IBM_ECW is a simple power management tool for some ThinkPad models (mainly T4x/R5x but can work on newer systems also). I originally wrote it to replace Notebook Hardware Control on my system because it was eating too much RAM and was slow. Here is a link to the previous topic.

It has 3 main independant functions :

• automatic CPU frequency & voltage control based on CPU load (only works on Pentium M and Core (2) Duo equipped computers);
  
• automatic fan level control according to customized temperature thresholds;
  
• manual GPU frequencies control & PowerPlay state switching (only for some Intel GMA (950, X3100 and 4500MHD) and ATI graphics adapters; tested on 7500, FireGL T2 & FireGL V3200).

Some other features are :

• Can be run as a service;
  
• Customizable hotkeys to create some kind of profiles (also possible to set up a profile for AC and battery);
  
• In-memory patching of the ACPIEC.SYS or ACPI.SYS driver to avoid unwanted entries in the event log, and of the INTELPPM.SYS driver to prevent Windows' power management from interfering with CPU SpeedStep control (except on Windows 8 x64)
  
• Small program (100 kb), no installation required and small memory footprint;
  
• Setting of the harddisk APM & AAM values;
  
• Can be used by other apps to blink the ThinkLight, Power & Standby LEDs and backlight using the common Win32 event functions.

Screenshots : Main window, Configuration window.

Installation :
Just extract the IBM_ECW.EXE file to a directory of your choice and run it. It will then show a configuration window after having installed the driver (please verify the FSB frequency (100/133) & the GPU I/O base address (eg. 0x2000/0x3000), they may have been incorrectly detected).
If you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, you will first have to disable Driver Signature Enforcement or sign the driver yourself and run the 'install_drv.bat' file from the 'Drv64' subfolder.

Please note that this tool has not been widely tested, so use it at your own risk & run it in read only / no control mode for the first time to verify that the displayed information are consistent.
The program needs to be run as an administrator for the first time (and every time if you don't use it as a service). Please see the help file for more details.

Download link (Windows 2000 or later) : IBM_ECW.ZIP (web page)

DOS and OS/2 version : Here is a very basic command-line version of the tool for DOS and OS/2.

Thanks for reporting any bug or suggestion.

I glad to have been of help and very very happy with the result, thank you very much for sharing your project with the rest of us, a lot of work must have gone in to it.

Going back to my W510 will be harder now, low level power management suddenly seems primitive on there.

I just did a small update (ver. 1.0.1.4) :
- fixed a bug that caused the fan level slider to be disabled when starting in manual control mode
- now fully compatible with Windows 2000
- added a checkbox in the config window to use degrees Fahrenheit
- modified the taskbar icon behavior to get a red background when CPU or GPU temp gets higher than 85°C
- added the current fan speed to the main window
- added the ability for other apps to blink the ThinkLight, Power & Standby LED and backlight (using the common Win32 event functions (PulseEvent or SetEvent/ResetEvent for continuous blinking) respectively on these objects : IBM_ECW_FLASH_TL, IBM_ECW_FLASH_PWR, IBM_ECW_FLASH_SBY, IBM_ECW_FLASH_BKL).

Thanks!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=105746

Update (ver. 1.0.1.5) :
- fixed sensors names (I mistakenly inverted "PCI" & "BUS" sensors) ;
- added a help file.
- added the ability to press Left Shift at startup to avoid the program from applying the settings ("failsafe" mode)

I just read through the manual, great addition, this should make it much easier for new users to get started.

I really like the 'failsafe' mode too, very handy when testing settings.

Update (ver. 1.0.1.6) :
- added experimental support for the Intel Core 2 family (only tested on a T400 with a Core 2 Duo T9400) ;
- fixed an error which caused the tray icon to have a black background on some computers.

Tried the IBM_ECW on X32 and it works very nice except the GPU frequency on Mobility Radeon shows 720 MHz? I set it to read only anyway at the moment.

