IBM Thinkpad 600E bios mod for processor update

[ravenman]

hi ,i have Thinkpad 600E also ,i using original Pentium II/400Mhz processor,i would like change voltage up for succesfull overclock to 600 Mhz (clock generator mod for 100 MHZ), its possible mod some voltage regulators in cpu card or thinkpad 600e board ??

[gilf]

Why do you need to modify the voltage?

[ravenman]

because mobile Pentium II/400MHz does not work on 600 Mhz after change bus to 100Mhz

[gilf]

And you believe that changing the processor voltage will allow it to work at 600 Mhz?

[ravenman]

now i dont ,am broke display yesterday ..ahh ,

[gilf]

Sorry to hear that. Those connectors are delicate, and are a tight fit in the back of the case. Unless you mean you broke the screen itself.

Used old Thinkpads aren't very expensive these days, so maybe you can get one for parts with a good screen from Ebay.

You can also still use the computer as a desktop if you connect a monitor.

Or if you're on a network and running a virtual terminal program access it from another machine that way. I use Tight VNC with Puppy Linux to run a 600e with a cracked screen as a backup file server. It can also be used to dialup as a gateway using the modem.

Lots of uses for even a damaged laptop. They have an automatic onboard UPS, in the form of a battery when used as a server. They're very reliable actually in that role.

[ravenman]

yes correct , this is best solution for some home networking server roles with low consuption power. I have one question for you about his mobile Pent 2/400Mhz ,are they some choices for unlock multiplier ? (cabling module pinouts or other ) ,i want maxed out frequency at least 500 Mhz ,its possible ?

[gilf]

Sorry, I don't know.

Is there some reason you don't want to go the Pent 3 mod route?

That's the whole point of this thread.

[Sharedoc]

Ravenman,
My experience is that PII-400MHz processor is such a bad overclocker so it does not pay to even try.

So I would recommend to invest to go buy a PIII processor which is significant performance boost and also overclocks.

[kurgan]

This is probably one of the most awesome threads I have run across in a long time. I recently upgraded a 600E with a PIII 650 and 512 megs of ram. Naturally I had to get rid of the 127 error, easy enough. I run Fedora 12 XFCE with wmarcusm's deepsleep l2cache module to enable the L2 cache. I am a bit confused though. I am not entirely sure the L2 cache is actually getting enabled. As I said, I am using wmarcusm's kernel module at the moment, and I have also tried the grub binaries (pre-built) from http://kihwal.fayoly.net/600e/ both of them display the same results in /proc/cpuinfo. The x86info utility shows the cache at 256k using both methods, but not /proc/cpuinfo. I have also tried running cachebench from the Xfbsuite here http://freshmeat.net/projects/fbsuite/. Unfortunately cachebench leads me to believe the cache is 32k just as /proc/cpuinfo does. Does anyone know of a valid way of ensuring the L2 cache is indeed enabled in *nix?

The other issue is dvd/flash playback. Needless to say even at 500mhz it is kind of sluggish. Has anyone else seen this problem, and how have you fixed it? I have thought about performing the speedstep mod to run it at the full 650mhz, but I don't want to do that if it's not going to help with the video playback issues.

Thanks again for a highly informative thread!

[Sharedoc]

L2 contributes a significant performance difference. So run some bechmark without setting L2 on and then with L2 on.
I recommend to do the SpeedStep mod to get best performance for video playback.

[Ripa Rapa]

Does anybody have working link to: pIIIcache2.6.tar.gz ?
I can only find the kernel 2.4.x version and but that does not work with Ubuntu 9.10 which I'm running.
My old hd was corrupted and I'm not sure if have stored the file else where.

Othervice this old laptop still works great

[Ripa Rapa]

Answering my own question. I was able to copy the needed files from old HD and I'm now running Ubuntu 9.10 with L2 cache. Ubuntu 9.10 is quite nice as it fairly light and starts faster than older linux distros. Everything seems to work without any adjustments. Only thing I need to check is how many colours I'm using; probably too many.

EDIT: Sound driver does not load correctly by default (Ubuntu 9.10) as was the case on earlier versions as well. After some changes the driver seems to load but something is missing; no sound. Maybe something that could be solved with correct acpi settings?

EDIT2: Problem solved. After adding "pnpbios=off acpi=off" to the /etc/default/grub (Ubuntu 9.10 specific location) and running update-grub and rebooting the sound works.

[beatoem]

yes correct , this is best solution for some home networking server roles with low consuption power. I have one question for you about his mobile Pent 2/400Mhz ,are they some choices for unlock multiplier ? (cabling module pinouts or other ) ,i want maxed out frequency at least 500 Mhz ,its possible ?

you best bet is the p11 300-333 if you want the machine to post,to sucessfully modify the p11 cpu from 66 to 100 fsb,you must do the resistor mod on the pinout side of the cpu.to find out more look back to previous pages on this thread.
you ought be beable to boot into windows with a p11300@450mghz +boot into the bios only with a 366@550mghz stock voltage cpus.
there are also some refferences as to how to increase the voltages of mmc2 p11 cpus,on previous pages of this thread.

[Sharedoc]

Back with Thinkpad 600E laptops after some years. I just moved to a new appartment and need to rethink the home network.

I have two 600E's who have been unused for a year in outside cold storage room. First one booted ok but the second one has drained the CMOS battery and has lost all CMOS and clock data and there are small dead spots on the display.

About two and a half years ago I installed Ubuntu but I need to upgrade to newest version. Need to work on soundcard still.
Also need to think how to connect to a home network...