Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,

I've got myself a few Thinkpad T60/T60P/T61P's to try and make a Frankenpad from. As yet I've not done any hacking, just acquiring parts.

Using the Middleton BIOS can the WWAN port be used for a USB 3.0 card instead?
They are cheap on eBay and so I got one, but I haven't had the chance to get the T61P to that point yet to test.

Alternatively of course is the Express port. Though its not very good from a mechanical perspective. So internal would be preferable. Perhaps run a socket on a ribbon cable?

As long as there are physical PCI-Express pins in the WWAN slot (and on a T61 I think there are), you can install a USB 3.0 adapter.

How will you route the external port outside the chassis?

dr_st wrote:As long as there are physical PCI-Express pins in the WWAN slot (and on a T61 I think there are), you can install a USB 3.0 adapter.

How will you route the external port outside the chassis?

First to establish if it can electronically function correctly.
If yes, then as to how to make it physically work, I'm thinking to cut a hole in the case somewhere to mount a pair of USB 3.0 connectors via an internal ribbon cable to the card.

I have a pair of T61P's awaiting surgery to make 15.0" P9700 and QX9300 machines, but it all remains theoretical for me at this stage. So I'm just throwing out ideas before I start to narrow my list down to reality.

Any thoughts on specifics of cards? I'm presuming there is no chance of a card that will function from the BIOS with boot capability. Though I would love to be told perhaps of a magical USB 3.0 generation of the same series USB 2.0 chip which inside the T61P and magically works provided WLAN card whitelisting does not disable it. Dreaming most likely... or am I?

Or alternatively that someone super handy with assembly coding prowess can easily use the redundant whitelist space in the BIOS to bootstrap the card and drive it through the existing USB code... kind of like how Voyager 2 has been upgraded over the years to perform better than when it was new and before it received radiation damage to reduce its capacity. Oh how I miss hand crafted assembly language software.

But in a more terrestrial query, what is the bandwidth of the WWAN port? If USB 2.0 gives around 30MB/s then we need 250Mbit to just break even with the USB 2.0 ports.

PurpleMelbourne wrote:If yes, then as to how to make it physically work, I'm thinking to cut a hole in the case somewhere to mount a pair of USB 3.0 connectors via an internal ribbon cable to the card.

Would it really be better mechanically than using a flush-mount ExpressCard?

PurpleMelbourne wrote:Any thoughts on specifics of cards? I'm presuming there is no chance of a card that will function from the BIOS with boot capability. Though I would love to be told perhaps of a magical USB 3.0 generation of the same series USB 2.0 chip which inside the T61P and magically works provided WLAN card whitelisting does not disable it. Dreaming most likely... or am I?

No chance to make it bootable, as far as I know.

PurpleMelbourne wrote:Or alternatively that someone super handy with assembly coding prowess can easily use the redundant whitelist space in the BIOS to bootstrap the card and drive it through the existing USB code...

That would be one heck of a BIOS mod. Not one that I think can be done without having the BIOS source code.

PurpleMelbourne wrote:But in a more terrestrial query, what is the bandwidth of the WWAN port? If USB 2.0 gives around 30MB/s then we need 250Mbit to just break even with the USB 2.0 ports.

PCI-Express Gen1, 2.5Gbit/s theoretical bandwidth. Actual bandwidth is less, of course, but still far better than USB 2.0.

dr_st wrote:

PurpleMelbourne wrote:If yes, then as to how to make it physically work, I'm thinking to cut a hole in the case somewhere to mount a pair of USB 3.0 connectors via an internal ribbon cable to the card.

Would it really be better mechanically than using a flush-mount ExpressCard?

PC Cards have a tendency to physically pull out when you pull something out of them. Aside from that, what is the bandwidth of the card slot versus the bandwidth of the WWAN port?

dr_st wrote:

PurpleMelbourne wrote:But in a more terrestrial query, what is the bandwidth of the WWAN port? If USB 2.0 gives around 30MB/s then we need 250Mbit to just break even with the USB 2.0 ports.

PCI-Express Gen1, 2.5Gbit/s theoretical bandwidth. Actual bandwidth is less, of course, but still far better than USB 2.0.

OK That is pretty good. 50% of full USB 3.0 theoretical speed. I was also wondering about overclocking the chipset to speed up the USB 2.0 ports. I don't know if the PCI Express would go up with it of if there is some overriding timing chip to hold it to units of 33.33Mhz. Assuming no, then its just a matter of going no further than the most sensitive component, which might be the SATA bus.

A quick search on overclocking PM965 chipset and SATA revealed that it has been done successfully only to discover bus lock.
http://www.overclockers.com/sata-overcl ... n-be-done/
That fellow managed to speed up from 33.33 to 36.72Mhz which is about 11%. No speed gain was achieved, but it is good news that the chipset can be overclocked without messing up timing of some components. Some components may be sped up, but others will remain at their same speed. This means that extra speeds MIGHT be obtained if the overclock can be performed successfully. Theoretically that would deliver a 2-3MB/s speed increase to the USB. Or maybe clearing bottlenecks 10% faster might assist the USB port to maintain a speed it otherwise has difficulty with due to the bandwidth getting choked somewhere along the line.

Perhaps someone with some specific knowledge of the T61 build will know which bits will and will not be sped up. There may be some advantages.

PurpleMelbourne wrote:PC Cards have a tendency to physically pull out when you pull something out of them. Aside from that, what is the bandwidth of the card slot versus the bandwidth of the WWAN port?

Yes, that is true.

I do not expect any difference in the bandwidth between ExpressCard and WWAN. Both are just PCIe ports connected directly to the chipset.

I don't have a T61, but it might be easier to fabricate some sort of locking tab/mechanism to prevent the Expresscard from getting pulled out rather than try to shoehorn two extra USB 3.0 slots.

dr_st wrote:

PurpleMelbourne wrote:PC Cards have a tendency to physically pull out when you pull something out of them. Aside from that, what is the bandwidth of the card slot versus the bandwidth of the WWAN port?

Yes, that is true.

I do not expect any difference in the bandwidth between ExpressCard and WWAN. Both are just PCIe ports connected directly to the chipset.

Well if its the same bandwidth then yes that makes the idea of USB 3.0 internal pointless unless you want to add some permanant peripherals like USB 3.0 rated SD card reader or something similar.

I'll add another thread asking specifically which ExpressCard54 cards are optimal.

PurpleMelbourne wrote:I'll add another thread asking specifically which ExpressCard54 cards are optimal.

That's already been covered:

Flush-mount Laptop Adapters Part 2: ExpressCard-USB3
Flush-mount Laptop Adapters Part 5: USB 3.0 Revisited

Though it was written a while back (2013-2014), its contents are still valid. There's a newer card that wasn't tested though: the Fresco Logic FL1100, which is a PCIe Gen2 version of the earlier FL1000. Then again, since the T61 has a PCIe Gen1 interface, I don't know how much difference it would make.

axur-delmeria wrote:There's a newer card that wasn't tested though: the Fresco Logic FL1100, which is a PCIe Gen2 version of the earlier FL1000. Then again, since the T61 has a PCIe Gen1 interface, I don't know how much difference it would make.

I actually have an FL1100 now, and I hope to make a "Part 7" involving it soon.

Excellent. I look forward to seeing the merits of the leading candidates

One thing I am wondering: will those cards perform the same as plugging into a T6x if I plug them into my T43 and T43p (thus, performing faster than the internal hard drive lol)?

I never tried, but T43 and T6x both have Gen1 PCI-E (2.5Gbps), so performance should be similar. T6x may be slightly faster due to overall faster system, but probable not in a significant way.