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Overclocked X61s won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Edit: SUCCESS!

X60/X61 and X60t/X61t Series
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TrackpointLoveAffair
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Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:49 pm
Location: TROY, NY

Overclocked X61s won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Edit: SUCCESS!

#1 Post by TrackpointLoveAffair » Tue Feb 16, 2021 11:31 am

X61s
L7500
2x4GB Kingston 800MHz

I bumped my X61s' FSB from 200 to 266 by bridging pins 24 + 52 on a spare 4965AGN card. It was generally successful, but I can't get the memory to run with a 533 SPD profile. I have 2x4GB 800MHz Kingston sticks.

With unmodified SPD, it boots but is extremely unstable.
With a modified 667 SPD profile, it works great, but the graphics driver crashes. It looks like I need to go with 533 to lower the GPU clock. The problem is that the system won't boot with a 533 SPD profile when overclocked.

I have tried a couple different 4GB/533 profiles that I found, I've modified my own based off the relevant German thinkpad forum post, I've calculated my own values based off the expected actual memory clock speed of 354MHz, and I've tried straight JEDEC 533C values. None of them boot when overclocked. No beeps, no fan, just power on LED.

All of these profiles boot successfully when running at normal FSB, and show expected clock and timings in hwinfo64.

Any thoughts on why this isn't working?
Last edited by TrackpointLoveAffair on Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

axur-delmeria
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Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Re: Overclocked X61 won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Why not?

#2 Post by axur-delmeria » Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:00 pm

Can you modify the SPD profile? Keep it at 533 speed but use the looser timings of the 800 profile.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

TrackpointLoveAffair
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:49 pm
Location: TROY, NY

Re: Overclocked X61 won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Why not?

#3 Post by TrackpointLoveAffair » Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:42 am

I tried the 800 timings at 533. Same results. It's totally possible I'm doing something wrong, but I would expect something I've tried to at least boot, especially since they all boot and run fine @ 200 FSB.

I don't think it's the timings, but perhaps something with the overclock method combined with this memory clock speed. This mod doesn't work the same way as a standard pinmod; it's more of a lucky accident, and there could be some unintended effects I suppose. Also, when I power off after one of these failed boots, it doesn't turn off properly. The lights on the NIC turn on and stay on until you remove the battery. Surely people have done this before? Really interested to know if anyone has successfully used this overclock method with this memory frequency.

Guess I will try a pinmod next. Unless someone has come up with a software OC method or knows of a way to independently control the Intel GPU clock?

TrackpointLoveAffair
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:49 pm
Location: TROY, NY

Re: Overclocked X61s won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Why not?

#4 Post by TrackpointLoveAffair » Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:24 pm

I did the pinmod today, which was rather frustrating without a microscope , but I got it done and put in a convenient little switch in the memory compartment.

At first I thought something went terribly wrong... It worked but I was getting FSB speeds of 100 and 133 - for real! It was dog slow. Then I decided to put all the screws back in. There we go! 200 and 266 MHz FSB. This might explain the issue I had before with the NIC lights coming on when powering off after boot failure - I may have had the screws out then also. I'll have to double check. At any rate, it still wont boot with a 266 FSB and 533 SPD profile (though it did boot running 133 FSB when the screws were out).

So for now I am running overclocked with a 667 SPD profile. I will say this thing is very fast and snappy, it's a big difference, and If it weren't for the display driver crashes, I'd be over the moon. Still working under the assumption that I need to bring the GPU clock down and the only way to do that is to lower the memory clock.

At least now I have a convenient switch and don't need to keep disassembling the laptop.

TrackpointLoveAffair
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:49 pm
Location: TROY, NY

Re: Overclocked X61s won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Why not?

#5 Post by TrackpointLoveAffair » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:36 pm

SUCCESS!

I couldn't get it to work at CL6, but even better, it works at CL5

The timings used:
CAS-RCD-RP-RAS-RC-RFC-RRD-WR-WTR-RTP
5-5-5-15-20-52-3-5-3-3

In nanoseconds:
18.75 - 18.75 - 18.75 - 56 - 75 - 195 - 11.25 - 18.75 - 11.25 - 11.25

I also used the JEDEC 667 secondary timings:
tIS 0.20, tIH 0.27, tDS 0.10, tDH 0.17, tQHS 0.34, tDQSQ 0.24

A lot of the recommended settings for tRFC seemed to run counter to what I found in the actual SPDs and the technical docs. The JEDEC spec seems to indicate that tRFC is dependent on the module rank density, so I left the tRFC the same for any given module size. Also, the SPDTool seems to have a bug when setting the byte values for tRFC, so that's something to watch out for if you change it. I'm not 100% clear on how the value is encoded into bytes 40 and 42, but it doesn't seem to properly encode non-integer values or values >255.

tRFC based on JEDEC JESD79-2B (DDR2 spec) Table 39:
4GB module with 2GB rank density: 195 ns
2GB module with 1GB rank density: 127.5 ns
1GB module with 512GB rank density: 105 ns

I didn't perform this troubleshooting with perfect rigor, so I'm not absolutely sure which was the key factor in getting it to work (and I may not go through the effort to find out). It passes memtest86+ and I haven't had any display driver crashes yet. I'll stress test it at some point, but things looks great. CPU temps seem roughly the same but I feel like they might be more erratic. Perhaps I'll record some data and get some graphs of normal vs. overclocked.

I hope someone finds this helpful!

axur-delmeria
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 3810
Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 5:49 am
Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Re: Overclocked X61s won't boot with 533 SPD profile(s). Edit: SUCCESS!

#6 Post by axur-delmeria » Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:59 pm

Great work!

Too bad the only L7500 I have is on an X61T that somehow doesn't boot on Linux (graphics initialization issue) but runs on Win 7. :(
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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