Thinkpads Forum

Check this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ2qE06WJhA

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Possible explainations for the symptoms:
The screen used on W701 is 8 bit RGB-LED, which is quite rare on laptops (most laptop screen is 6 bit and the famous HP DreamColor 2 is 10 bit)
I believe the RGBWB cycle displayed is due to the HP card output not compatible with the 8 bit, as I remembered, HP 8740w used either 10 bit dream color or the 6 bit normal screen. Or it could just be that the vBIOS chip is partially locked and the EDID part is not changed when I flashed the vBIOS
(corrrect me if I'm wrong)

What is really going on in W701(ds):
With the help from Javi-Jie, we found that:
1. sBIOS checks for 4 cards, FX2800m, FX3800m, GTS 160m and an AMD Engineering sample card (supposedly to be a firepro card based on Mobility Radeon HD4870, but as we all know there was no mobile HD4870m based firepro card)
2. sBIOS itself contains 4 vBIOSes, but not corresponding to the four cards above. Infact, there are two different versions for each of FX2800m and FX3800m
3. The onboard vBIOS of FX3800m, has vendor ID 10DE (nVIDIA), and the onboard BIOS of FX2800m has vendor ID 17AA (lenovo). but all the vBIOSes contained in sBIOS have vendor ID 17AA.


more to be added

Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.

haarp wrote:Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.

your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?

Here is the thread about it: https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/19907 ... nkpad-quot

Hello RMSMahestic, el-sahef and fellow forum members

This is indeed some progress!
It proves in practice that W701(ds) cards are electrically/pin compatible with MXM standard.

This is very interesting and actual for me, still using W701ds at work table every day and it never let me down.

Some questions arise
1. Is it loading VBIOS from video card or just makes ID checks and load it from one of 4 VBIOSes found in system BIOS.
http://ridingtheflow.blogspot.ru/2011/0 ... nd-of.html , precisely this quote:

This prompted for deeper investigation into system BIOS, to check for any black/whitelisting for "authorised cards only". I didn't find any "whitelists for the sake of whitelisting", but I've found that the VBIOS on the actual MXM card is not even tried to being used by SBIOS. Instead, SBIOS contains 4 VBIOS files (for all variations of Quadros these Thinkpads could ship from Lenovo), the correct VBIOS being picked based on match with ID contained on card, and then it tries to use this.

So flashing HP card with Lenovo VBIOS made its device Manufacturer ID/Device ID to match and system to boot, although some screen issues (test pattern) until video driver loads.

2. If its possible to find some disassembly/Thinkpad BIOS guru to make load VBIOS from the MXM card itself and bypass these VBIOS checks on system BIOS. That should allow to install
any 3rd party MXM card to W701.

3. If I remember the schematics correctly, some GPIO (general-purpose, read, 'reserved') pins on MXM modules were used for 2nd-screen handling on DS models, that means MXM cards specifically
for W701(ds) contain additional functions in Lenovo's modified VBIOS to get 2nd LCD handling and won't be present in 3rd party cards. (That explains partially this mess with out-of-box MXM incompatibility) However, these things -- 3.1 do not make card electrically incompatible (as GPIO pins are present in all other MXM modules, just not used) 3.2 secondary LCD can still work possibly, cause its faked as a mmm (don't remember schematics closely) as a DVI screen and those pins mb just turn off other MXM ports like DP as those nvidias can only handle 2 screens (DVI port is also electrically disconnected in case of 2nd lcd open).

Sorry if post was too long.
RMSMajestic, I wish success to you!

Cheers

RMSMajestic wrote:

haarp wrote:Very nice! I love pioneer work like this. For the longest time, the W701 only accepted Lenovo cards. Even though I do not own a W701 anymore, they still fascinate me.

your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?

