R61 BIOS questions

[Nikos1974]

Hi. I own a r61 15.4 widescreen laptop and recently updated my bios to 2.29-1.08 from lenovo support. I noticed my legacy bios is gone and do not like this efi hybrid or uefi bios installed now. Question is what legacy bios can be installed now, where to find it and what flashing tools are needed.

Thanks for any help.

[Nikos1974]

Is there something wrong with the way I worded my post? 824 views and not a single reply. Let me put it this way, is there anyone that owns the same computer and still has the factory installed bios firmware installed? I would have NEVER updated with the newer garbage that locks me out of many features that could be tweaked. I am looking for a CMOS setup utility made by phoenix-award like this: http://www.amscontrols.com/wp-content/u ... -setup.png

Not like this! http://ecoshop.biz/manual/pics/thinkpad ... -page0.jpg

I originally had the first and now have the second. I need to disable hyperthreading which I had enabled before mistakengly. My processor does not support hyperthreading aka simultaneous multithreading.

If you don't understand what I am asking or need me to clarify I would be ok to do so. Just don't ignore me when I am trying to solve a problem. For six months I cannot undue a past mistake, and its getting terribly frustrating. I thought millions of people have thinkpads and thousands of those have an r61. Surely some did not update their bios and still have the factory firmware? What make and model? Simple question!!!!!

[RealBlackStuff]

That first (Award) BIOS has never been and never will be made for any Thinkpad.
You can never have had that in your R61.
That picture is from a PC, not from a laptop.
Thinkpad BIOSes never had and never will have any of those options that you dream of here...

What you need is this (Middleton) BIOS: http://ali.dj/blog/sata-ii-support-for- ... 61-x61-r61
Get the 2.24/1.08 for: R61 (15.4″ widescreen): 8930, 8932, 8933, 8934, 8935, 8936, 8937
Get the 2.29/1.08 for: R61 (15.4″ widescreen): 8914, 8918, 8919, 8920, 8927, 8928, 8929
(It will almost look identical to the 2nd picture [which is from a T60-BIOS])
Once installed press F1 to go into BIOS, select Config/CPU/Core Multi Processing and set to DISABLED.
That's all.

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum.

I am not really sure why nobody answered your original post, but it does seem that a lot of things are wrong in your assumptions (well, pretty much everything is). This could be the reason why nobody answered, because they read your post and went "huh?".

Here are the things that you are mistaken about:

I own a r61 15.4 widescreen laptop and recently updated my bios to 2.29-1.08 from lenovo support. I noticed my legacy bios is gone and do not like this efi hybrid or uefi bios installed now.

There is nothing EFI or UEFI in the "new" BIOS you installed. Heck, it's from 2010. I don't think there were any laptops with EFI on the market back then.

is there anyone that owns the same computer and still has the factory installed bios firmware installed?

You still have the factory BIOS installed, just the latest version of it. If you want a specific older version, with instructions on how to flash it - please ask. Although from the rest of your post I can say say with enough certainty that you have no reason to want an older version.

I would have NEVER updated with the newer garbage that locks me out of many features that could be tweaked.

The newer BIOS does not lock you out of any features that could be tweaked on an official older BIOS.

I am looking for a CMOS setup utility made by phoenix-award like this: http://www.amscontrols.com/wp-content/u ... -setup.png

Not like this! http://ecoshop.biz/manual/pics/thinkpad ... -page0.jpg

I originally had the first and now have the second.

I sincerely doubt that at any point in time you had the first. Every single Thinkpad I have ever seen or heard of, in the past 10 years has been shipping with the "second" BIOS style. You are either remembering things totally wrong, or you are not telling the truth, or you've had a crazy one-of-a-kind hacked Thinkpad machine (which I seriously doubt can exist, but I will happily be proven wrong, if some proof can be provided, which is more than just someone's memory).

I need to disable hyperthreading which I had enabled before mistakengly. My processor does not support hyperthreading aka simultaneous multithreading.

