IBM Thinkpad 600E bios mod for processor update

[fje]

Greetings from Spain !

I started to do my homework for upgrading my old but valuable 600E.

1.- First thing I did was to have a read to this full thread... Ufff, finally I did, and collected what I felt were the most important posts for the work to be done.

Congratulations and many many many thanks to all those that contributed over these more than 5 years, specially SHAREDOC that had the initial idea of which most of us (hopefully I'm including myself) have profited.

This is also a demostration that many times to keep with "old things", even against the "desires/orders" of one's wife , gives back some compensations... I'll also look to resuffle my old Spectrum !!!

2.- I already ordered and have on the way to my hands (15 days to wait ?) a PIII 600Mhz MMC-2 processor (unfortunately 650 not found in eBay, or found too late, when the 600 one was already won). I'm also looking in eBay for 256 SDRAM memories to goto 512M (today I'm on 256+32Mb).

3.- My 600E is a 2645-550, BIOS IHET47WW, so I presume it will not automaticaly go to 100MHz, so I feel I will have to do the "forcing 100MHz" hardware change, unsolding pin 25 of the clock generator and linking it to pin 48 with a 1K resistor. Right ?

4.- As I'll try to do the less hardware changes (I have some experience but lack of appropiate tools and GILF is totally right in saying it is a work to be done very very very carefully), I'll do the FSB 108 but I'll not do the SpeedStep one

5.- I have read several times about using "Artic silver", but also that the processor whould come with the heatsink, so, where to use the Artic silver, in putting again the processor fan over the heat sink?

As soon as I have the hardware in my hands I will be updating this valuable forum with my coin of experiences.

regards again

[fje]

As I said, I'm looking for 256Mb memories and I found in eBay a vendor that sells them, but looking to the picture it includes, I found that even it is marked with a label saying "low density", the card only has 8 chips per side, so I asked him:

"Hi, you claim the related item is "low density" memory (which is needed for a Thinkpad 600E, for instance), but the the item in the picture you include seems to have 4 chips per side (even in the label it is written "low density") and, as far as I know, the "low density" 256MB memories have 8 chips per side... Please, could you clarify?"

And he answered:

"These are 8 chip, but are built with 16 bit chips. 16 chip modules are built with 8 bit chips, so these chips are addressed twice and read as 16 chip low density. "

Does this make sense? I am not knowledgeable enough of technology. Will they work on our 600E?

Thanks !

[clarence]

Fje

If you look into some earlier posts in this topic you will find that there are posts pointing to Crucial's configurator advising memory for Thinkpad 600e that appears to be 8 chips total for both sides however the advice was that if Crucial guarantees it it would work because they know what they are doing and you are protected by their guarantee. It could be that the memory design as in your post is similar to Crucial's product that enables a total of 8 chip modules to be still low density.

However, you are not dealing with Crucial, so you should ask your vendor specifically about compatibility with your Thinkpad 600e model and buy only if you are satisfied about the return/refund terms he offers in case they still do not work. If not, look at the Micron/Crucial websites for parts noted in my earlier post. They work in my Thinkpad 600e 2645-4AA however you may need to take a safer route and look for 100MHz memory only, rather than 133MHz (100MHz compliant) memory as in my post because:

Your Thinkpad 600e must first function at 100MHz FSB stable. As you said, as you have an older 600e, you may need to mod your motherboard to accomplish that for your actual motherboard. Posts show that members with older 600es have had more problems with faster/larger memory including that they have had to disable the on board 32MB.

[fje]

Clarence, thanks.

I asked the vendor for the part number of the memories, and here is his answer:

"It is a part that we build. There is no manufaturer part number to research. If it does not work, you can send it back for a refund"

Anyway, as you said, I'll wait for having the processor and the 600E working on 100MHz stable, and then will go for the memories...

Regards.

[clarence]

Fje

I refer to your earlier post point 3:

3.- My 600E is a 2645-550, BIOS IHET47WW, so I presume it will not automaticaly go to 100MHz, so I feel I will have to do the "forcing 100MHz" hardware change, unsolding pin 25 of the clock generator and linking it to pin 48 with a 1K resistor. Right ?

You are probably going to proceed in the following direction anyway, however for what it is worth I will put in my advice. I believe you should first replace the processor with your PIII 600MHz and test if the mb switches automatically to 100MHz, because after all, it may switch anyway as the hardwired 66 MHz mbs appear to be specific cases rather than tied to older model numbers. Only if it remains at 66MHz you may then attempt the hardware mod.

[fje]

Clarence,

yes, indeed, this is what I'll do. In fact, as I said, I'll try to do the less "hardwaring" changes as possible.