I'll make it quick, since I do not want to post large off-topic messages here

You'll need an XM CPU and a modded BIOS. The stock BIOS antifeature cripples the CPU by intentionally setting Bit 20 in MSR 0x194, which locks out custom turbo ratios even on XM processors. After that it's simply a matter of raising the turbo ratios, e.g. using ThrottleStop in Windows or a custom script I wrote for Linux.

It's not a full 4x4.6GHz as that would produce humongous amounts of waste heat I keep the TDP at 55W, which allows for roughly 4x 3.9-4.0GHz with all cores loaded or 4.6GHz on fewer loaded cores. I've since had to reduce the max clock speed somewhat (4.4-4.5GHz) as the voltage necessary for 4.6GHz simply ran it too hot.


For further details, you can have a look at my thread on the German Thinkpad forum, which el-sahef linked to. I was going to translate and post it here at some point, but haven't found the time yet.

haarp wrote:

RMSMajestic wrote: your overclocked W530 fascinates me more TBH Could you please elaborate more on that?
Is it 4.6Ghz on all four cores or just 4.6Ghz Max turbo?

I'll make it quick, since I do not want to post large off-topic messages here

You'll need an XM CPU and a modded BIOS. The stock BIOS antifeature cripples the CPU by intentionally setting Bit 20 in MSR 0x194, which locks out custom turbo ratios even on XM processors. After that it's simply a matter of raising the turbo ratios, e.g. using ThrottleStop in Windows or a custom script I wrote for Linux.

It's not a full 4x4.6GHz as that would produce humongous amounts of waste heat I keep the TDP at 55W, which allows for roughly 4x 3.9-4.0GHz with all cores loaded or 4.6GHz on fewer loaded cores. I've since had to reduce the max clock speed somewhat (4.4-4.5GHz) as the voltage necessary for 4.6GHz simply ran it too hot.


For further details, you can have a look at my thread on the German Thinkpad forum, which el-sahef linked to. I was going to translate and post it here at some point, but haven't found the time yet.

That is very very interesting.
Wouldn't have sold my W530 if I saw this earlier......
BTW is there a way to unlock the CPU overclocking on Dell M6700? Can it be achieved in a similar way?

RMSMajestic wrote:BTW is there a way to unlock the CPU overclocking on Dell M6700? Can it be achieved in a similar way?

Possibly. Check MSR 0x194, if bit 20 is set you'll need an uncrippled BIOS that does not set this bit to begin with. (once set it cannot be unset until shutdown)

RMSMajestic wrote:I believe the RGBWB cycle displayed is due to the HP card output not compatible with the 8 bit, as I remembered, HP 8740w used either 10 bit dream color or the 6 bit normal screen.

Firstly, Kudos for the attempt! Secondly - the 8740w's LVDS is wired for 8bit display, but all of the stock panel options were 6bit. The DC2 is indeed 10bit, but it works through DP (then goes to the ColorBoard (on the back of the display), which converts it to 10bit LVDS). My guess is that the stock HP vBIOS (and maybe even the GPU itself) is made for 6bit LVDS.

New updates:
I tried to change the GPU to HD8970m, (a specially modified vBIOS faking FX3800m)
Unfortunately without any success
the 4 OPROM files in sBIOS, OPROM00 and OPROM02 is for FX2800m and OPROM01 and OPROM03 are for FX3800m
I replaced those for FX 3800m with the HD 8970m vBIOS, but the system refuse to boot even with FX 2800m installed. I guess there's some checksum check or content check for vBIOSes, or phoenix BIOS tool did not pack everything back correctly. I'm gonna seek professional help on this.

talking about ridingtheflow's HD6970m attempt, from his description it's merely just replacing the hardware IDs in vBIOS, which infact it's still FX3800m's vBIOS being loaded for HD6970m, which ofc will cause irregular behaviour. And I'm really surpeised that the VGA actually worked.

Succeeded in undervolting my FX 3800m to 1.1V @ 625/1500/1000 (though I suspect that I can undervolt further more)