Running an Intel X9100 in T601 frankenpad without hardware mod?

[zoltan87]

So I am in the process of building a T601 frankenpad, and thinking about what cpu I should get. The X9000 around $40 is still just too expensive.

I am planning to update the BIOS with Highsun's modified BIOS, that has all the goodies of the Middleton BIOS, and additionally undervolts the Nvidia gpu, and has the microcodes to use 1066 mhz fsb intel cpus.

Now, I understand that you need to do a hardware mod on the motherboard, and flash the ram spd (whatever that means) if you want to use these processors on their native 1066 mhz fsb.

But here is my question: could I still ran an 1066 mhz fsb cpu (the intel X9100 in my case) on 800 mhz fsb, without any hardware mod? So I would just insert the cpu in the socket, and that would be it.

If I understand correctly, the cpu frequency would go down because of lover fsb (in the case of X9100 it would be running at 2.3 Ghz insted of 3.06 Ghz), but then I could just overclock it using a software.

So basically the whole point of this would be, to get the same performance of the X9000, but from less than half of the money, as the intel X9100 is so much cheaper. Is my thinking correct, or it's completely wrong, and it's impossible to run an 1066 mhz fsb cpu at 800 mhz?

[Screamer]

Yes, and no. Without the pin-mod, the X9100 will request for a non-existent 1066MT/s front-side bus speed. This will cause the northbridge to not accept that invalid front-side bus speed, and then your T61 will not boot up.

However, if you did the pin-mod to allow the T61 to accept the X9100, yes you are right. The processor's frequency will be stepped down because of the lower front-side bus clock, and yes you can bring it back up using Throttlestop.

Correct, that is also what I did for my R61i. I was too much of a cheapskate to get the X9000, and I was also too lazy to do the 1066MT/s modification to allow the X9100 to run at its native front-side bus speed.

To do the hardware pin-mod to allow the usage of 1066MT/s processors on a 800MT/s bus, get a 32/36/38 gauge magnet wire or a 32/36/38 gauge copper/aluminium wire. Now, put the wire in the socket's holes as how this image shows the pin-mod. Make sure that the wire is not touching any other pin hole in the socket, just to be safe.

You could also refer to Socket P's pin layout, and use the wire to bridge B23 and A20 together. This is another way of looking at it, but it does the same thing as what I said above.

EDIT: I had forgotten to add some details, my bad.

[pm23885]

This site is such a treasure trove of knowledge.

[zoltan87]

Thank you so much Screamer for the extremely detailed reply! Great to hear that I will be able to go ahead with my idea, I just need to get those thin wires for the pin mod.

Unfortunately in the meantime I got an other BIOS related issue, but that's a topic for an other thread...

[TuuS]

I see you mentioned undervolting Nvidia GPU chips. Although I have not tried this I've heard multiple reports that this can destroy circuits in the graphic system caused by insufficient voltage. If your purpose is to make the GPU last longer you will likely only cause an early demise. Of the motherboard.

[TinkerMan]

Yes, and no. Without the pin-mod, the X9100 will request for a non-existent 1066MT/s front-side bus speed. This will cause the northbridge to not accept that invalid front-side bus speed, and then your T61 will not boot up.

However, if you did the pin-mod to allow the T61 to accept the X9100, yes you are right. The processor's frequency will be stepped down because of the lower front-side bus clock, and yes you can bring it back up using Throttlestop.

Correct, that is also what I did for my R61i. I was too much of a cheapskate to get the X9000, and I was also too lazy to do the 1066MT/s modification to allow the X9100 to run at its native front-side bus speed.

To do the hardware pin-mod to allow the usage of 1066MT/s processors on a 800MT/s bus, get a 32/36/38 gauge magnet wire or a 32/36/38 gauge copper/aluminium wire. Now, put the wire in the socket's holes as how this image shows the pin-mod. Make sure that the wire is not touching any other pin hole in the socket, just to be safe.

hey man, could this cheap trick be used to simplify the quad core mod, so to allow to use quad core but at reduced FSB speed but without the hassle of the extensive FSB 1066 mobo mod?

[wujstefan]

Well it actually would nerf anyway low clocks of quadcores possible to install into this system.

[TinkerMan]

Well it actually would nerf anyway low clocks of quadcores possible to install into this system.