Question is... As I feel that the memories I have just now installed (the onboard 64Mb and two additional 128Mb) are 66MHz, will I be able to detect with PLeap, for example, that the mb changed to 100MHz?

I feel I can answer myself, recalling some of the previous posts and some aditional I did read in the past days. If the processor gets the 500MHz speed that theoritically it can get, the mb is working at the desired 100MHz. If the processor only gets 330MHz the mb is working at only 66MHz. Am I right?

As soon as I have the processor I'll be putting here my experiences.

regards.

[clarence]

Fje
Yes you are right. Also, you can run CPUz and actually see in its output all the details of the memory speeds as well, in addition to the CPU speed.

[fje]

Well, here I am.

I just got yesterday the processor and had to wait till today to start the operation....

Opened the thinkpad following the IBM Maintenance manual. Not difficult till the moment of having the keyboard out.... it is not easy, but finally I did it.

I took out the old processor, unscrewed the fan, put some silver, screwed the fan and put the processor over the connector in the mainboard...

It didn't worked.... Tried with the old one... same result... Did I any mistake ? Tried again, this time screwing all the screws.... It worked !!! Problem seems to be probably related to ground conection.... It is probably done thru the screws and so, all of them should be put in place.

But now I had two problems.

1.- Keyboard doesn't want to come back to its place.... Found ! It is the top cover of the PCMCIA gate. It came down the keyboard and had to be taken out again... that's OK, keyboard comes to its place...

2.- Screen doesn't work. Well, it seems to get power and some signals, because it gives some kind of "flashes" some times, but no line of text appears on it.

Fortunately I have an external monitor that I connected to the 600E and found the expected "127"

Corrected the BIOS (I'm one of the ones that doesn't have a "02" in the 20 possition, I have a "00", so I changed it to "80" and everything works now.... Windows XP goes up again, it seems to discover everything new, starting with the display card (logic), but also PCI interface and some other things... drivers are installed and here are the results of CPUz and PowerLeap CPU:

3.- PowerLeap CPU Control:

CPU Speed: 329
Clock: 5
Bus: 65,80
FSB: 100.00 MHZ

4.- CPUz:

Processor: Pentium III 500 MHz (It is supposed to be a 600MHz and in fact the code includes the "600" characters in the code string) ???
Core Speed: 330,9
Multiplier: 5.0
Bus: 66.2

Memory
SDRAM 66.2

Then here my questions come:

a.- From the results of PowerLeap and CPUz I feel I'm one of the "fortunates" that have one of such old motherboards that do not change to 100MHhz and I'll have to do the "hardwiring" patch to have it working and the desired speed... Correct ?

b.- Why CPUz is reporting Pentium III 500 MHZ if the processor is 600MHz? (the code in the card is 600 as I said)

c.- What could be the problem with the display now (same result if I put back the old processor) ? Is it something I can try to have it working again? As I said, there are some "flashes" in the screen but no characters, no graphics, nothing to read....

I'm now requesting new memories, but I'd like before following the upgrading your oppinions regarding my questions.

Thanks !

[clarence]

Fje

There are experts with far too much more knowledge than me on this forum so I hope they will answer some of your more difficult problems particularly the screen however here are a few basic observations:

1. Bios Hex Edit:The value in byte 20 is recommended to be changed as follows:
TPs with original value of 02 to 0A.
TPs with original value of 00 to 08 although 0A has worked for some people.
Your post says you changed it to 80 which may be causing a problem but it may be just a typo in your post. Please refer to Pkiff's post on Page 52.

2. CPUz processor speed reading of 500MHz for a processor which is nominally 600MHz: This is consistent. CPUz reports the maximum workable frequency which without the speedstep mod will be 500 for a 600MHz processor. I put in an 850 and it reports 700.

By the way, I have still not found any conclusive answer to the heatsink gap problem for the 600e in this forum. In my case because I found a thermal pad on the original heatsink which was in pristine condition, no melting or damage at all, and because it slipped off the old processor card's plate easily, I just retained it and it is working fine with the 850MHz processor running at 700MHz. Temps are generally 35 C idle to 45 C ordinary web browsing work to 58 C working hard. They were higher when working hard (about 70 C at full load) before I changed video colour to 16 bit from 24 bit. I used no paste because of the large gap and all my reading shows that thermal paste should be applied only in a very thin layer otherwise it acts as a poor conductor of heat. Of course I would like still lower temperatures so I am wondering if I should somehow procure a thin polished copper plate about 2 cm X 2CM X 1.5mm, coat both sides with thermal paste and replace the heatpad with it.