If your processor does not support it (which it really does not), how did you enable it in the first place? And if it's not supported, then it's not enabled. Why would you need to disabled something that is not enabled?

I thought millions of people have thinkpads and thousands of those have an r61. Surely some did not update their bios and still have the factory firmware?

Yes, certainly some did not update their BIOS. But it won't help solve your problem, because your problem is that of wrong assumptions, not wrong BIOS.

Good luck.

[Nikos1974]

I cannot be 100% sure if I had phoenix award cmos setup utility or thinkpad bios utility, but my gut feeling from last year was that I had the first, and the bios firmware was installed at the factory before any updating took place. I do remember messing with advanced cpu features like hyperthreading. I need to upload some screenshots from my computer, but can they be uploaded directly or do they need to be saved to file hosting site online first? I will create an account somewhere and upload them. Sorry for being mean before and thanks for the help.

P.S Everest diagnostics and Intel Processor Identification Utility contradict each other in relation to what my CPU is doing. I bought my laptop in greece, so perhaps phoenix award bios was installed? Man I must be going crazy...

[RealBlackStuff]

Tell us the exact laptop TYPE (from the label on the bottom) and what CPU (if not the original one) it has.
Most likely it's this one: http://ark.intel.com/products/29760/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB
or one of its its sisters, like T7100/T7500.

[Nikos1974]

Tell us the exact laptop TYPE (from the label on the bottom) and what CPU (if not the original one) it has.
Most likely it's this one: http://ark.intel.com/products/29760/Int ... 00-MHz-FSB
or one of its its sisters, like T7100/T7500.

Type: 8919 CTO It uses Intel Core Duo T8100. 2GB ram

[RealBlackStuff]

I corrected the BIOS-download, based on your MTM.

T8100 is a faster (Penryn) version of the T7000 (Merom) series.
They both cannot do hyper-threading.

Anyway, with that Middleton BIOS you'll gain SATA II speed and a few other goodies!

[Nikos1974]

A bit strange that everest says its enabled. IPIU clearly says hyperthreading is not supported.
Sorry about the links not working. Corrected!

[Nikos1974]

That first (Award) BIOS has never been and never will be made for any Thinkpad.
You can never have had that in your R61.
That picture is from a PC, not from a laptop.
Thinkpad BIOSes never had and never will have any of those options that you dream of here...

What you need is this (Middleton) BIOS: http://ali.dj/blog/sata-ii-support-for- ... 61-x61-r61
Get the 2.24/1.08 for: R61 (15.4″ widescreen): 8930, 8932, 8933, 8934, 8935, 8936, 8937
Get the 2.29/1.08 for: R61 (15.4″ widescreen): 8914, 8918, 8919, 8920, 8927, 8928, 8929
(It will almost look identical to the 2nd picture [which is from a T60-BIOS])
Once installed press F1 to go into BIOS, select Config/CPU/Core Multi Processing and set to DISABLED.
That's all.

Does the link work? I clicked on it but nothing loads. I can still google the modified bios from middleton and see what comes up. Anyway I definitely want to change the bios to disable hyperthreading. Hopefully it won't brick the system. Has it been tested?

[RealBlackStuff]

It has been tested probably 6-10'000 times...
Click on the last red 2.29-1.08 for the download.
Use the .ISO with e.g. ImgBurn.
When you run the self-booting CD you must have a charged battery and a charger connected.

[dr_st]

A bit strange that everest says its enabled. IPIU clearly says hyperthreading is not supported.

By the screenshot, this is a very old version of Everest (from 2005), which predates your CPU. I wouldn't trust it to be accurate.

Anyway I definitely want to change the bios to disable hyperthreading.

There is nothing in the BIOS to enable/disable Hyperthreading, because it is simply not supported by these CPUs. What RealBlackStuff referred to (core multiprocessing) enables and disables physical cores of the CPU. There is no reason whatsoever to disable it, because you would just be taking your dual-core CPU and running it as single-core, thus crippling it severely. Why would you want to do that?

