Thinkpads Forum

Version 7BETC4WW (2.06) (Really says 2.05 but still 7BETC4WW )

(New) Maximum Graphics Memory size increases to 224MB. (BIOS)
(Fix) If the computer is forcibly shut down by special conditions (such like the power button being pressed for seconds or the battery down in suspend mode), the computer may not work after power on. (BIOS)
(Fix) The computer may be shutdown by a certain 3G GPRS card in the PC card slot. (EC)
(Fix) Once Active Protection System is disabled, it cannot be enabled again until the system is restarted. (EC)

Seems like some important fixes. I've had the APC disable.

Anyone tried it out yet? Any change in power management?

Trying...

Tried.

Power consumption is slightly bigger than with 1.11.

The "standby glitch" (the increased power consumption after resuming from standby) is still there.

Video memory is 224 MB as promised.

What else?

I had the APC disable happen a couple of times recently and had to re-boot and they fixed this as well.

224MB in graphic memory, does it take from the Physical Memory?

@ gunston. Of course yes....

@ everybody: does it make sense to re-install the video drivers?

I just flashed the bios on my x60s (1702-55G) to 2.05 and guess what? After the reboot, more specifically when the splash screen (eg thinkpad - a product of lenovo or whatever) should appear i get an absolutely blank screen (without the backlight) and no disk activity of any kind - the system just freezes there and that's it. A power off-power on won't help either, no progress whatsoever. So a word of warning before you guys consider updating...

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Though I guess I'll have to take it to service...

regards,
kaspar

madana wrote:Tried.

Power consumption is slightly bigger than with 1.11.

I see this also.

The "standby glitch" (the increased power consumption after resuming from standby) is still there.

I didn't investigate this.

Video memory is 224 MB as promised.

I also see this.

What else?

I updated the video drivers again, as suggested in the bios changelog. Now I see that the only available refresh rate for the built-in LCD is 50Hz (thankfully, this is the refresh rate I preferred to use all along ). Correspondingly, the power-manager doesn't have a timer for dropping the refresh-rate. Not sure if this is due to the BIOS update or something else, but this is the first time I noticed it.

That's all I noticed so far.

Wow! I'm surprised! Your X60s (50 Hz) screen refresh rate is *slower* than my X32. On the X32, it is 60 Hz. 60 Hz is the only screen refresh rate the X32 can display...

Does anyone know if this is because GMA 950 uses physical memory?

60hz used to be an option, but the recent Intel graphics driver disabled it. For me, I can choose 40hz or 50hz.

beaker wrote:

Wow! I'm surprised! Your X60s (50 Hz) screen refresh rate is *slower* than my X32. On the X32, it is 60 Hz. 60 Hz is the only screen refresh rate the X32 can display...

Does anyone know if this is because GMA 950 uses physical memory?

When I first got the X60s, it had refresh rate options of 40Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, and a power-manager setting to drop the refresh rate to save power if the laptop was idle for a number of minutes (eg, you could set it to drop the refresh rate after 2 minutes, dim the display after 3 minutes, turn the display off after 5 minutes). I couldn't tell the difference between 50Hz and 60Hz, but I could tell that 60Hz caused a slightly higher power draw, so I used 50Hz to save power (on the other hand 40Hz looked noticably blurry to me, especially with side-scrolling text, stock tickers, etc). Now the 40Hz option is gone, and so is the option to reduce the refresh rate after a certain idle period. The power difference between 40Hz and 50Hz was only about 0.2W at the very most (probably only 0.1W) so I don't think it's a great loss.

Lev

Its interesting that you now have 14x the VRAM of my X32 and PCI-X for bandwidth for the video display adapter on your X60s (vs. AGP 4x of the X32), yet you only have 50 Hz vertical refresh.

beaker wrote:Its interesting that you now have 14x the VRAM of my X32 and PCI-X for bandwidth for the video display adapter on your X60s (vs. AGP 4x of the X32), yet you only have 50 Hz vertical refresh.

If I can't visually tell the difference between 50Hz and 60Hz (and, believe me, I really tried to find one), and if 50Hz gives a small but measurable improvement in power consumption (which it does), wouldn't 50Hz be the obvious choice for refresh rate?

(After all, active matrix TFT is not like CRT, where anything less than 85Hz starts to look flickery).

Lev

ratoto67 wrote:@ gunston. Of course yes....

@ everybody: does it make sense to re-install the video drivers?

how much physical memory did it consume compare to the previous one??

The 40/50hz refresh rate has always been a problem since 2 video driver updates ago. I thought the BIOS would fix it but I guess not. I just stick with the old video driver

For those that have updated their BIOS (and have the physical memory to allocate 224 MB VRAM), do you see a signficiant improvement in video quality?

I want to be convinced that the video quality is a real step up from the X32, so I can justify getting a X60s.

the BIOS splash screen after upgrading will be changing to Pentium3 lookalike logo, black background and white Fonts,
previous splash screen looks better

who did update to the latest BIOS?
pls share your experience of using it.

I get "You must install ThinkPad Configuration before using this utility" when I run WinUPTP.EXE per instruction.