All other functions work excellent.

Going to try it on my T60p and X6x machines.

Thx very good work. Is working fine on my X41t!

Got a simple problem: You have got any help file? Confused with the fan settings and the Threshold % for CPU states...

Thanks again would be awesome to get rid off RMClock finally also on my C2D T61p!!!

The manual is included in the download.

For more info look at the original thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=104389

It should contain the answers you are looking for, at least the answer we have at this point in time, more testing is still needed to complete the knowledge base.

If you still have questions after looking through that thread, feel free to ask, I might have the answer, but I can only test on ThinkPad T41/43p with R9000 and V3200.

Thanks for the advice...great utility! Much better than RMClock and TPFC. Please, please, please go on and save also my T61!!!

IBM_ECW should work on your T61, you just can't use the GPU functionality.

It crashes before starting with 0xc0000018. Admin rights as well as Xp Sp2 Mode don´t help. In Win7 32bit on the X41t it works perfect. So maybe it does not support 64bit?

IBM_ECW uses a special driver, my guess is that it only works on 32 bit systems, that could explain the crash you are having.

IbmPad probably knows more about this but it looks like he's busy these days.

Hehe i waited years for a proper RmClock Replacement...so don´t worry guys. Good things take time!

Hello and sorry for answering you late.

As Adda said, the driver is (currently) 32-bit only. I would be happy to write a 64-bit version, but I don't have a 64-bit computer, so I cannot debug it. Anyway I will try to make one and let you try it when ready to be tested. Meanwhile if you have any feature request, feel free to ask (BTW I am planning to add a service version to let the program start before logon & adjust some things for Windows 8 (that I cannot test either)).

yes i would love to do it, really!

Sounds great IbmPad, something I would like to see in a future version is PowerPlay support for Windows 7, last time I tested it, I could only switch modes through ATi's software and windows power manager.
IBM_ECW as a service, of cause sounds like a natural step to take, that should make improve Win7 support as well no? (no hassle with task scheduler to run as admin).
It should also prevent the system from heating up as much during boot.

~Thrakath, that's the spirit!

I just made a first 64-bit test build after some adjustements for x64 and with all patching functions disabled. I have no mean to test and debug it and never compiled for x64 before. If you want to test it, here is a link to it. Even if the driver is very simple, there are so many potential sources of crash that I am pretty sure it won't work that time ; I hope you don't hate bluescreens. As far as I know you will have to disable Driver signature enforcement (eg. by pressing F8 on startup) to be able to load it...


I wasn't aware of this issue. I use Windows PE for testing with Windows 7 (so no user accounts) and didn't encounter it on a T400 loaded with a regular Windows 7 (but with UAC disabled).

Yes, disabling UAC should make everything work more like on XP on a user account with admin rights.

To get around Driver Signature Enforcement on Windows 7 look at this:
http://thehotfix.net/forums/index.php?/ ... windows-7/

After the disclaimer comes a window:

unable to start the driver -> ok

Please could you download and run it again, I changed the error messages to display the exact error code instead. Could you also please verify that you are running it as admin and with digital signature verification disabled ?

Alors c´est en francais: Erreur démarrage driver (retry): 2

and i think the verification is disabled, bot don´t know how to proof this....

This error number (2) indicates the driver file cannot be found when trying to start it (Ich habe nicht gedacht, diese Debugmeldungen auf Englisch zu übersetzen). You can manually create and start the driver by copying the file IBM_ECWDRV.SYS to a folder of your choice (eg. C:\) and issuing these commands in CMD :

If the 3rd and 4th commands success, you can then retry to launch the program. Otherwise, the commands will probably give details about why it doesn't work.

C:\>sc start IBM_ECWDRV
[SC] StartService FAILED 577:

Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. A recent hardware or
software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damage
d, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source.

Finally got it by the method above...will try it out when getting home!

Thanks for your patience!