You are wasting time here trying to solve a problem that does not exist.

[Nikos1974]

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you, sir.

I sincerely doubt that at any point in time you had the first.[/b] Every single Thinkpad I have ever seen or heard of, in the past 10 years has been shipping with the "second" BIOS style. You are either remembering things totally wrong, or you are not telling the truth, or you've had a crazy one-of-a-kind hacked Thinkpad machine (which I seriously doubt can exist, but I will happily be proven wrong, if some proof can be provided, which is more than just someone's memory).

And that is the mystery as far as I am concerned. But I don't see why it amazes you so much that perhaps some models may have had an award bios installed at the factory, especially ones sold in europe. Like I said before, I cannot be 100% sure that I had an award bios, but it seems STRANGE I would be recalling my previous laptop's bios over 5 years ago that had windows xp installed and a 17 inch widescreen.

[Nikos1974]

A bit strange that everest says its enabled. IPIU clearly says hyperthreading is not supported.

By the screenshot, this is a very old version of Everest (from 2005), which predates your CPU. I wouldn't trust it to be accurate.

Anyway I definitely want to change the bios to disable hyperthreading.

There is nothing in the BIOS to enable/disable Hyperthreading, because it is simply not supported by these CPUs. What RealBlackStuff referred to (core multiprocessing) enables and disables physical cores of the CPU. There is no reason whatsoever to disable it, because you would just be taking your dual-core CPU and running it as single-core, thus crippling it severely. Why would you want to do that?

You are wasting time here trying to solve a problem that does not exist.

Good observation about core multiprocessing. It is not the same thing as simultaneous multithreading and would disable a physical core instead of a logical core. I found a website that explains it well. http://superuser.com/questions/214331/w ... iprocessor.

Since middletons bios does not address SMT, it is pointless to swap it with what I currently have. I give up!

[RealBlackStuff]

One last observation:
There never was any Award BIOS in any T61/R61.

If you lack appreciation of all the advantages of Middleton's BIOS, then I can only wonder...

There's hope for you yet, get an i5 machine if you insist on SMT: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/889/In ... 4200U.html

[rkawakami]

Not particularly related to the OP's problem but I'll throw this out for general consumption...

Is there something wrong with the way I worded my post? 824 views and not a single reply.

Post views can be artificially inflated because of the web spiders that are crawling around the forum. There's currently 11 spiders that have visited today; 8 of those within the last half-hour and I'm sure they visit multiple times per day. Over the 26 days or so for the 824 views works out to a little more than 31 views per day. Yes, undoubtedly some of those were by human beings but they could have neither the desire, nor the expertise to answer the question. The RAGZ forum is one of the least visited or posted-to forums here, along with most of the other "legacy" hardware forums.

[Nikos1974]

One last observation:
There never was any Award BIOS in any T61/R61.

If you lack appreciation of all the advantages of Middleton's BIOS, then I can only wonder...

There's hope for you yet, get an i5 machine if you insist on SMT: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/889/In ... 4200U.html

I don't know much about middleton's bios, so its hard to appreciate something you don't know. In general I was never a hardware geek eventhough I have owned two laptops up till now and 2 desktops as well. I have minimal experience with bios but I am learning that most OEM manufacturers are licensing the software from independant bios manufacturers such as award, phoenix and ami, then develop their own code to give users only the access to features/settings they deem necessary. I think they do this to prevent superficial computer users from making too many changes and sending their computer to the dealer to have it repaired under warranty. I see their point, but I still miss the independant bios(non-oem) offered from the main three sources.

There are completly unlocked bios available here and there, but bricking the board means you have to replace the bios chip and motherboard, and on systems that are already old, I don't think its worth it. I am just going to keep this laptop and later on build my own system from scratch making sure to have a non-oem motherboard and non-oem bios. Generic stuff!