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Proper K6-2/III+ Recognition with Super 7 Toshiba Satellite

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:31 am
by Treppiede
Dear WimsBIOS Community,
me and a couple of fellow 1605CDS/1625CDT owners may really use your help here.

I own a Toshiba Satellite 1605CDS which is equipped with an ALi Chipset and Super Socket 7 platform (Phoenix BIOS). This unit came with a K6-2 450MHz, but there's a row of dip-switches on the mobo that allows a generous range of CPU settings to be made. I purchased and installed a K6-2+ 533MHz ACZ. BIOS sees it as a generic K5 and my FreeBSD install sees it as a regular K6-III.

It appears to work correctly, however I have been looking for a BIOS update that enables proper support of the AMD K6-2/III+ CPUs, because I am sure that a new BIOS would optimize its usage and take better advantage of its architecture.

I think I have looked pretty much everywhere for a custom BIOS, with no luck. There is a thread I started over at HardForum where me and a couple more enthusiasts are trying really hard to squeeze as much power as possible from our Laptops, and the BIOS situation seems to be the hardest obstacle. One of us even forced the BIOS flash with a ROM written for the European 1620CDS/1640CDT models which came equipped with native K6-2+ support, and although proper recognition in the BIOS was obtained, other issues arised and he had to reverse to the old BIOS.

Here are some useful links if you guys would like to help us:
Toshiba Europe Support Page
1620CDS/1640CDT BIOS Update (models equipped with K6-2+ CPU)
1605CDS/1625CDT BIOS Update (this is our BIOS, no support for K6-2/III+)
Forum thread where we discuss the situation in detail (scroll to the bottom)

We would immensely appreciate if one of you guys could give us a hand with packaging a custom BIOS that will recognize and put our K6-2/III+ to good use.
If other small options like USB Boot and the like are feasable, it would be an awesome addition.

Thank you in advance for any help!

Regards,

Walter

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:30 am
by KachiWachi

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:45 am
by Treppiede
KachiWachi wrote:Visit link.
Dear KachiWachi, I appreciate your advice however I know Jan's page by memory and although his patched BIOSes have helped me a lot in the past with Super Socket 7 motherboards, in this case it is not going to help me for the simple reason that I am working on a Laptop and Jan's page deals primarily with desktop moitherboards. I am trying to obtain a custom BIOS that will be optimized for K6plus processors. These processors already run on this mobo, but they aren't recognized/optimized properly.

Thank you, please let me know if you have any further advice.

Regards,

Walter

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:57 pm
by KachiWachi
The BIOS is still a BIOS and doesn't know what type of machine it is running in.

BTW...The latest Everest Beta now contains a CPU MSR Dump routine for the K6-series CPU's. This can help you check to see if the CPU is setup properly in your machine.

Please see the following link to download the file ->
http://www.lavalys.com/forum/index.php?&showtopic=360

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:49 pm
by Treppiede
KachiWachi wrote:BTW...The latest Everest Beta now contains a CPU MSR Dump routine for the K6-series CPU's. This can help you check to see if the CPU is setup properly in your machine.
I am not running Windows... :(

If I find an extra HDD I will install Windows and try this program, until then I don't know what to do. Does anybody know what happened to BiosMan? I PMed him but I haven't received a reply...

Walter

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:27 am
by Uranium235
You could contact Award/Phoenix directly for a BIOS patch, but it will cost you. I thought I read somewhere they charged $35 during a special offer.
Here's the link:
http://www.esupport.com/biosupgrades/index.cfm

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:31 pm
by Treppiede
Guys,
for those of you looking to help us out, here's a link to the latest BIOS for our Laptops offered by Toshiba: v1.14.
Uranium235 wrote:You could contact Award/Phoenix directly for a BIOS patch, but it will cost you. I thought I read somewhere they charged $35 during a special offer.
Uranium, thanks for the advice. That would have been a great idea, and the price seemed reasonable, especially if me and the 1605CDS users from the other Forum would have split it. I did however call the 1(800)800-BIOS number and spoke with a guy by the name of Gene. He was quite rude and after telling me that Toshiba laptops use a proprietary BIOS and that they don't support it "regardless if it's Phoenix or whatever" he proceeded to quickly end the conversation like if I was actually bothering him. Total call time was 32 seconds as logged by my phone, including about 15 seconds of hold time by the way. Oh well.

