Thinkpads Forum

Hello guys!.

I'm looking for some help to find the correct bios for my T61 (7661 model), to use a T9600 cpu. The laptop is the 14.1" model, with an Intel X3100 gpu.

Right now im running the middleton bios, And its working perfectly fine. But i have some T9550 and T9600 cpus that i got with some scrap Dell E6400 laptops.

The T61 is running a T7300, and although it is fine for normal day tasks, i would like to upgrade to the T9600 for a little more speed and better battery life. I've read that the highsun bios has support for the 1066mhz fsb cpus. But i cant quite find the exact one for this machine.

I've read the german and 51nb forums, i just can't find the one for this model. I also wan't to know if that highsun bios has support for Sata 2 and if it has the whitelist for pci-e wifi cards removed, since im running an ssd and an Intel wireless N card.

My idea is to flash that bios, and use the simple pinmod to allow the T9600 to run, even at 800mhz fsb it should be still faster and more efficient than the T7300, and then i can use throttlestop to overclock it if needed.

This is the thread talking about the pinmod: viewtopic.php?t=127404

Google "highsun T61 BIOS". Second link from this search query returned a useful link to a TPF thread with a download link.

Well i guess i'm going to answer my own questions.

I downloaded the highsun Bios from the thinkpad-forum.de thread (i don't know if i can put the link). The bios i downloaded is the "T61-BIOS.RAR". And yes, this one is compatible with the wide screen 14.1" T61. My thinkpad is the 7661 model, and it has intel x3100 grahics.

I instaled the bios using the phflash provided on that forum, and i created the bootable dos pendrive with Rufus.

After flashing the bios i inserted the T9600 cpu with the Bsel mod indicated on the thread of my first post. And it booted right up.

Sata 2 is working fine and my Intel 5300 AGN wifi card is working fine.

The cpu is running at 2.2ghz, the same speed the t7300 was running at, but runs way cooler, and the machine feels faster. I will do some research on how to use throttle stop, and maybe push the cpu a little bit. I dont feel like doing the full 1066mhz mod yet.

You can research using dual IDA to take it up to 2.3 GHz, you can't generally overclock this CPU since it does not have an unlocked multiplier like the X9100.

Yep, i tried to use Throttlestop to enable Dual IDA mode, but the option is grayed out. And highsun Bios doesn't include Dual IDA mode, so i think im kind of stuck at 2.15 ghz, it would be nice to enable it, but i was not able to find a way to do it.

Try using the IBM_ECW app from this topic viewtopic.php?f=27&t=105203. It works great for me and support Dual IDA.

Replace the previous CPU, flash middleton's BIOS, try using throttlestop. If the dual IDA option is still greyed out the problem is more likely to lie with you than the highsun BIOS.

Hello guys, thanks for your input. I'll try to use the IBM web app.

I believe i cant use the middleton bios with the T9600 cpu, as i've read that it doesn't have the microcode for those cpus. That is why i moved from the middleton bios to Highsun bios, so i was able to use the T9600. I previously used a T7300 with middleton bios, and i was able to use dual ida, even without enabling it on the Throttle stop app. Because Dual Ida is included on the middleton bios.

The middleton BIOSes are dual IDA enabled, which is just a pointed way of stating that the EIST LOCK bit, MSR 0x1a0 bit 20:20 is unset.
Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) is the C2D-era intel term for turbo boost technology, where if one CPU core is idle the other can overclock by a multiplier or half a multiplier depending on CPU.
Since the prerequisite condition seldom holds, this is seldom achieved in practice.
Dual IDA is a ploy, unintended by intel, whereby both cores are locked on the IDA overclocked speed -- to achieve this, you need to be able to toggle EIST on and off, hence the BIOS modification. The BIOS modification is a necessary but insufficient condition to achieve dual IDA. The same CPU doesn't run faster just as a result of flashing middleton's BIOS.

You do need the additional microcode to run the T9600, which is why I said put the T7300 back in the T61 so that you can use middleton's BIOS, which is known to be dual IDA enabled, this reduces one of the variables. If you then run throttlestop you'll probably find that the dual-IDA option is greyed out too and if you monitor the core speeds you'll find that dual IDA is never engaged. Stated differently, you have insufficient grounds to conclude that the highsun BIOS is not dual IDA enabled, it probably is, but you do not know how to engage dual IDA mode with either (CPU,BIOS) tuple.

Alternatively just check the MSR value if you can find a way to do so in Windows, otherwise use rdmsr in linux.