T500 or R500?

[TwigletZone]

Hi, not sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes any how.

My question is, what would be the choice between a T500 and a R500? What is there to look out for, or known issues with them? I know very little about these models as my experience is mostly with my beloved old dinours R61's/T61's....

I love my main 15.4 R61 with Nvidia, and it does what I ask of it happily running W7, but it is of the dodgy Nvidia age and I know at some point it's gonna go so was looking for something to stand in for when it does....

Tah

[dr_st]

T500/R500 are a lot like 15.4" T61/R61. It is almost the same chassis design, with a few changes (some ports moved/modified, PATA IDE Ultrabay replaced with SATA Ultrabay), and of course a new generation of hardware.

There is also W500 which is a workstation model like a T61p. It has a slightly better version of the ATI graphics. To that extent, the discrete graphics on T500/W500 is ATI Radeon HD3650 / FireGL V5700, which are not prone to massive failures, as far as I know. They also all have the Intel GMA integrated graphics (graphics are switchable in BIOS on the discrete models).

The R500 with the discrete graphics uses a lower end solution, ATI 3470 and only with 128MB. The question is - whether discrete graphics are even important for your workflows.

[unixed]

Also there is the same divide with the T/R61 concerning the rubberized lid or lack thereof. The former may look and feel better initially, the latter wins down the road.
The T500 left hinge is problematic, I've see a destroyed structure frame as a result.
Both the T/R500 USB ports are flaky, literally, and if you use them regularly expect them to break. You can use an expresscard adapter if you want.
If you may be interested in creating a frankenpad (using the T/R500 planar to drive a 15.0" flexview screen), the R500 is the only realistic option, although this shouldn't be a major consideration since it is a difficult mod and not for the uninitiated.
The German forum regards the T500 ATI graphics poorly, as in defective, but there's a dearth of similar reports here.

[ajkula66]

OK I'll be that guy...

1) In today's world, the difference in performance between similarly equipped (RAM/SSD) R61 and R/T 500 is going to be marginal at best, IMO. These are very old machines.

2) Almost 15 years after the original nVidia debacle, I wouldn't worry too much about it. A system this old could die from a plethora of other reasons and there's no point in stressing over it and changing it out just because of the nVidia bug.

3) If and when your R61 can't fulfill your needs and/or requirements anymore or decides to go down for good, upgrade to a much newer platform at least in the T/W 520/530 range, they are inexpensive nowadays and way more powerful than any *00 series ThinkPad could ever dream of becoming.

[TPFanatic]

Just about every secondhand T500 I've acquired needed thermal paste done over as they were still running the factory paste... at the resultantly abnormal heat, the GPUs die. Anecdotally, out of all the dGPU T500s my household ran, only one wound up having a dGPU failure, and the only other to die, actually a 2008 W500, died of something unknown that caused it to short on contact with chargers.

All but one of the household T500 daily drivers got retired due to lid issues and replaced with the machines in my signature, holding together much better than the T500s did. The last T500 is minimally opened/closed however, so I expect that to last a long time. The keyboards shine up fast, though.

I've bought two R500s and dabbled with a free but problematic R61. Many used market R-series were used so minimally that they are practically mint condition, as both my R500s were. My first R500 had a webcam and T6750, it was a pretty cool machine, I sold it. The second R500 was a low end Celeron model, I wanted to harvest its board for a Z60m Frankenpad project, which actually worked but I ultimately undid it, restoring the R500 and upgrading it to a P8600 and WUXGA, sourcing the 93p4380 cable from Spanish Newegg.

The R500 construction is a little cheaper than T500, more ABS, none of the T500's CFRP. The plastics of both get brittle though, and there is still plenty of it in the T500. I think the R500 hinges hold up better than the T500.

They're functionally equivalent and the dGPUs are next to worthless nowadays so I'd say get whichever is cheaper.

R500's Ultrabay Enhanced grants you a little more flexibility, like if you wanted to retrofit a cheap blu ray drive.

[unixed]

.. restoring the R500 and upgrading it to a P8600 and WUXGA, sourcing the 93p4380 cable from Spanish Newegg.

Did your R500 have integrated graphics and did you try the original WXGA cable with the WUXGA panel?

The ultrabay enhanced also provides the option to use thicker, higher capacity hard drives.

[TPFanatic]

It is an iGPU only R500. I never tried the original cable with WUXGA but it would need the upgraded cable. Same story with other cheap/cheapened models. It's not like the premier T/W500 where all models use the WUXGA-compatible flex cable, which by the way is a unique part for the T/W500.

I retrofitted an HP blu ray drive into my T420, ultrabay enhanced is awesome, it'd work in an R500 just as well.

[TwigletZone]

Thank you guys, there's alot of info I've gain from all your replys, cheers. And I now am looking at throwing a W500 into the mix to.