I am currently talking via PM with BIOSMan, he said he'd get back to me so let me hear from him. We are crossing our fingers.

Thanks again!

Walter

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:20 am
by Repo Man
Well, that's a very poor attitude. They wrote the proprietary Toshiba BIOS, presumably for money. Why wouldn't they be willing to write another? or just make the small changes necessary to make entering the CMOS settings more than an exercise in futility.

That it is a Phoenix rather than an Award evidently makes things more difficult. Also, the BIOS chip is unknown to Uniflash, so I'm not sure how we'd flash a replacement. More than just the motherboard BIOS seems to get updated when you flash the Toshiba BIOS using their version of Phlash. I was able to save a copy of the motherboard BIOS using Uniflash, http://www.shocking.com/~z29/Toshiba114.bin If any of you BIOS wizards out there can do anything with it, we'd sure appreciate it.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:46 am
by Treppiede
Repo Man wrote:Well, that's a very poor attitude. They wrote the proprietary Toshiba BIOS, presumably for money. Why wouldn't they be willing to write another? or just make the small changes necessary to make entering the CMOS settings more than an exercise in futility.
Doug, since you seem to know them and their history better, could you please try to call yourself and see if you are luckier?

Tried installing SuSE 9.2 on the Satellite just to see how it would run on it as opposed to FreeBSD. The install process freezes about halfway, so I underclocked the K6plus down to 500MHz. Hopefully it will go through now.

Let me know if you are gonna make that call... thanks.

Walter

PS=It has been about a week I haven't heard from Jan. I will wait another few days and PM him again, I don't want to put too much pressure on him.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:12 pm
by lsnapp
A couple of weeks ago, a friend gave me his dead Satellite 1625CDT to play with (the HDD drive was toast). Other than that, it seemed to be in very good condition. He even gave me an external CD-RW to go with it!

I was really enthused when I found the hardforum thread with all the pix. I realized I could have a lot of fun with this old laptop. Since reading most of the posts several times, I've managed to learn how to pop the top to gain access, replace the HDD (with a 40Gigger) and just last night replaced the stock and still good 475MHz cpu with a new K6-2+ 533MHz cpu. (Gained some "buyer beware" experience here - thought I was getting a true 550Mhz, not a 533 that can run at 550).

I begged an "extra" 128MB of RAM from another friend. It was out of an old Dell CPs laptop that I'd helped him with. He was ready to throw it away - turned out the only problem was he had installed "too much" memory. With that nice little addition, I went ahead and installed XP Pro instead of the 98se that it came with since I was starting with a fresh HDD. So far, so good running with XP.

Current Status:
cpu-z says I'm still running at the 475Mhz, so I'm still studying all the dip switch info and any other threads I can find on the topic as well as BIOS tweaks. After all, the whole point was to be running at 550Mhz (or more), right? I installed the new cpu without making any other changes, EXCEPT, I had to make a change in the power mgt settings in order to get fully into Windows.

Also hoping to try out that 256MB memory upgrade I read about one of these days soon.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the good info y'all have put up on the various forums. It's been a real goldmine!

LS

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 3:13 am
by Treppiede
LSnapp, thank you for the kind words.
All we really need now is this BIOS update, and we'd be really happy, right Doug and Elton?

As far as your CPU upgrade is concerned, you were actually supposed to change some dip-switch settings on your motgherboard in order to be able to run your new K6plus. First of all, and most importantly, you should drop the voltage to 2.0v (if your new CPU is a 2.0v like mine). Right now you are running the CPU at higher voltage (2.1v) and while that is not gonna kill your processor, you surely want to run it at its factory voltage in your case. Next, you will need to change the FSB and Multiplier settings. Since you are running Windows XP which appears to be much more tolerant than Linux/Unix/BSD to overclock, I strongly recommend you to try running it @ 550MHz. It should run flawlessly at a safe temperature (of course, monitor it).