Interestingly, I also did a 600X with an 850MHz processor and noticed that there is no gap in a 600X because the fan assembly plate has a protruding part which meets the processor cover plate leaving little gap. So IBM does seem to have corrected the gap problem while designing the 600X. Even here the original coating (looked like thermal tape but could be compound) was in such pristine condition and had a stickiness about it that looked fine, that I just retained it, did not wipe it clean or put new paste, and the TP is working fine in the same temperature ranges at 700MHz.

I am interested in what you did. Did you fill the gap with paste or did you just put a thin layer of paste while retaining the old thermal pad (again, I have read that paste should not be applied together with a pad, but I have also read that some people have done it and have no problems!)

[fje]

Fje

1. Bios Hex Edit:The value in byte 20 is recommended to be changed as follows:
TPs with original value of 02 to 0A.
TPs with original value of 00 to 08 although 0A has worked for some people.
Your post says you changed it to 80 which may be causing a problem but it may be just a typo in your post. Please refer to Pkiff's post on Page 52.

Yes, typo error. I put 08. Thanks anyway for the correction.

2. CPUz processor speed reading of 500MHz for a processor which is nominally 600MHz: This is consistent. CPUz reports the maximum workable frequency which without the speedstep mod will be 500 for a 600MHz processor. I put in an 850 and it reports 700.

This what I was suspecting... so, no problem there...

I am interested in what you did. Did you fill the gap with paste or did you just put a thin layer of paste while retaining the old thermal pad (again, I have read that paste should not be applied together with a pad, but I have also read that some people have done it and have no problems!)

I found the heatsink with what I think should be the "thermal pad", and I was not aware of any recomendation of not putting any paste with a pad. On the contrary I had very bad experiences changing heatsinks without putting some thermal paste.

So, I put some (always too much and I had to do some cleaning later on) paste on top of the processor metal plate and then the heatsink as it was (with the thermal pad). I didn't do any temperature measurement, but, for the time being everything related with the processor seems to work OK.

As soon as I do the 100MHz hardware patch I'll put here my experience. Regarding the memories, I'm still looking for them.

In the meantime, if any one could help with the screen/display problem will be very welcomed.

Regards.

[KevP]

A word of warning when doing the "Speedstep" hardware mod:

The Intel docs state that some lower models ('AA' - 600mhz, 650mhz) have a different layout and voltage to the latter models. I have come to the conclusion these CPUs handle the speedstep circuit differently (from posts by another person on this thread and my own experience). I modded two separate 650mhz's and both stay stuck at 500mhz.

The models that don't work are:

PMM60002001AA
PMM65002001AA

I have the original datasheet for the PIII MMC-2 specification so if anyone wants a crack at working on this one, let me know.

[fje]

KevP:

Thanks for the info regarding the speedstep.... Anyway, this is the mod that I didn't plan to do. I'll have to do the "force 100MHz" and then, which is a bit difficult due to the pin 25 unsolding that has to be done, and, having the processor card out, I'll also do the FSB to 108MHz patch. Both of them have some additional risk for not doing any electrical contact with the resistors. I'll use 1/8w resistors that are pretty small, and will cover the cables, but anyway the risk is there.

I feel those two are the minimum needed for having my 600E working a bit better with Windows XP (and 512Mb of RAM, of course), and will not take the risk of the speedstep that, having a 600MHz PIII (which code I feel is exactly one of the ones you refer to) will not add too much performance.

On the other hand, regarding my display problem:

2.- Screen doesn't work. Well, it seems to get power and some signals, because it gives some kind of "flashes" some times, but no line of text appears on it.

Fortunately I have an external monitor that I connected to the 600E and found the expected "127"

c.- What could be the problem with the display now (same result if I put back the old processor) ? Is it something I can try to have it working again? As I said, there are some "flashes" in the screen but no characters, no graphics, nothing to read....

and having found and read this:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=61413

I feel that I was not carefull enough when I put back the keyboard in the 600E and I damaged the display right cable , and will have to replace it. Anyway, as it still works with the external monitor and this is the way I plan to have it, I will go on with the processor and memory update and once finished this process I'll buy a new cable and put my hands on it...

Regards.

[fje]

Well, today, having all the morning and a good light, I decided to follow with the upgrade.

The two things I had planned to do were the hardware modification for having my very old motherboard giving the 100MHz and, having the laptop opened, also the FSB to 108MHz mod.

