA sticker or recovery disc and it currently has a non-activated Vista Business installed. So that needs sorting out soon somehow; I'd like to stick Win XP Pro on if I can without spending any more money on it.

Finally the next day I went a bit mad and bought a IBM Lenovo Z61p, which has Core 2 Duo 2GHz; 2GB RAM; 100GB hard drive; DVD/RW and a Win XP Pro installed with licence. Both of these laptops only cost approx £70, so hopefully one of these will be up and running as a music production laptop soon.

I can now understand why people hold these Thinkpad laptops in such high regard! They are bloody spectacular!

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

My second Thinkpad arrived nearly a week ago, a Z61p 9452-3NG which seems almost identical to the T60p and has Core Duo T2500 2.0GHz CPU; 2GB RAM; 100GB SATA 7200rpm; Firewire (Texas Instruments chipset); 7800mAh battery for 3hrs or more if WiFi & Bluetooth are switched off. It has a 15.4" 1920 x 1200 screen which is viewable without loss of image from all angles. The Ultrabay currently has a DVD writer installed but I might put a hard drive in there like the OP has done. As for fan noise, I can barely hear anything at all even under load, and this is a six year old machine from November 2006 I think; it is by far the most quiet computer that uses cooling fans I have ever used, including my rather expensive desktop with its 120mm silent grade fans. Other features are that it has the same video GPU as the T60p, the ATI FireGL V5200 with 256MB dedicated RAM. On mine there is also a S-Video output socket, which I have not tried yet.

IBM Lenovo Z61p - Full spec low down and also other Z series models.


...and for comparison here is a page about the OP own T60p

IBM Lenovo T60p - Review and spec


I bought two Thinkpad models so I could see which was best for music production, and then maybe flog the other model. However I can see that both have valid reasons for being kept, and I really love the X60s although it does overheat too easily and I find when this happens the video output goes so dark, that you cannot see where the cursor is, and therefore can only hit the big power off button and leave the laptop to cool until the video later returns. This may have something to do with Windows Vista Business, which is currently not activated and has no IBM software installed. I plan on using some IBM X60s restore discs to put Win XP Pro on, along with all the IBM sofware and drivers.

I'm debating on whether to upgrade the CPU with a Core 2 Duo T7600, but not sure how hot or noisy that might make it?

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

Hi

Anyone get one of these Thinkpads to record without clicks in the audio?? Picked one up to record vocals at a friends without dragging desktop along, T60p 2 gig memory clean install of xp, have all the usual stuff turned off in device manager Dpc latency checker averages 40 with no great spikes maybe the odd one at 90 or so, but still vocal recordings have the odd click and odd noise!! I'm using with an RME multiface and cardbus adapter. Anyone had more luck than me?? And if so how?

Best Regards

Gary

I think our household has gone Thinkpad crazy because even my mum has one now! It's a x61s 7667-W2C with 2GB RAM; 80GB SATA drive; WWAN; Bluetooth; Fingerprint reader and much more. The graphics chip is the X3100 type. One minus point is that the BIOS is currently password protected, but despite that I noticed it already had SLIC 2.1 so I was able to install Windows 7 Pro from a genuine Lenovo disc. It's a plain vanilla install and so it runs really fast with no unnecessary bloat / junk.

I've already tried my other slower x60s with Cubase 5.1 along with things like Pianoteq, and a full mix of audio tracks with FX; MIDI tracks and more. Everything ran flawlessly at around 40% CPU load and quietly too. So the x61s model should do the same and more with ease. However I plan to use my z61p for music production, due to the 1920 x 1200 large screen and the extra CPU power (might install the Core 2 Duo T7600).

So three different Thinkpads of the same vintage and all totally amazing!

Quick update: I have since increased the Z61p 9452-3NG DDR2 5300 RAM to 3GB. I have also just received a Hitachi 2.5" 500GB 7200rpm SATA drive (HTS725050A9A364) and I have ordered a cheap ExpressCard/54 interface which as a SATA port and a USB 3.0 port. I'm not sure how I am going to connect the hard drive yet; providing the ExpressCard/54 SATA interface works ok, that in theory should give the better performance than using it inside the Ultrabay Slim port which is only PATA based. Hey arrangeit, where did you buy your Ultrabay Slim SATA caddy from? Most of them on Ebay are fakes / clones which do not fit, or work much slower than the real thing.

The other thing I will do is upgrade the CPU to the Core 2 Duo T7600. I recently upgraded my sister's Acer Aspire 5612WLMi to a Core 2 Duo T7200 and that was dead easy, apart from having to upgrade the BIOS first (also again to add SLIC 2.1 for Windows 7 x64). I just added some thermal paste and temps after were around 40°C at idle and no higher than 60°C under load. Despite having the same chipset as my X60s 1702-YAB, my sister's Acer is a bit of a slow slug in comparison and that is after a nice lean clean install of Win 7 Ultimate x64. There is obviously something superior about Thinkpad system design, that extracts the most performance out of each component. The reason I have decided to upgrade the Z61p CPU, is that running the standalone version of Amplitube guitar software used up around 30% of its Core Duo T2500 2.0GHz CPU. So once I have Cubase 5 and my other main software and plugins, it might take it too close to the maximum.

Quote arrangeit:

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Hi Neo,

I've fine tuned the TP Fancontrol app to customize my fan speeds and I'm satisfied with the results. They do run hot...but mine are well under the acceptable max levels. Not sure if this app is coded for the X60 as well.