If your CPU is indeed a 2.0v like mine, then you will need to set your dip-switch to the following table:

111-------110----------10
FSB----Multiplier-----Voltage

To make it as simple as possible, look at the dip-switch as you see it in my picture, and set the switches to in this order:

down - down - down - down - down - up - down - up

Look at the PCB tables and try to understand how it works... :)

Good luck with your Satellite, and cross your fingers with us so that Jan can help us with the BIOS.

Regards,

Walter

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 7:05 pm
by lsnapp
Thanks Treppiede.
The way you laid out the switches was perfect! At least for me to be able to figure out what was going on. I've been a programmer for 30 years, so I do understand 1's and 0's. With the jpegs you had posted, it was VERY clear.

The settings as I found them:
011-100-10
95mhz x 5.0 @ 2.0v = 474.8 MHz (cpu-z)

No boot with:
111-110-10
100mhz x 5.5 @ 2.0v

Good boot with:
111-100-10
100mhz x 5.5 @ 2.0v = 498.3 MHz (cpu-z)

I tried a couple of other settings with different combinations, but the above setting was the best I could get and still get the thing to boot up.

Here's the cpu-z report info:

Name AMD K6-2 model 8
Code Name Chomper
Specification AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor
Family / Model / Stepping 5 8 C
Extended Family / Model 6 8
Package Socket 7
Core Stepping CXT
Technology 0.25 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, 3DNow!
CPU Clock Speed 498.3 MHz
L1 Data Cache 32 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 32 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 32 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 32 Bytes line size

Mainboard and chipset:
Motherboard manufacturer Null (would really like to know who made this)
Motherboard model 5168, 1234
BIOS vendor TOSHIBA
BIOS revision 1.14.ROM
BIOS release date 12/29/2000
Chipset ALI Aladdin 5 rev. 4
Southbridge ALI M1533 rev. A
Sensor chip FFFF

Memory 192MB

Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:55 pm
by KachiWachi
lsnapp -

If you wouldn't mind, could you download the latest EVEREST Beta (v.296 or higher) and try the CPU MSR Dump feature? To access that, right-click on the bottom "status bar" and select "CPU Debug". Please post your MSR dump data here.

Thanks.

BTW - the CPU you are showing there is not a + series...just a "standard" K6-2 (Model 8, 0.25 µ). It most likely will not be 2.0V...maybe 2.2V or 2.4V...depending on the exact model you have there, and what's marked on the top.

BTW 2 - this line should read 5.0, not 5.5 -
Good boot with:
111-100-10
100mhz x 5.5 @ 2.0v = 498.3 MHz (cpu-z)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:00 pm
by lsnapp
KachiWachi,
I'll give Everest a try and then post the results.

It's becoming painfully clear that I was a bit too enthusiastic in my new cpu purchase, but fortunately it wasn't a real expensive mistake. I believe the cpu was marked as a k6-2 533 ACZ. Definitely NOT a "plus" model. It was one of those listed on ebay as a 533/550MHz. Should have known better.

My intention of course was to go with the plus-550MHz that I had been reading so much about in the forum. At least it works and is slightly faster than the 475 that was in there. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it up to its full potential. I'll be keeping a sharper eye out for the "real" thing in the mean time.

That 5.0 vs. 5.5 thing was my usual "copy and paste then forget to change everything" mistake. "I" knew what I meant. :?

LS

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 5:41 am
by Treppiede
lsnapp wrote:That 5.0 vs. 5.5 thing was my usual "copy and paste then forget to change everything" mistake.
Yeah, I noticed that right away... ;)

Sorry to hear about your CPU "mispurchase", the one you have now will not make a big difference. The K6plus is the way to go, and since you are still shopping for one, you should put your current K6 back to its proper voltage setting while you're using it.
KachiWachi wrote:If you wouldn't mind, could you download the latest EVEREST Beta (v.296 or higher) and try the CPU MSR Dump feature?
KachiWachi: I wish I could help you and put my MSR dump here for you, but as I said I am running FreeBSD and unless you give me access to a compatible version, I won't be able to run it...

Walter