I don't understand what you wanted to say
Can you please rephrase?

[bwaldow]

Well it actually would nerf anyway low clocks of quadcores possible to install into this system.

I would also like to understand this as I'm thinking of mods to my Frankenpad. Replying so I can receive notifications.

Cheers,
Bret

[wujstefan]

Hello.

You can run your quadcores without pinmods, but they will work on 800FXB instead of 1066 - and this will result in lower clocks. Q9100 will work on 1.7GHz instead of 2.26GHz, for instance.

[TinkerMan]

Hello.

You can run your quadcores without pinmods, but they will work on 800FXB instead of 1066 - and this will result in lower clocks. Q9100 will work on 1.7GHz instead of 2.26GHz, for instance.

ok, this is exactly what I am interested in. I dont care for FSB 1066, all I want is a quad core with minimum hardware modding required, soldering for me is out the window.

By without the pin mod , you mean no need for the isolation of the 5 pins on the quad core cpu? or are you talking about the connection via a small wire of 2 pin holes on the socket?

[TPFanatic]

I too want to hear more about mod-less Quad Cores in the T61. I may have some messing around to do with my collector 4:3 T61 after all...

[wujstefan]

ok, this is exactly what I am interested in. I dont care for FSB 1066, all I want is a quad core with minimum hardware modding required, soldering for me is out the window.

By without the pin mod , you mean no need for the isolation of the 5 pins on the quad core cpu? or are you talking about the connection via a small wire of 2 pin holes on the socket?

I too want to hear more about mod-less Quad Cores in the T61. I may have some messing around to do with my collector 4:3 T61 after all...

Sorry guys, but I need to dig for info. Never done it myself, always involved a full mod; there are some guys on the German forum AFAIR who did that - I will search for the info and share of course.

[Raidriar]

I see you mentioned undervolting Nvidia GPU chips. Although I have not tried this I've heard multiple reports that this can destroy circuits in the graphic system caused by insufficient voltage. If your purpose is to make the GPU last longer you will likely only cause an early demise. Of the motherboard.

Simply untrue. I've run several laptop graphics cards undervolted for YEARS, including AMD 6990M, nVidia 680M, 780M, 980M, etc. The worst case scenario is the voltage is too low for certain clockspeeds, causing black screens or driver crashes. You can't harm the system by undervolting. However, you can do serious damage by OVERvolting.

I run my FX 570M in my July 2008 15.4" T61p at a paltry 0.90V and have been doing so for two years now for a machine I use daily. It has kept temps in a reasonable range.

[TuuS]

This is not a debate forum please address members with respect.

Thank you for your opinion, I have heard otherwise from multiple sources. I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone with more experience with this series of laptop and if you don't agree with me that's fine I'm not going to claim what you say is untrue. You are entitled to your opinion but if the purpose is to prevent GPU failure undervolting will likely do more harm than good. The weakness in this design is triggered from heat cycling. High temperatures don't really matter. They cook these things hot enough to melt the lead free solder when they are put on the board heat doesn't bother them it's heat cycling that kills GPU chips.

[Raidriar]

This is not a debate forum please address members with respect.

Thank you for your opinion, I have heard otherwise from multiple sources. I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone with more experience with this series of laptop and if you don't agree with me that's fine I'm not going to claim what you say is untrue. You are entitled to your opinion but if the purpose is to prevent GPU failure undervolting will likely do more harm than good. The weakness in this design is triggered from heat cycling. High temperatures don't really matter. They cook these things hot enough to melt the lead free solder when they are put on the board heat doesn't bother them it's heat cycling that kills GPU chips.

I'm sorry you were offended by my empirically supported opinion. Heat-cool cycles kill everything, it's not limited to GPUs on the T61p. What the undervolting achieves is holding the temperature ceiling at a lower level, minimizing the delta between "cold" and "hot", in essence reducing potential flex of the board. The smaller the delta, the better. I'd love to see a consumer case where undervolting caused permanent hardware damage to a GPU. I've authored several undervolt vBIOSes for different cards, none have ever perished.

OP I highly recommend you undervolt your GPU, nVidia fed these things way too much voltage out the factory.

