HP Omnibook XE3L

[LordWiz]

Hello

I've recently upgraded my HP Omnibook XE3L with a Pentium-III mobile CPU.
When I boot bios recognizes this CPU as a Pentium-III mobile 900 MHz, but it seems to lack support for speedstep?
This makes it run only 700 MHz when checking with CPU-Z etc. no matter the load... I've also tried various programs for controlling speedstep.. all of them leaves it at 700 MHz.
Now I'm curious.. I've seen other people add speedstep support to their BIOS'... But I'm not sure I'll be able to construct a bios that'll add support for speedstep without killing the board
Does anyone know where to get a bios with speedstep support for this PC? Or perhaps I can flash it with XE3 bios that does support speedstep?
According to CPU-Z I'm using a I440BX/ZX chipset...

Thanks!

[Sharedoc]

Modifying bios may be difficult but there is a hardware hack that could be used.

So you need to hack the processor multiplier input pin to force processor to select higher speed, and you need to install DeepSleep utility to activate the higher speed. Details can be found in

http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopi ... &start=435

[LordWiz]

Thanks for the reply, I've been doing some research on my own and it seems that there is support for speedstep... however the menu is 'missing' in the bios.
If you reboot say 10 times in a row and enter the bios each time, it'll eventually pop up and you'll be able to enable speedstep, but it seems it isn't properly saved
I've tried downgrading the bios but it didn't work so I upgraded again.
It isn't a unique case, I've read of at least 4 other people posting that they had the same problem, but noone has come up with an answer yet... I'll be back if I find out more...

[dw]

LordWiz, I'm in exactly the same situation. I think we have the same motherboard (n32n-733) except yours may be a GF and mine is a GC. Doesn't seem to matter tho.

What OS are you running? I'm betting it's not XP.

I have a feeling this all has something to do with ACPI, which reaches down and controls BIOS settings. I've tried changing settings in the registry, etc etc. Even clean-installed my OS (on a wiped-clean hdd), to no avail.

W2K needs the SpeedStep applet; XP supports SpeedStep but does not automatically enable it, hence the XP applet download is to enable SpeedStep. I use W2K and don't feel like spending the $ for XP in an attempt to get SS working.

HP support is no help.

HP never offered the Pavilion with Windows 2000, so that may be why it has problems with SpeedStep, since the engineers never had make sure it worked for that OS.

[LordWiz]

Hey

I sold the laptop now, in favour of one with a bigger screen.

It was a XE3-GC, and it was XP I was running, yeah XP was SUPPOSED to support speedstep natively but it didn't help on my XE3-GC.

Now the funny part is I had the EXACT same problem with my newly aquired XE3-GF until I biosupdated it even when I was running XP.
Now with the latest bios it runs perfect, I can even control it with speedstepXP to slow down when running on battery.

I think you are correct that the problem is with ACPI, I think ACPI was updated in the latest bios for XE3-GF, HP isn't too helpful on this matter though.

BTW I noticed something funny in the missing power menu that pops up from time to time in the bios, it has an option for disabling docking station, but XE3-GC doesn't have the port for a docking station, It seems that HP use the same bios for different models and just disable/enable some stuff in them depending on the model, I believe the power menu was never intended for the XE3-GF.

I pretty much gave up on the XE3-GC and replaced it with a XE3-GF which seems to have better support for SS, AND a more recent chipset

[Rekr]

All the GC notebooks use bios version 1.63 as the latest ones, the problem seems to be that the GCs that came with Penitum IIIs have the power menu enabled, while the GCs that came with celerons do not. Apparently there is some check in the BIOS that compares the notebook model and decides whether or not this menu should be present. For example all these notebokos, as well as the XE3-GC use the 1.63 bios-

n5420L Mobile Intel® Celeron™ processor at 800 MHz $ 1,249.00
n5310 Mobile Intel® Celeron™ processor at 750 MHz $ 1,349.00
n5340 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @800MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization $ 1,749.00
n5350 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @850MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization $ 1,899.00
n5390 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @850MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization $ 2,099.00
n5440 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @850MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization $ 1,699.00
n5450 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @850MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization $ 1,899.00
n5490 Mobile Intel® Pentium® III processor - M @850MHz featuring Intel® SpeedStep™ technology for battery life optimization


What we need to figure out is where this trigger is located and how to trick it into thinking that the notebook is supposed to have a Pentium II with speedstep, thus enabling the menu. Let's not give up on this I know a lot of people who have been trying to do this.

[dw]

Don't have time to try and find it right now, but I had run into an app on the HP site that was for something like changing the model number of the laptop, but that you 'shouldn't use it unless an HP tech told you to'.
I had considered using it, but never (until now) knew what model to change it to.

