IBM Thinkpad 600E bios mod for processor update

fje,

Clock generator chip is on the backside of the motherboard, so you need to remove the screws, hdd and the display driver small board and cable first to get mainboard out the chassis.

Sharedoc, thanks.... you gave me the answer I was afraid to get I will follow the IBM support manual (that says to full remove also the display itself and the PCMCIA) in order to do the things in the most right way....

problem is that I'm not sure I'll be able to do it this week. I'll post in this thread the results when done.

Thanks again !

Javier

Hey everyone.

Again I wanted to thank everyone for all the insight. I wanted to give a quick update on the L2 Cache Grub problem I was having. It seemed that the fix only worked in Ubuntu variant distros, but I figured out why. Once you make the mod to the grub folder, you lose the grub image and so it dumps you out into the grub> prompt. To fix this I modded the distro I am now using PCFluxboxOS with the line "hiddenmenu" just above the tpad in the menu.lst. This solved the problem and this 500Mhz/256MB flies. It also enables it perfectly on the XP lite side of the dual boot... so again thanks for the help, and hopefully this helps others.

My next question is an old one. I have a 600X thats been upgraded from a 450 to a 750mhz. It was born without speedstep and the new chip has it. I've successfully been running the laptop after changing the CPU driver in XP, but have never had much success in linux. I'm trying to revisit the issue and looking for a similar mod to disable speedstep either through the grub or kernel or something. When PCLinuxOS is up and running, everything is fine, but its during boot that I have to do an acpi action (Fn-F2) to keep it loading. This happens once every 10 boots or so on the XP side, but everytime for linux.

Does anyone know any programs that'll let me disable it, or successfully bypass it?

I appreciate any help.

brokencase,
Sorry, no experience on T30.

If socket is the same, you can try different processors but the result is lottery...

Yes, sharedoc, the clock circuit was in "the other side" of the mainboard as you told me.

I finally had today the time (and courage) enough for doing the hardware modification to my "very old" 600E to have it working at a clock speed of 100MHz and.... it works !!!!

I thought for a while in doing also the FSB to 108MHz mod, but the resistor I have (1/8watt) is too big for putting it under the MMC2 board and, aditionally, the solder I have, being small, it is not the appropiate for the places that have to be solded the resistor.

So, I'll stay with my 100MHz and now waiting for the new memories to come to my hands in the coming days (hopefully).

After the Speed- Step and FSB mod (my 4AU) runs great at 652mhz w/108fsb.(thanks Sharedoc) The PowerLeap CPU Control Panel works perfectly. (thanks again) The difficult part was cutting the foil.
Is there a detailed description or photos of this process? and
Is there a list of notebooks with MMC-2 cpu?

After the Speed- Step and FSB mod (my 4AU) runs great at 652mhz w/108fsb.(thanks Sharedoc) The PowerLeap CPU Control Panel works perfectly. (thanks Holgi) The difficult part was cutting the foil.
Is there a detailed description or photos of this process? and
Is there a list of notebooks with MMC-2 cpu?

Yes, there is.... several links in this thread to urls with pictures or drawings of the mainboard and where and how to do it. Maybe if you search for "FSB" and "pictures" or "photos" you can find it.

http://www.katch.dsl.pipex.com/mtb/mods.htm and http://kihwal.fayoly.net/600e/upgrade.html have good guides with photos and pictures for it.

The main problem is not only the photos but the correct (mini solder) tool for doing it...

Rgds.

Thank you for the link (http://kihwal.fayoly)< there is some good info there.
It seems that the ModthePad site katch had up is unavailable.
How deep should the foil trace be cut into? I cut into the foil a little to deep i think.
This is the part i found the most difficult.
It is hard to determine which notebooks came with 600-850mhz MMC-2s.
Is there a list that would make finding CPUs possible? Such a list
would keep good MMC-2 processors from being scrapped.

SqueakyPC: I cannot help you on that. I didn't do the ref change, so I didn't cut the foil. Surely some other one of the very helpful people on thi sforum can help you.

Now my problem:

As I already said, I changed the processor to a 600MHz one and did the 100MHz hardware change (I need to do it to force the 100MHz). The problem since then is that I very often get BSODs or the laptop hungs. That kind of errors I got time ago in a desktop and were due to temperature problems in the processor or in some other circuit of the computer.