Ok i did some first initial testings today. First of all the good news: it works very well and so far crash free! I already disabled RmClock

my system: t61p with penryn t9300 (12,5x at 1.05V running stable, lowest value seems to be 1200@0.925V but that is impossible because the lowest multiplier is afaik 6.5x)

my comments for improvement:
- the C2duo support SLFM (super low freq mode) which also lowers the FSB from 200 to 100Mhz normally resulting in lowest multiplier x 100FSB. Maybe you can also somehow implement this...even the final version of Rmclock cannot correctly deal with x.5 multipliers!
- as a gimmick: Dual IDA like in Throttle Stop would be awesome. TS never worked reliably for me and it is not dynamically changed according to load...
- finally to make this superior piece of software usable for everybody, we need to find a way to get rid off this illegal driver testing mode somehow.

Anyway great work so far merci beaucoup,
Tobi

correction: 600 is the lowest working speed so lowest multiplier for me is 3x200...SLFM seems disabled

First of all, congratulations and thanks to IbmPad for this utility
I've been using IBM_ECW on my T60F for about a month now. It's a great piece of software and works very well with the T9300 Penryn in my laptop. I dual boot between Windows 7 and Windows 8 (both x86) and IBM_ECW works fine on both.

Memory usage is lowest of other similar programs I tested and its functionality is much better - in addition to undervolting, fan control works without a hitch, usb power-off and on works - can't test Bluetooth as I don't have a modem/bluetooth in my Frankenpad. Temperature monitoring also works. I don't care too much for hard drive control (have got a SSD). Have integrated Intel graphics so GPU monitoring/control doesn't work for me.

The only slight glitch I've noticed so far is with CPU temp monitoring - the temperature jumps up irregularly and for about half a second shows around double the normal temperature.

In terms of ideas for improvement I'd suggest fixing the CPU temp bug described above, and an option to disable monitoring of some device temperatures (as it is e.g. possible with tpfan control). Maybe also adding Nvidia and Intel GPU monitoring/control. With Intel graphics it is possible to change CoreRender clock. Default is 500Mhz but can be lowered to 400, 320 and 250Mhz - I use the freeware setIGP (a part of setPLL).

The planned option of running IBM_ECW as a service is great news. I will be happy to test it in Windows 8.

@Thrakath:
The lowest multiplier on T9300 is actuall 6, not 6.5. And your lowest 600Mhz means that SLFM works T9300 has normal FSB of 200Mhz and what SLFM does is lowers the FSB to half of that, i.e. 100Mhz. With the lowest multiplier of 6 it makes 600Mhz

Wow Europe seems to be working guys: France helping Poland and Germany

I agree with Bartelon that occasionally <1/min temp reading is wrong, but finally this does not start or stop the fan in that moment. So for me it´s a minor bug.

@multiplier: I would love that it´s already working. What i actually did was to double check everything with Cpu-Z and it states 3x with 200FSB. Voltage readings are like IBM_ECW. So if the lowest is 6x, Cpu-Z must be wrong. Don´t know if one can have another (better) readout. RmClock where you can check SLFM is also not lowering the FSB in Cpu-Z
@Downclocking of graphics would also be great, but at least for my Nvidia Powerplay is working already very good, what you can monitor with Gpu-Z.

Well, it is the European Union after all, isn't it?

And since I wasn't clear in my previous post, the occasional incorrect temp reading does not affect the fan at all, just like Thrakath said.

@multiplier: Various programs shows SLFM differently and Cpu-Z shows half the multiplier instead half the FSB. The end result is the same - 600Mhz.
I'm sure you've noticed that ThrottleStop gives the correct reading of SLFM. BTW, I would also love to see an option to enable Dual IDA.

@IbmPad
If you figured out how to activate Dual IDA, how about a separate version of IBM_ECW for the T61/X61/R61 series with an option to enable Dual IDA, e.g. via a hotkey?