Sharedoc (and anyone else who can help!):
I am trying to use your information to edit a ThinkPad 770Z CMOS in order to eliminate the 127 error on boot in that machine. Like you, I have replaced the original PII with a PIII, and I get a 127 error on boot. By pressing ESC, then F1, I can bypass the error and the OS will boot up fine. The L2 cache is not enabled at this point, but using a cache utility such as the PowerLeap utility you identified, I can enable the L2 cache and everything seems to work fine from that point on. So basically, I'm in almost the same situation as you were when you were working on this back in August 2003.
Unlike the 600E, however, the base memory on the motherboard of the 770Z is replaceable. I have replaced the original 64MB 66MHz memory chip with a 128MB 100MHz chip. This new, PC100 memory seems to work fine, BIOS tests on the memory indicate it is "OK", and monitoring utilities indicate it is running at 100MHz.
I don't know how far you got with your efforts to upgrade your 600E, but ALL I want to do is to eliminate the boot 127 error. If I can get rid of that, I think the 770Z will run just great. (It runs just great now, except that it displays that 127 error on boot up, so you have to type those extra keystrokes, but other than that everything appears to work as it should).
I see that I can get into a CMOS editing mode on my ThinkPad through the Easy-Setup Config, but I am leary of making edits to my CMOS. Indeed, I probably shouldn't be in this forum at all, as I barely understand the difference between bits and bytes. Nevertheless, I think that the 600E and the 770Z are actually pretty similar machines, and I am considering trying to edit my Base 128 CMOS the same way you edited yours in order to remove the 127 error.
What exactly should be my process for this? Once I make the change to the CMOS, do I need to use the "Initialize" function from the Config menu? Before rebooting? Do I need to make some other change so that the CMOS checksum is the same after I edit the CMOS as it is now? Do I need to make the identical changes in the Base 114 CMOS copy that is also available through the Config hex editor?
And how exactly do I figure out which byte to change? In the System Configuration Edit Utility for the Base 128 CMOS, I see a grid like this:
--- 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00
10
20 *
30
40
50
60
70
There are two hexadecimal entries in each spot. Those are each bytes, with each set of two characters representing a series of 7 or 8 off/on bits, is that right? The value of the byte at the location marked with an asterisk is currently "02". From what I can gather out of my ignorance, I figure that is byte 20, and since I currently have the same value as you originally had, I am guessing that if I change that byte to 0A, then I might have a vague, distant hope of disabling the L2 cache or something so that the POST won't issue the 127 error any longer.
That small change seems like even I could do it, but then what else do I need to do before rebooting?
Any advice or warnings you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.
Phil.