I went till taken out the CPU MMC2 board and tried to find the two places to do the modifications. After some time (the motherboard is slightly different to the ones in the pictures I found in the forum), I was able to find where the capacitor and the resistor of the FSB to 108MHz were.... But no way to find where the IMI SG577 clock generator circuit is.

Looking again to the different posts and info related to this mod I could find, I feel to have read something like "take off the motherboard....".

Does this imply that the IMI SG577 circuit is in the "back/lower" side of the motherboard, in the opposite side to the MMC2 connector, and that I will have to full take it out of the laptop (with all the things that have to be taken out before it)...?

Please, can anyone confirm it? I'll put some PM and mails to try to confirm, but if anyone could urgently reply in this thread to me will be very much appreciated. I don't want to do all the work of fully taking out the motherboard and related things (with the risk of breaking something it implies) without the confirmation I have to do it.

Sharedoc, you put time ago some posts about this issue, are you still there ?

Thanks so much to everyone.

Javier

[gilf]

Sorry about the infrequency of replies here -- I've had an ill family member the last couple months.

As a suggestion about the video problem fje, it may be a cable problem, or possibly the cable connector isn't seated properly. In one laptop I had (non-IBM) there were two screen connectors at either end of the cable -- one was under tape. That one had come loose, but I couldn't see it until I removed the tape.

Or you may have a bad light tube -- LCD screens are lit by a long thin flourescent light tube (backlight) usually located at the bottom of the screen and they do go bad after a long time and/or can be dmaged by mis-handling. They can be purchased on ebay.

Sometimes you can tell it's the backlight if you hold the dark screen up to a light source and move it around -- if you can see what would normally be on the screen, very faintly in a sight difference in the grey, while viewing near a strong light at an angle, your LCD is actually working, but the backlight is out. This narrows down your trouleshooting.

re. the 500 mhz vs 600 mhz problem -- I think this is normal -- can't remember for sure -- until you do the hardware mods and do the deep sleep thing.

re motherboard component locations. There are a number of different versions of the parts and locations for different series motherboards -- I printed out a bunch of the jpegs various people did of their boards found on these forum pages, plus those I found on other sites. I then compared our two 600E motherboards and did the mods based on the photos. Our two thinkpads were different inside and required different mods.

re. my memory problem -- still haven't cured it, but just added another stupid complication for my poor Thinkpad -- I cracked the LCD. This had nothing to do with the mods -- just accidentally leaned too hard on the top of the TP while closed. So now I really need a new one -- no point in trying to fix this one -- though I'm actually typing this on it -- around the cracks!

I think I'll use it again though. I'll put the old PII back in, give it the old 128K memory, leave the cracked screen in place, and just use it as a CNC driver computer. Probably will use TurboCNC.

The other possibility would be to use it as a low current draw router using Coyote Linux. While CL normally requires a desktop, I was in contact with a guy who had made some modifications to use a laptop.

You can google TurboCNC and Coyote Linux if interested, The version ot TurboCNC I have is the old free DOS/Pascal version -- I've used it before on an autosampling machine I once built for a spectrophotometer.

Anyway, glad to see there's still activity on this remarkable thread.

[fje]

Gilf, thanks for your answer. I also need some time to put my updates to the forum for the opposite reason, I need some one of my family helping me to "put my hands" in my old 600E...

Or you may have a bad light tube -- LCD screens are lit by a long thin flourescent light tube (backlight) usually located at the bottom of the screen and they do go bad after a long time and/or can be damaged by mis-handling. They can be purchased on ebay.

Sometimes you can tell it's the backlight if you hold the dark screen up to a light source and move it around -- if you can see what would normally be on the screen, very faintly in a sight difference in the grey, while viewing near a strong light at an angle, your LCD is actually working, but the backlight is out. This narrows down your trouleshooting.

Dont´t think it is the backlight, as I'm able to see the "ghost light" on the corners of the LCD, that I suppose is the backlight working. I'm feeling that it is the right hand side cable, as I pressed it one of the times I was putting back the keyboard in place.

re motherboard component locations. There are a number of different versions of the parts and locations for different series motherboards -- I printed out a bunch of the jpegs various people did of their boards found on these forum pages, plus those I found on other sites. I then compared our two 600E motherboards and did the mods based on the photos. Our two thinkpads were different inside and required different mods.

This is my main issue at this moment. Do you (or any other one) have a general picture of the motherboard where I could see where the clock circuit (IMI SG755) is? Or at least could you or anyone describe the location of it? Main question is: upside of the motherboard (where the MMC2 connector is) or downside (hidden if you don't fully take out the motherboard) of the motherboard ? I took out the MMC2 board and was not able to find it , is it hidden by any other component ?

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

Javier