Thinkpads Forum

Does anyone experience a problem of speedstep?

I am planning to buy a X60 (or T60) in the near future. While searching web for the machines info, I came across a complaint with X60.

The complaint is like this:
During charge of a battery, no matter how one needs to have higher power of CPU (2 GHz), X60 won't give him the desired power but a lower fixed frequency of 1GHz.

The symptom is reproduced by following procedures:
(in T7200 Core2Duo X60, confirmed by using both 65W and 90W AC adaptors)
- Set 2GHz both in AC powered mode and battery powered mode
- Set maximum amount of charge to 100%
- Use up battery about to 50%
- Plug in AC (and start to charge)
- Test with your favorite benchmark programs to see the CPU speed
The man assumed the cause of the trouble is that there is a mistake in designing the H/W related to power supply and it is not capable of supplying enough power to both the highest CPU clock and the charge.

The man of the report already took his action against Lenovo in Japan.
They admitted the problem and replied him with the following responses recently.
The responses includes:
- Any refund including related peripherals (purchased at any shop if a receipt is provided). Takes two weeks to process. Return after refund. A week or so is allowed to transfer the data.
- No upgrade/change to a new model with additional money is available. Need to go through refund/return process and buy again. No change to a prospective model either.
- M/B replacement without alternative PC during repair, possibly taking a week in worst case. (Developing a test M/B needs 3 months at most and 1 month for massproduction, thus repair will take place after such period.)
- After M/B replacement, prolonged time of charge is expected.
- Notifications to other users and to the public on their web are under consideration.

NB:
- According to Lenovo, this problem happens with (all?) Core2Duo machines and some CoreDuo machines. (At first, they said all X60/X60s suffers from this problem.)
- This is not related to problems with over heating.
- This only happens when in charging. When the battery is charged over 80%, or fully charged, or no battery is attached, this does not happen. However, between 80% and 90% of charge, higher load can reproduce this.

Knowing this, I am kind of lost in a way. I definitely do not want a situation with my PC being a week or so away. I would rather have a PC without such trouble...like T60.

I also found a possibly related topic of this at this forum:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=28226
I wonder why not so many users have noticed the problem so far...

No problems here.

No problem here.

Sure the laptop is hotter (and fan louder) when connected to AC but otherwise.. no problem at all.

Hi fifshy, the problem lies in the fact that many users don't bother running benchmark tests and CPU speed monitoring software when they get their X60.

I am experiencing the same problem and have reported it to IBM Support, to no avail. Take a look here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64948

Hope it helps.

No problem here with XP.

Comage wrote:Hi fifshy, the problem lies in the fact that many users don't bother running benchmark tests and CPU speed monitoring software when they get their X60.

I am experiencing the same problem and have reported it to IBM Support, to no avail. Take a look here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64948

Hope it helps.

Hi Comage, thanks a lot.
I read your post at other forum. Your troubles reported on 07/20 are relevant to what I explained here, don't you think? There seems to be a little bit of differences though.
I will ask my guys if they have a problem of your first trouble.

To other guys who said no problem:
Do you guys all run on XP instead of Vista? Or maybe on Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD or something?

It's pretty similar, I guess.

I'm not an electric technician, so I'm not really sure how I could test it out.

The last time, at the time of posting at the other forum, it was impossible to run at full speed when no battery was inserted. A BIOS update later (v2.xx) fixed this problem, although the patch history makes no mention of this.

no problem with my lovely machine

Well yeah, there definitely isn't a problem here. Everything still runs, and unless you've opened some benchmark proggie or monitoring software, you will never know the CPU's running slower.

The problem still exists for me however that when charging the battery up from a low level (<10%), the CPU is forced to run at a lower speed. Only around 70+% does the speed kick back up to maximum.

I should like to resolve this issue too. Could the folks here with no problems help by posting their BIOS version and their machine model?

The latest release of the BIOS seems to fix the following issues:

1. This BIOS contains a critical processor microcode update to improve system reliability. Lenovo highly recommends that you apply this BIOS update.

2. (Fix) Upgraded to the latest microcode update for Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

3. (Fix) The CPU clock may down during charging the battery. (EC)

*Edit*: Tried the new BIOS, and it indeed fixes the problem.

X60 unable to run at full speed without battery
Hi guys, current owner of a X60 (T2400 @ 1.83GHz Duo Core) here.

I found out that when I am running on AC without the battery plugged in, the CPU will step down to 987MHz (from System Properties), never able to run at 1.83GHz full speed.

I have checked my power scheme settings, and I am running using "Power Source Optimized" scheme. No matter how I custom-define a scheme to go at maximum performance, I am never able to get the CPU running at maximum speed without its battery.

A technical support staff from IBM whom I emailed to tells me that the X60 "requires the battery to be in place to buffer the necessary power to the CPU in order for it to run at full speed". Hence it will not run at full speed without its battery, even on AC.

I am thinking that this is a load of bullcr*p. I have worked with older IBM models (not using Duo Core technology) and none of this happens. I also have friends who are using Duo Core laptops from other brands which do not exhibit this problem as well.

Is this considered normal?

This is a very normal problem in my experience. My A31 will NOT run at full speed unless there is a battery installed. I have NEVER used the battery other than as a UPS or to move from one room to the next. It annoys me that when my batteries both failed I was left with 899MHz. I use only one machine at a time and still use an ultrabay battery until I replace the main battery. I wouldn't bother if it weren't for the CPU speed issue. Even a brand new battery doesn't last long enough on the A31 to be of any real use. I didn't buy it for that anyway. I bought it because it's portable.

Now I have an X60T on the way and I may use that battery since it runs for so many hours!

Comage wrote:The latest release of the BIOS seems to fix the following issues:

1. This BIOS contains a critical processor microcode update to improve system reliability. Lenovo highly recommends that you apply this BIOS update.

2. (Fix) Upgraded to the latest microcode update for Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

3. (Fix) The CPU clock may down during charging the battery. (EC)

*Edit*: Tried the new BIOS, and it indeed fixes the problem.

This issue has been present ever since the X60 was out last year in March '06. It sure took them long enough to resolve this problem.

I had an A-series last time, and it sure wasn't that portable for me.

Really? I never noticed that.

Comage wrote:Hi fifshy, the problem lies in the fact that many users don't bother running benchmark tests and CPU speed monitoring software when they get their X60.

Well, it might be the case that the second generation of X60's aren't affected.

Comage wrote:This issue has been present ever since the X60 was out last year in March '06. It sure took them long enough to resolve this problem.

I had an A-series last time, and it sure wasn't that portable for me.

Well it's a lot more portable than a comparable desktop machine with CRT which it replaced. We don't have any desktop machines here.

I met that once while running the benchmark in EVEREST...However,some one says that in the latest BIOS(2.10) this problem is fixed...see http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=41526 for details