Sounds like just the ticket

[dw]

Hopefully someone can make one of HP's utilities work. I am not a coder, so don't know how to do that.

Maybe one of these programs can be changed to work, however many of HP's utilities are BIOS or machine-specific, thus limiting their use (to non-hackers).

"You can deploy customized BIOS settings with the Replicated Setup utility available in the Business Desktops BIOS Utilities":
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files ... 22616.html

In the above, repset.txt shows that you can set many or all settings in BIOS, including Product Name, ie "hp business pc d325".
.......
The next utility is for changing the OEM brand between HP Omnibook and HP Pavilion. As it exists, it ONLY does that--no option to change model number. But maybe a coder can change that?
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/foru ... dId=963112
......
Also, there is a utility for EVO that changes only that machine's model number. It only clarifies the model number by one charactor--you cannot input a model number. Find it by searching.
......
Lastly--and I don't have time right now to try it--inside of SSM (which I think only supports particular models, and apparently not mine) is the file biosconfigutility.exe
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp2800 ... P28117.exe

[dw]

Phoenix BIOS Editor Pro v2.0.18.e 2003
and
Phoenix BIOS Editor v 2.0 build 7 2002

both are demo versions, so are limited in functionality.

Get them near bottom of page here:
http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/en/main.html
and read the hints under the file links on that page.

I've been looking at ALL.ROM on the floppy bios flash program (1.63, 05/22/01) from HP, but want to copy my machine's cmos to see just what the settings are in that .rom.

[SurJector]

Phoenix BIOS Editor does not work for me, but I found that PhoenixDeco managed to decompress it. I've not tried anything besides yet.

SurJector

[dw]

SurJector, are you working on changing the logo only, or on changing the rom image values?

[SurJector]

I'm also trying to get SpeedStep to work on my XE3L. I've also found bios version GF.M1.14 that was hidden from view (I did not test it), and the famous brand.exe (in the middle of the page). Analyzing the floppy of brand.exe, I can see there is a 256 bytes EEPROM that contains (at byte offset 0x91=145) the branding byte. I've read the EEPROM and I can see at least part of the UUID of my laptop (between bytes 0xa0 and 0xaf). If the model number is stored somewhere and is modifiable, I bet it's in there. Where, though, I don't know ! It would be interesting to have a database of these eeproms on Celeron and Pentium-III laptops. To read it: remove or rename the autoexec.bat on the floppy created, at the DOS prompt type eeprom r 0 ff > eeprom.dmp and you get the dump.

Mine looks that way (slightly reformated):

Code: Select all

00: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
10: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
40: 00 00 00 00 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ....þ...........
50: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 b7 ca 9d bc   ...........(·Ê.¼
60: cc ef 5e fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 b7 fe   Ìï^þ.........(·þ
70: 9d bc cc ef 5e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   .¼Ìï^...........
80: 00 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   .þ..............
90: fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 fe   þ..............þ
a0: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx   ................
b0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 fe   ...............þ
c0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ......0.........
d0: 00 fe 00 00 00 00 00 41 00 00 00 00 00 fe 43 00   .þ.....A.....þC.
e0: 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 00 32 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ...C....2.......
f0: 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa   .......þ......Uª

byte 0x91=0 means omnibook, =2 means pavilion.

[SurJector]

Upgrade to GF.M1.14: it solves the problem (I suspect the PIII-M was not recognized by the BIOS in the first place). The procedure is straightforward, the English looks really strange to me (but much less than the French and the Italian !); don't be afraid: at the end of the procedure the notebooks turns off without warning (my heart sank when I saw that).
Hope this helps !
SurJector

[Rekr]

Your notebook uses the 1.14 Bios version whihc means it is a GF, my noteboko and I think D W's notebook are GC revisions and therefore use the 1.63 bios, GC uses the 440BX chipset and the GFs use the i830 chipsets, i'm pretty sure that flashing the 1.14 bios onto a GC will kill it.

[SurJector]

Flashing a GF BIOS in a GC notebook is probably a very bad idea (tm). I don't know whether there is a newer BIOS version that could solve the problem as it solved mine. The ftp site of hp is a little bit difficult to dig. I've found the answer in a forum.

I've not looked at the history of your notebooks. If there has never been a GC with a 1GHz PIII sold by HP, you might be out of luck: the procuessor has probably a different CPUID and the BIOS might not recognize it. If instead HP has sold GC's with PIII-M 1GHz, you need their BIOS and (eventually) the EEPROM where the model brand is stored (if there is a need for the model number to be changed).

Hope this helps,

SurJector