The first thing I did is to have now the 600E "bottom-up" - my display doesn't work, I feel I dammaged the right side display cable in one of the openings of the keyboard, so I'm using an external display, then the way the laptop is possitioned in the table doesn't mind...

This makes the bottom side less warm-hot, and the error less often, but even so some times the error comes. So my questions:

1.- Is there any way to have the fan working at a higher speed different to the one of connecting a diode between the "big capacitor" and the fan connector that some one suggested ?

2.- I don't remember where exactly the resistor between the pins 21 and 40 of the clock generator finally fitted, but I feel it could be too close to some chip and if getting warm influencing the stability of that chip and, thus, the general stability. If possible I wouldn't like to again totally disassembly the laptop. Does anyone have a picture of the circuit area close to the clock generator chip (or any link to pictures) where I could find which chip could the resistor be "offending" ? If the reason can be that one, I'm ready to again disassemble it and re-position the resistor.

Thanks so much

FJE i have read many of your posts and have to ask:
Are you sure that your MB even needs the 100mhz mod?
Also; is it safe to assume that you have set the display properties
on the TP lcd to there lowest setting?
My 4AU would not display it had for some reason default
to the highest resolution. One more thing what if you set
the bios to boot from CD, remove the hard drive, and boot Linux?
(Puppy or DSL perhaps). It ran fine on the 600e after the mods when
windows would not run. I wish i could help you more.
Good luck with your machine.

SqueakyPC, thanks for your post. Let me answer some of your comments:

Are you sure that your MB even needs the 100mhz mod?

Yes, I am. In fact before I did it, both cpuZ and Powerleap reported processor speed of 233MHZ (as before changing the processor), after I did the mod, they report 500MHz.... Reason is my 600E seems to be one of the earliest ones...

Also; is it safe to assume that you have set the display properties
on the TP lcd to there lowest setting?
My 4AU would not display it had for some reason default
to the highest resolution. One more thing what if you set
the bios to boot from CD, remove the hard drive, and boot Linux?
(Puppy or DSL perhaps). It ran fine on the 600e after the mods when
windows would not run

I don't think it is a problem of display properties settings. Even before doing any of the mods (even with the old processor) the problem was there, and I remember that the first time I was putting back the keyboard, I didn't put attention enough to the cable and it was damaged...

Thanks for your good wishes.

I tried twice, the eBay vendor is a very good one and exchage me the first ones they sent, but same result. Now they are refunding me the full selling price...

He tells me that my 600E model 2645-550 DOES NOT accept 256Mb memories, only 128 ones as maximum. But I feel to have read some one with the same model to be succesfull installing 256Mb ones.

Is there anyone that could confirm to me that 2645-550 is able to run with 256Mb memories? If yes, which brand or part number has been used?

Thanks so much

Javier

Hi - my 600X has given up. Since I have to rework the machine anyhow. I'm exploring upgrade capabilities.

The system is 2645-5FG, 500MHz P III M
SDRAM 576 MBytes FSB 100 MHz (1:1)
BIOS Version ITET55WW
BIOS Date 11/30/1999

Q1 Which processor with max speed would fit in the existing socket and which modifications do I need to make (BIOS, anything else...)?

Q2 What is the max. amount of memory that fits in the system?

Any recommendations highly welcome.

The system is 2645-5FG, 500MHz P III M

You don't have a PIII M, but a regular old PIII "mobile" in an "MMC-2" form factor. A Pentium "M" is a different thing. The max processor is a PIII 850MHz in an MMC-2 form factor., which is the fastest that Intel made in that form factor. It is a straight swap, but the 850MHz chips are hard to get at a reasonable price, so you may end up choosing a 750MHz or 800MHz instead. And anything faster than a 500MHz (including even the 650MHz) is a SpeedStep-enabled CPU, whereas your motherboard is currently using a non-SpeedStep CPU. So after you install it, you may find that it will only run at 150MHz less than the SpeedStep max -- this is the SpeedStep "stepped down" speed (so 850 runs at 700, 650 runs at 500). You may be able to do some hardware mod on the MMC-2 module and then use the DeepSleep module that others are using for the 600E, but I don't actually have any experience with that and am unclear on how much testing has been done of that config on the 600X. The 600X is not the same as the 600E, so be careful when following any instructions in this thread.

What is the max. amount of memory that fits in the system? [....] SDRAM 576 MBytes FSB 100 MHz (1:1)

You've got the max memory installed in there right now.

Phil.