TOPIC: My 770X 9549-7AO upgrade, notes, and thanks.
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:54 pm
Ok all, I know this is old news and old hat to most of you, but I just had to post. I've recently upgraded my baby and I'm very happy with the outcome.
Before I get into describing it, I wanted to thank everyone here, in particular Sharedoc. I know I haven't posted before, but I didn't have anything to add until now. I've been silently scouring the forums and collecting information for my upgrade for months and finally did it. I composited information from many people here and a couple other places like wims bios.
So thanks everyone, couldn't have done it without you.
Now, as for my ThinkPad.
I've had a 770X 9549-7AO since it was brand new. I've used it nearly daily for all those years and it's been the best piece of equipment I've ever owned.
I've thought about replacing it on occassion, but I can never really find anything worthy of replacing it. So I've kept it and tried to upgrade it as best I could.
When I got it, it was configured as follows:
- P-II 300
- 8.1GB HD
- 128MB RAM (PC-66)
- DVD ROM
- DEVA card (video in/out DVD decoder)
- 1280x1024 screen (which was incredible in those days, and still great)
- Win98 (cough)
I first upgraded to 98SE and leaned it out with 98lite.
Next I got a few HD caddies and put in a 20GB HD and kept the old 8.1GB for testing OS's.
I moved it to SuSE Linux next and moved windows to the old 8.1GB HD.
I upgraded as newer versions of SuSE were released and replaced the Win98 on the 8.1GB with Win2k.
Finally I added another 128MB of RAM which was a big improvement under every OS.
I also added other things to make it more useful like a 3com 10/100 PC-CARD Ethernet NIC, a USB Zip drive, and later a 40GB HD.
The final round of upgrades were a D-Link USB 2.0 PC-CARD adapter, a D-Link DWL-G650 802.11G PC-CARD, and an SMC 2532WB long range 802.11b PCMCIA card.
This all worked great for a few years but applications and OS's grow and the old 770 began to slow till it became frustrating to use.
Finally I started thinking about what could be done to improve it more. I always knew it had the MMC2 processor module but never really thought it was actually upgradeable. But I started doing a little research and googling and found some resources and experiences of others that gave me some hope.
I collected a lot of information and decided to go for a moderate upgrade. I didn't want to go to a faster P-II, I didn't think it was worth it.
I also didn't want to mess with trying a SpeedStep II P-III at this point either. That left me with the choice of a 500MHz SpeedStep I P-III which was fine for me.
I luckily found a Pentium III 500MHz MMC2 module (PML...) for $9.95 USD ! sweet. I also picked up a pair of $20 128MB PC-100 SODIMMs to add to the one I already had scavenged from a dead Toshiba. This would give me a nice 384MB of PC-100. I didn't want to mess with 256MB DIMMs at this point either as I had heard mixed results on that upgrade, and no definitive info on exactly what did work consistently on my model ThinkPad. But 384MB is pretty good for most uses.
SO, I dug out the Hardware Maintenance manual, fired it up (it's PDF) on my desktop computer, and sat down next to it with my tools, a TV tray, and an empty egg carton.
I followed each step in the HMM for disassembling the ThinkPad and carefully put all fasteners from each step into it's own cup in the egg carton, going in order up the carton rows. I stacked bigger parts next to it on the TV tray.
Basically you have to nearly completely dissassemble the ThinkPad into component parts. Pay close attention to what you take out of where. There are some steps that involve two different sized screws that aren't easy to tell where they go just by looking.
Finally I got to the motherboard DIMM and replaced it with a 128MB PC-100. Then the long process of reassembly. Once I got back to the CPU module I simply inserted the new P-III 500 module in place of the old P-II 300.
After getting it all assembled, I hit the power button and held my breath.
BEEP. yeah! success. I let it boot, did the bios error key press dance and made sure things worked ok. At first I was a little dissapointed because the system was sluggish and subject to pausing and video corruption. But it did work.
Next step was editing the CMOS. I took Sharedoc's original idea for the 600 and used the suggestion of another forum member and OR'd in just the cache disable bit for my machine.
No more boot problem. Now for the cache.
I used the P-III cache enabler by Chmouel Boudjnah for Linux and it works beautifully. For Windows I installed the PowerLeap CPU Control Panel. This works pretty well too.
However, I still had some issues. Finally I decided that maybe the operating systems do more CPU based configuration, self modification, than was thought.
I re-installed Windows 2000 first from scratch on another new 40GB HD I had just gotten. I have a nice slipstreamed Win2k SP4 disk and that installed nicely, even with no cache enabled. Once installed, I added the PowerLeap CPU Control Panel and wow, what a difference.
This is like a whole new computer. The GUI is snappy, multimedia is smoother and faster, applications load and run quicker. Every kind of everyday application is very useable and most even enjoyable now. It'll even re-compress DVD's with DVDShrink in reasonable times.
Linux is even more enjoayble as it can be even more CPU optimized.
I am very happy with my 'new' ThinkPad 770X. I probably keep it for a few more years. After all, most of the new Laptops out there are low quality, crap with poor ergonomics, lousy screens, breakable plastic and those awful, useless drag-pad controllers. And what's with the screens on these things shrinking? try finding 1280x1024 or 1400x1050 these days. These little crap boxes are coming with worthless resolutions like 1280x768 or 1280x800. Fine if all you do is watch DVD's but not very useful for web browsing or word processing.
I am also very encouraged by the fact that I can do even more. Down the road I can move to a faster, Speedstep II P-III like 750 or 850 MHz. I am researching a reliable, safe way to modify the Speedstep module to force it to run in high performance mode all the time (I couldn't care less about battery life).
