IBM Thinkpad 600E bios mod for processor update

[edwin]

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

[edwin]

that won't work on an 16GB SSD in the Acer One 110 either which is weird because they deliver them with XP somehow... That is why I switched to Ubuntu. It is at times like these you can see XP is 9 years old.

I postpone XP installation for the time being. Propably I come back later when I have more time to read about embedded XP installation on CF.

Now installing Ubuntu to get the home server running to measure power consumption when running on CF.

[cp]

can you measure the disk read performance for the kingston cf? hdparm -tT /dev/... will do

Ordered a cheap Transcend 133X 4GB CF card that should report "fixed", so that it should imitate IDE disk better than Kingston 8GB which reports "removable".
Hopefully it will allow XP finally to install and boot...

Kingston 8GB Compact Flask

$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 272 MB in 2.01 seconds = 135.12 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 68 MB in 3.07 seconds = 22.15 MB/sec


$ x86info -mhz
x86info v1.17. Dave Jones 2001-2005
Feedback to <davej@redhat.com>.
Found 1 CPU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Found unknown cache descriptors: 1 2 3 4 8 12 130
Family: 6 Model: 8 Stepping: 3 Type: 0 Brand: 2
CPU Model: Pentium III-M (Coppermine) [cB0] Original OEM
Feature flags:
fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
L1 Instruction cache:
Size: 16KB 4-way associative.
line size=32 bytes.
L1 Data cache:
Size: 16KB 4-way associative.
line size=32 bytes.
L2 unified cache:
Size: 256KB 8-way associative.
line size=32 bytes.
Instruction TLB: 4KB pages, 4-way associative, 32 entries
Instruction TLB: 4MB pages, fully associative, 2 entries
Found unknown cache descriptors: 1 2 3 4 8 12 130
Data TLB: 4KB pages, 4-way associative, 64 entries
Data TLB: 4MB pages, 4-way associative, 8 entries
600MHz processor (estimate).

TP600E home server's P3 processor 450@300 @0.90Vcore is generating heat so little that I am considering to eliminate the processor cooler fan in order to reduce noise and dust accumulation.

However, motherboard is monitoring fan rotation, so there needs to be a "live" tach signal (5 volt square wave) to keep motherboard happy. How to generate this signal? 555 timer IC?

http://www.petervis.co.cc/cpu%20fan%20t ... tacho.html

Since I have cannot use Kingston 8GB CF module on the TP600E home server, I decided to take it into use in my other TP600E and install Ubuntu on it. This TP600 is used mainly for general purpose web browsing and email. I made following modifications to reduce writes to CF disk:

- disable swapping: added "swapoff -a" to /etc/modules
- noatime: added noatime attribute to /etc/fstab
- Firefox preferences-advanced-network--cache -> 0MB

I finally managed to get TP600E sound working by

sudo gedit /etc/modules add "snd-cs4232"
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf add "blacklist snd-cs46xx
blacklist cs46xx"

[cp]

the read speed looks quite promising for a 66MHz FSB system :)

btw.
you can use a single opamp to generate a square-signal, too.

FSB = 108MHz

Just for comparison same values using IBM 12GB 2.5" ATA disk DARA 212000

sharedoc@sharedoc-backoffice:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda
[sudo] password for sharedoc:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 246 MB in 2.01 seconds = 122.26 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 38 MB in 3.04 seconds = 12.50 MB/sec
sharedoc@sharedoc-backoffice:~$

[cp]

oops, i thought you were running a 66MHz FSB. anyway, still quite good for such an old system :)

Installed XP on Transcend 4GB 133X CF. Installation took 5 hours on TP600E @ 600MHz (L2 cache off).

It seems that TP600E is really slow in running on Transcend CF.

Home server based on Windows XP SP2 on TP600E P3 450@300MHz, 0.90Vcore, 3.12Vio 256MB RAM 4GB Transcend CF is now up and running.
To reduce writes to CF disk, I disabled swap, disabled indexing and compressed files.

Power consumption around 3W on full internet traffic. My power meter in not accurate on such low readings so I have to measure over longer time and use kWh measurement.

[edwin]

3W is less than half of what my modem/router consumes.

Bravo.

Experimenting with VMware player to install and run XP in virtual machine on 2GB USB stick running on Ubuntu on 8GB Kinston CF.