Thinkpads Forum

I have T61 with C2D 7300 (2GHz), 8GB of RAM and 500GB 7,200 RPM HD.

I am now considering putting SSD in it.

I've been away from this forum for a while and missed all conversations about Middleton BIOS when they were truly active.

What kind of improvement does Middleton BIOS provide for modern SSD like Samsung 850 EVO? I searched and searched but didn't find any "before/after" benchmark results.

I am somewhat reluctant to install it and if difference is not that large (under 20%?) I would rather not.

The benefits of Middleton's BIOS are:

SATA-II (3 Gbit/s) drive speeds - the stock ThinkPad T61 BIOS limits the SATA interface to 1.5 Gbit/s
SLIC 2.1 tables - simplify licensing of Microsoft Windows
Whitelist removal - allow installation of a wider variety of internal components such as wireless cards
Thermal sensing error fix - allow installation of Penryn-class CPUs on motherboards designed for Merom CPUs
CTRL-FN key swap (optional)
Dual-IDA (Intel Dynamic Acceleration) support - allow both cores of CPU to simultaneously run at higher speeds

If any (or all) of those things are appealing, then go for it!

Neil wrote:The benefits of Middleton's BIOS are:

SATA-II (3 Gbit/s) drive speeds - the stock ThinkPad T61 BIOS limits the SATA interface to 1.5 Gbit/s
...
If any (or all) of those things are appealing, then go for it!

Only this one is appealing in theory. But in practice I would like to know how much of a real-life difference does it make considering CPU and RAM are 10 years old.

JoeSchmoe007 wrote:
Only this one is appealing in theory. But in practice I would like to know how much of a real-life difference does it make considering CPU and RAM are 10 years old.

That's largely going to depend on what the machine is used for. To me personally, flashing Middleton's BIOS on *any* 61 system is a no-brainer, especially if one is intent on running an SSD. Obviously, YMMV.

Related question: to install 7mm drive in main slot I will also need this caddy: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Caddy ... B00KWWIKDK, right? I want to keep the one I use now on HDD I use now.

Is that correct and/or sufficient? My concern is that HD I now use is 9.*MM and SSD-s these days are 7MM

7mm HDDs and SSDs can screw into the 9mm caddies, so you can buy another Lenovo one and it will work fine.

In practice, the faster drive speed translates into ~5 seconds per day of waiting (for programs to load).

jaspen-meyer wrote:In practice, the faster drive speed translates into ~5 seconds per day of waiting (for programs to load).

???

Might sound definitive but a number picked out of ether.

I do a notice a slight difference between SATA I vs SATA II SSD speeds in everyday use. Can't say for sure if the daily difference is 5 seconds or 4.985 seconds or 5.2945 seconds but noticeable.

There's no reason not to flash Middleton's BIOS on a T61 in my book.

Cigarguy wrote:

jaspen-meyer wrote:In practice, the faster drive speed translates into ~5 seconds per day of waiting (for programs to load).

???

Might sound definitive but a number picked out of ether.

I do a notice a slight difference between SATA I vs SATA II SSD speeds in everyday use. Can't say for sure if the daily difference is 5 seconds or 4.985 seconds or 5.2945 seconds but noticeable.

There's no reason not to flash Middleton's BIOS on a T61 in my book.

It's not just SATA II that Middleton adds. Middleton is the first thing I do with a T61. Things like white list removal is another important feature. I can see a difference between SATA II and SATA III. There is obviously a significant difference between SATA I and SATA II.

Cigarguy wrote:

jaspen-meyer wrote:In practice, the faster drive speed translates into ~5 seconds per day of waiting (for programs to load).

???

Might sound definitive but a number picked out of ether.

I do a notice a slight difference between SATA I vs SATA II SSD speeds in everyday use. Can't say for sure if the daily difference is 5 seconds or 4.985 seconds or 5.2945 seconds but noticeable.

There's no reason not to flash Middleton's BIOS on a T61 in my book.

The tilde is for approximation, which is to say 'about 5 seconds'.

The number's not picked out of the ether. Last year, while deciding whether my x60s (Sata I) or x61s (Sata II) would be my daily driver, I collected data on my actual computer usage.

Again, if you are reluctant, this is a performance improvement you can do without - it does not approach 20% in any perceptible way (doubly true if you're moving from a 7200rpm drive to a Samsung 850 evo).

edit: if you want to further improve performance, configure your system to off-load disk writes to a ramdisk (search terms: fstab tmpfs)

Unless you increase the throughput of the drive interface, I would not bother going to SSD. Just leave the HD in there.

It was the only way to get the wifi card that I bought on ebay to work, plus I hated the FN/Ctrl placement. SSD may be better, I haven't checked.

Sent from my Le Pan TC802A using Tapatalk

i think the whitelist is worth it because you're limited to 54g cards with the Lenovo ID only? That's not acceptable 5yrs ago let alone today.

TonyJZX wrote:i think the whitelist is worth it because you're limited to 54g cards with the Lenovo ID only? That's not acceptable 5yrs ago let alone today.

Most of my downloads are less than 50 MBps/500 Mbps (Gb modem, switches, and nic), and many below 10 MBps/100 Mbps. Today, that slow speed is quite irritating. So in theory, the 54G cards should be OK. I think. But I agree, it would be nice to be able to take advantage of the speed that some sites provide and for the future when more sites speed up their downloads.

TonyJZX wrote:i think the whitelist is worth it because you're limited to 54g cards with the Lenovo ID only? That's not acceptable 5yrs ago let alone today.

Well both the Atheros-chipped ThinkPad adapter II and the Intel's 4965AGN will do 300Mbps...