How to get most from your T61

[Binh]

A lot of people looked at my sign and PM me with questions on how to do overclocking, undervolting T61/p. Here is the list of my posts related to this topic:
- Hardware mod: Overclocking T61 with T8300 or T9300 to 266Mhz FSB - post in notebookreview.
- The above post also contains instruction on undervolting T8300 to 0.775v, meanwhile overvolting it by 7-8% in all voltage range.
- Hardware mod: undervolting NVidia NVS140M to make it cooler by 10oC or similar topic in notebookreview
- Software mod: Enable ASPM to save ~ 2W of power consumption when idle and make GPU cooler by 3-5oC
- Software mod: Enable Dual IDA on T61

[Raceboy]

Thanks a lot Binh!!

Would similar thing be possible on T60?

[TuuS]

It looks like this info is specific to the Penryn cpu and nVidia graphics, neither is used on a T60. I'm not sure if dual ida mode can be used on a T60 though... one of our T60 gurus would have to chime in on that.

ps. Thank you for the post Binh

[Raceboy]

I meant the PLL overclocking mod, not other things.

[Binh]

Sorry for being silent for a long time. I am so busy these days .
Let me try to answer to some questions:
1. You can overclock T61 with Intel Video as well, but because the on-board GPU frequency, unlike dedicated GPU, is depend on the FSB, it is recommended to set Intel GPU to a maximum power saving mode.
2. For T60 overclocking, I did not try it yet. However, you will have less chance of success because you need to alter voltage level on FS_A pin of PLL, which is also used for USB frequency (in T61, we need to alter FS_B pin). Here is an example of unsuccessful overclock of T60. However, it was done by a different way than my method. If Raceboy have time, I will make an analysis of T60 schematics and try to show you how to do overclock.
3. IDA is the new feature of Santa Rosa platform (965 chipset and T7xxx CPU upward). So, there is no way to do Dual-IDA in T60.
4. ASPM has a very little effect on T60 because the ATI GPU is already ASPM enabled (as far as I remember). GPU voltage mod on T60 is not worthy because ATI X1300/1400/FireGL V5200 GPUs have only two voltage level: 0.95v and 1.05v.

[Raceboy]

The PLL needs FS_A to be low on T60 in order to reach 200 MHz FSB (it is high at 166 MHz). I studied the schematics and system board and there is a 0 Ohm resistor just next to the chip for FS_A pin. Does the USB gets the frequency from PLL FS_A pin or does it just needs a signal being hi/low?

I researched about overclocking on such PLL's and usually the resistor is unsoldered (good on 0 Ohm ones) or trace is cut and then PLL is fed with appropriate signal. Chipset still sees the BSEL_0 signal to be high but in fact it is low. Would this be feasible? I will try this some time when new WLAN card arrives and I will disassemble my T60p.
The unsuccesful example showed removing 10K resistor but that would for sure mess things up as chipset sees the irregularity.

[Raceboy]

So, I never got the chance to test pll overclocking on my T60p since I sold it a week after I made last post to this thread, but tried it yesterday on my T61p Frankenpad and T8300 and it was not a success.

Made all the mods posted by Binh and the system posted nice, though hanged at bootup with artifacts. So, FX 570M cannot tolerate lower voltage than stock -> no use.
The system booted well after that, but only with Speedstep disabled (=lowest multiplier -> 1600 MHz). I din't get to check if the voltage was not enough or something but I did not want to boost it anyway since one of my goals besides upping performance is to control the heat and keep it cool.
I did not use DUAL-IDA enabled BIOS because of the above mentioned reason so that was not an issue.
I may try the overclock later when I will find a spare T8100 cheap (that would make it 2.93 GHz).

So, until that I use the T8300 with DUAL-IDA BIOS at 2.6 GHz.

And I now have a T60 system board, I'll source a T7200 and try to make pll mod to achieve FSB from 166 MHz -> 200 MHz.