Personally I do prefer the R61 build and look, hence why I looked at a R500 as it looks almost the same, but I also realise the T's are usually a little bit better spec'd. I would prefer the higher res screens to. And they all have that wonderful keyboard, (I love typing on it, it never misses a stroke and I make far less typos on it)!

Shame its not easy fitting a W500 board into a 15.4 R61! that's be a nice machine! I am intrigued in the HP blue-ray fit though, so a W500 planar in a dufunct R500 chassis?..... Hmmmm.....

So in reality it comes down to cost, which at the moment are very inflated due to Covid I guess, and any of those with a hi res screen is looking likely. As a side note, how would the intel graphics cope driving the higher res screen?

Tah.

[ajkula66]

. As a side note, how would the intel graphics cope driving the higher res screen?

No issues.

[unixed]

It is an iGPU only R500. I never tried the original cable with WUXGA but it would need the upgraded cable. Same story with other cheap/cheapened models.

Interesting, I know that there are several posts that say you need the upgraded cable, but I wonder why? I only have the WSXGA+ ATI R500 so couldn't test this.
With the 15.0" R61, which originally drives a XGA panel, there is no problem with using an UXGA, as evidenced by this typed message.
With the 15.0" R62p -- said ATI R500 planar in a R60 with UXGA flexview -- I just use the R/T60 cable, so I will have verified the pinout way back when.
With the HP 8740w, for instance, the DC2 uses the DP output to eventually drive a 10bit LVDS display via a color board; the non-DC directly taps the LVDS GPU output to drive a 6bit LVDS display.
There must be something going on if the WXGA and WSXGA+ cables are not interchangeable, in theory the WXGA need only be single-channel, but I haven't had reason to look at the panel.

[TPFanatic]

@TwigletZone

I had forgotten about the resolutions. High resolution T500 and W500 are much more plentiful than high res R500. Many T500 come with 1680x1050 and many W500 are with 1920x1200.

There must be something going on if the WXGA and WSXGA+ cables are not interchangeable, in theory the WXGA need only be single-channel, but I haven't had reason to look at the panel.

The WXGA doesn't use/need as much data so in the cheap/cheapened laptops they save some cost by not equipping WXGA-laptops with extra unnecessary cabling.

[unixed]

LVDS doesn't work that way. For a 6-bit panel the only way you can change the number of twisted pairs is to have either 1 channel (so the X61 has a 20 pin panel connector, for example) or 2 (the T61 has a 30 pin panel connector). Unfortunately I can't immediately find the list of WXGA panels used in the R500 to check.

Update:

• 13N7016 42T0486 42T0323 Samsung LTN154X3-L02
  42T0484 42T0607 LG-Philips LP154WX5

1 channel 6-bit.
So the R500 can drive either a 1 ch 6-bit or 2 ch 6-bit panel presumably in response to the EDID.

[deickos]

I've bought two R500s and dabbled with a free but problematic R61. Many used market R-series were used so minimally that they are practically mint condition, as both my R500s were.
The R500 construction is a little cheaper than T500, more ABS, none of the T500's CFRP. The plastics of both get brittle though, and there is still plenty of it in the T500. I think the R500 hinges hold up better than the T500.

can you use T500 hinges on a R500?

[ajkula66]

can you use T500 hinges on a R500?

No.

[deickos]

can you use T500 hinges on a R500?

No.

how about T60 hinges for R500?

[TPFanatic]

Only hinges that will work on R500 are those from R500 or R61 15.4".

[deickos]

Only hinges that will work on R500 are those from R500 or R61 15.4".

my R500's hinges are so loose the lid falls back - is there anything i can do to fix them?
(i also have those t500 and t6o hinges )

[ibrazhko]

This is an interesting thread, so I want to add some 2 cents from my experience.

I am actually working on a restoration project of a W500 - it's a great machine, once upgraded with an SSD, 8GB of RAM, and a decent CPU (P9600/P9700/T9900).

The reason I chose it over T500 is that I actually make use of the ATI V5700 - I occasionally play some old games like Rise of Nations or Company of Heroes, and this ATI card is much better than the integrated Intel 4500MHD.

I did not even consider R500 mostly because it is thicker and looks cheaper.

Now, speaking of screens it is very important to remember that all 1680*1050 and 1920*1200 screens that can fit into W500/T500/R500 are CCFL-based. In my case, I had a 1920*1200 Samsung panel - and it was ridiculously dim, almost unusable. Technically, it can be upgraded to LED backlight (which I did), but it is a real pain in the butt and produces visible halos in the bottom of the display. Also the LED strip I purchased from ICCFL unfortunately had some defective LEDs, which are not as bright as the rest and result in non-uniform backlight...

Unlike W500, T500 also came with a native LED 1280*800 panel - yes, the resolution sucks, but it is so much brighter!