[TuuS]

I can only speak from personal experience after testing hundreds of these Graphics systems and sourcing many hundreds of these motherboards. The feedback I have received suggested perfectly stable laptops after being used for years fail immediately after undervolting the graphic system. Feel free to do as you will with your laptops but my data is valid. I'm sure there is a safe limit to the amount of voltage used in any processor but with this specific system it can cause catastrophic failure according to my data.

I'm not saying you are wrong I'm simply telling you what others have reported. I can also tell you that even the early production models with the defective CPU chips can run stable if you keep the GPU at operating temperature. You may be correct that keeping the temperature or down has some effect on lessening the heat cycling effect but I don't believe making a laptop run a few degrees cooler is going to increase the lifespan. It may save on your electric bill a little but I do fear this could damage the motherboard and not necessarily even the GPU chip itself. They are pretty tough especially the ones built after the latter half of 2008. You're free to dismiss what I say but I tell all my customers the same thing if they run the GPU hat factory voltage on an NOS motherboard I will stand behind them. If you Tinker with them you are on your own.

As I'm sure you know a low voltage condition can't destroy Electronics and if you know what you're doing you can probably do it safely but I suggest that if a little is good that does not mean a lot is even better.

Good luck with your undervoting and no hard feelings.

[wujstefan]

If I can add my $0,02 of experience as well:

There is a trend to undervolt those GPUs. The truth is that the gain (couple of degrees less, 10-15% lower power consumption) actually kills the biggest - and safe - feature those GPUs offer - ability to overclock with stock voltage. Whether the voltage kills the chip or not is a matter of debate, and MANY voices has been heard strongly recommending for or against.

What I can suggest, do a simple calculation of pros and cons. I have some underclocked nvs140m (one of them has died, lightly used, safe-dated), and I have some stock voltage boards. I do not undervolt fx570m (at all) and nvs140m (revised) anymore, since it neither produce a reasonable temperature drop (nvs140m runs pretty cool anyway, and 16:10 fx570m cooling system is very good) nor makes the device consume way less power (nvs140m is just 10W, with dropping to 1.1V it stops at 8.8W under full load, and fx570m while being a 35W power hog does not accept much of an undervolt + has some reasonable power saving issues). As for overclocking, I've had two revised mobos from TuuS here, both working overclocked 50% on stock voltage. Now I can also say fx570m overclocks nicely, and I'm hungry to test the revised fx570m board I was able to source lately (and the expectations are huge).

Does it destroy the electronics? I haven't seen the data, but undervolting the CPU within it's own safety limits may result in loss of stability and not damaging the component. I have no idea how it looks linke for the GPU, but if there are reports that some systems failed quickly after undervolting, this is something to be considered.

I have undervolted some of those chips before. I do not do that anymore as I personally see bigger gain with overclocking. And if I do not need dedicated GPU, why the heck go for nVidia rather than Intel?

[wujstefan]

I don't understand what you wanted to say
Can you please rephrase?

I would also like to understand this as I'm thinking of mods to my Frankenpad. Replying so I can receive notifications.

OK I think I found the thread. You need to dig in a bit.

https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/17258 ... ndervolten

This DOES require some hardware mod, however.

[TinkerMan]

OK I think I found the thread. You need to dig in a bit.

https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/17258 ... ndervolten

This DOES require some hardware mod, however.

thats nothing new, its the old standard modding method which was talked about extensively here too

check out what I posted here, trying to better explain what people like myself want.
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=128788

[RealBlackStuff]

Why can't you be happy with a [quad Oops]dual-core X9000 extreme?
It's plug'n'play!

[TinkerMan]

Why can't you be happy with a quad-core X9000?
It's plug'n'play!

????????
The X9000 is a dual core, not quad, and yes I have an X9000 Installed in one of my Frankies.

[RealBlackStuff]

Senior moment...
Still, what's wrong with the X9000, you want bragging rights?

[TinkerMan]

Senior moment...
Still, what's wrong with the X9000, you want bragging rights?

dude, if I just wanted bragging rights I would shut up and just do the standard quad mod.
from your response I get it you didnt read my new thread i opened on this subject, I explain there in detail why I search for a new way, easier one for this mod.

here is the link

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=128788

[RealBlackStuff]

Oh, I've read it, but I am no longer interested in building Frankenpads.
I have done almost 80 of them, many with X9000, but I could never be bothered to do fancy mods like an X9100.
IMHO that mod does not really provide enough "oomph" to make it worth my while. Obviously YMMV