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I can confirm that the TP Fancontrol app works perfectly with my X60s.

Lenovo seem to get a lot of good press around here and bargains seem to be out there still. I sourced this web page for a client who was looking for a budget machine
seems like very good value to me. And on W7 most seem to on W8 now which I am not at all sure about

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Strictly an amateur with some nice toys,

I received a Core 2 Duo T7600 in the post today, although my heart sank when I saw numerous pins bent at 45° angles and I had to try and straighten them without snapping them off. Luckily once I had done this and disassembled my Thinkpad z61p, the installed CPU worked perfectly. It idles at around 45°C and rarely goes much beyond 60°C under severe load, so I am very happy about that. I notice that certain 1080p HD videos that totally red-lined my previous Core Duo T2500 CPU to the max continuously, now only use between 50% and 61% of my T7600 CPU and runs 12°C cooler.

So the CPU upgrade turned out to be well worth the effort, but it was not that difficult. So I am now awaiting the arrival of the ExpressCard/54 interface with the SATA and USB 3.0 ports, and then I can plug in the second 500GB SATA 2.5 7200rpm drive which happens to be in one of those QuietDrive enclosures *** 2009 review ***

The other thing I did while everything was disassembled, was to replace the rather worn keyboard with another used one from Ebay which is in nearly new condition; it has the G key missing but that will be arriving tomorrow. The keyboard and extra key cost a total of £7. I might also replace the worn trackpad and palmrest at some point too. The laptop is only just four years old this month, but previously had a hard life before I got it. Since I first got it I have done major cleaning and upgrading, so it is now a superb laptop!

Thank for the nice review of the product. But one more thing I want to add in its features. It is a T60 series product. Basically the same as its predecessor T-series notebooks did. The T60 body is a rugged plastic that does not flex. The magnesium reinforced lid won't flex and provides amazing protection for the screen. The hard drive is shock mounted and the entire chassis is a newly designed magnesium "roll cage" (it offers 30% more protection that past T-series chassis), and even if your T60 is dropped and broken the Active Protection System (APS) will stop hard drive activity to prevent data loss. The double screen latch system locks securely to make sure the screen stays down when being carried around.

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best cheap headphones

Yeah I seem to keep coming across long time users on various Thinkpad forums, who say the T60 and Z61 series were the best ever from IBM Lenovo. They still make class leading laptops but the T/Z series were the peak of their achievements so far. My Z61p seems almost identical to the opening poster's T60p, apart from mine having Firewire and an S-Video output port, plus the styling is not quite as streamlined as the T series. I must say I am really bitten by the Thinkpad bug now!

Quote Neo-Classical Guitar Man:

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So I am now awaiting the arrival of the ExpressCard/54 interface with the SATA and USB 3.0 ports, and then I can plug in the second 500GB SATA 2.5 7200rpm drive which happens to be in one of those QuietDrive enclosures *** 2009 review ***

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All my other items arrived in early December, so I have the external SATA enclosed drive connected via the ExpressCard/54 adapter and it works fine, plus is TOTALLY silent. Drive transfer speeds appear to be 50MB/s, which means it is running the drive much slower than it is capable of, but plenty fast enough for my needs.

The only temporary issue I have to solve is my MIDI setup, which needs simplifying to avoid the dreaded 'MIDI Choke' or locking up of the system due to bandwidth overload. My setup is comprised of two small Philip Rees merge boxes 2M & Little 2M; one Edirol UM-880 8x IN/OUT rackmount merge/patch box; one tiny 2x MIDI I/O switch box; one Philip Rees V10 10x MIDI Thru box; 8x MIDI synths/modules; 1x Yamaha RY30 drum machine; 1x Kawai MM-16 MIDI mixer; Edirol UA-4FX MIDI / Audio interface. I also have other MIDI capable devices that I would like to insert in the setup; Yamaha FX900 guitar rack effects; Marshall JMP-1 guitar valve preamp. There are one or two other things but they do not need to be permanently plugged in.

The simple solution to my problem is to buy a second Edirol UM-880 rack merge/patch unit, and then everything can be plugged in without needing any additional MIDI merge boxes and avoiding any feedback loops etc. So if anyone here has an Edirol UM-880 they do not want or need, let me know and maybe we can work out a reasonable price. Until then I may just swap things around to utilise what I already have.

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

I've now sorted my 'MIDI Choke' problem without resorting to buying a second Edirol UM-880, although I will get another in the future. I'm now on the hunt for a sub £200 audio / MIDI interface with low latency that is simple to understand and use. My current Edirol UA-4FX seems fine in that regard, but I need something that works full duplex via SPDIF digital optical I/O so I can connect my ART DPS II digital valve preamp. My IBM z61p laptop has onboard Firewire with a Texas Instruments chipset, but I do not know the exact chip number.

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Footloose and fancy free...gizz a job!

I have now bought a replacement audio / MIDI interface, a Edirol UA-101 which is excellent and now I am able to connect my digital valve preamp. The onboard Edirol preamps though are very clean and full sounding, with barely any noise. It took two attempts to buy this model, as the first one was not sent by the seller due to discovering it was faulty. In the two months since that I have been sorely tempted into getting a Firewire based model, but managed to avoid any impatience or impulsive purchases!

I've now got the Z61p laptop fully setup and ready to rock, with all the software editors installed and working for my rackmount synths etc. It's taken a LOT of work and careful thinking, but in the end it has worked out beautifully and the choice of the Thinkpad Z61p was an excellent one, so big thanks to the people here for that!

Now to make some music!