I also plan to collect info on what RAM modules will work in what sockets to give me the max 512MB RAM.
But for now, I'm VERY happy with my 'new' ThinkPad 770X
BTW, some things I might do differently in the future. Replace the factory heat transfer tape with a good sliver paste. Though so far it doesn't seem to overheat. Though I have a note on this. Before I re-installed Windows, I did have some heat issues and the fan didn't seem to run on high very often. After the fresh install, it seems to run very solid and cool and the fan runs more like it should. I recommend everyone that tries this wipe their drives and install fresh with any OS. I might also look at finding a brighter backlight tube.
Thanks all,
Tachyon
Before I get into describing it, I wanted to thank everyone here, in particular Sharedoc. I know I haven't posted before, but I didn't have anything to add until now. I've been silently scouring the forums and collecting information for my upgrade for months and finally did it. I composited information from many people here and a couple other places like wims bios.
So thanks everyone, couldn't have done it without you.
Now, as for my ThinkPad.
I've had a 770X 9549-7AO since it was brand new. I've used it nearly daily for all those years and it's been the best piece of equipment I've ever owned.
I've thought about replacing it on occassion, but I can never really find anything worthy of replacing it. So I've kept it and tried to upgrade it as best I could.
When I got it, it was configured as follows:
- P-II 300
- 8.1GB HD
- 128MB RAM (PC-66)
- DVD ROM
- DEVA card (video in/out DVD decoder)
- 1280x1024 screen (which was incredible in those days, and still great)
- Win98 (cough)
I first upgraded to 98SE and leaned it out with 98lite.
Next I got a few HD caddies and put in a 20GB HD and kept the old 8.1GB for testing OS's.
I moved it to SuSE Linux next and moved windows to the old 8.1GB HD.
I upgraded as newer versions of SuSE were released and replaced the Win98 on the 8.1GB with Win2k.
Finally I added another 128MB of RAM which was a big improvement under every OS.
I also added other things to make it more useful like a 3com 10/100 PC-CARD Ethernet NIC, a USB Zip drive, and later a 40GB HD.
The final round of upgrades were a D-Link USB 2.0 PC-CARD adapter, a D-Link DWL-G650 802.11G PC-CARD, and an SMC 2532WB long range 802.11b PCMCIA card.
This all worked great for a few years but applications and OS's grow and the old 770 began to slow till it became frustrating to use.
Finally I started thinking about what could be done to improve it more. I always knew it had the MMC2 processor module but never really thought it was actually upgradeable. But I started doing a little research and googling and found some resources and experiences of others that gave me some hope.
I collected a lot of information and decided to go for a moderate upgrade. I didn't want to go to a faster P-II, I didn't think it was worth it.
I also didn't want to mess with trying a SpeedStep II P-III at this point either. That left me with the choice of a 500MHz SpeedStep I P-III which was fine for me.
I luckily found a Pentium III 500MHz MMC2 module (PML...) for $9.95 USD ! sweet. I also picked up a pair of $20 128MB PC-100 SODIMMs to add to the one I already had scavenged from a dead Toshiba. This would give me a nice 384MB of PC-100. I didn't want to mess with 256MB DIMMs at this point either as I had heard mixed results on that upgrade, and no definitive info on exactly what did work consistently on my model ThinkPad. But 384MB is pretty good for most uses.
SO, I dug out the Hardware Maintenance manual, fired it up (it's PDF) on my desktop computer, and sat down next to it with my tools, a TV tray, and an empty egg carton.
I followed each step in the HMM for disassembling the ThinkPad and carefully put all fasteners from each step into it's own cup in the egg carton, going in order up the carton rows. I stacked bigger parts next to it on the TV tray.
Basically you have to nearly completely dissassemble the ThinkPad into component parts. Pay close attention to what you take out of where. There are some steps that involve two different sized screws that aren't easy to tell where they go just by looking.
Finally I got to the motherboard DIMM and replaced it with a 128MB PC-100. Then the long process of reassembly. Once I got back to the CPU module I simply inserted the new P-III 500 module in place of the old P-II 300.
After getting it all assembled, I hit the power button and held my breath.
BEEP. yeah! success. I let it boot, did the bios error key press dance and made sure things worked ok. At first I was a little dissapointed because the system was sluggish and subject to pausing and video corruption. But it did work.
Next step was editing the CMOS. I took Sharedoc's original idea for the 600 and used the suggestion of another forum member and OR'd in just the cache disable bit for my machine.
No more boot problem. Now for the cache.
I used the P-III cache enabler by Chmouel Boudjnah for Linux and it works beautifully. For Windows I installed the PowerLeap CPU Control Panel. This works pretty well too.
However, I still had some issues. Finally I decided that maybe the operating systems do more CPU based configuration, self modification, than was thought.
I re-installed Windows 2000 first from scratch on another new 40GB HD I had just gotten. I have a nice slipstreamed Win2k SP4 disk and that installed nicely, even with no cache enabled. Once installed, I added the PowerLeap CPU Control Panel and wow, what a difference.
This is like a whole new computer. The GUI is snappy, multimedia is smoother and faster, applications load and run quicker. Every kind of everyday application is very useable and most even enjoyable now. It'll even re-compress DVD's with DVDShrink in reasonable times.
Linux is even more enjoayble as it can be even more CPU optimized.
I am very happy with my 'new' ThinkPad 770X. I probably keep it for a few more years. After all, most of the new Laptops out there are low quality, crap with poor ergonomics, lousy screens, breakable plastic and those awful, useless drag-pad controllers. And what's with the screens on these things shrinking? try finding 1280x1024 or 1400x1050 these days. These little crap boxes are coming with worthless resolutions like 1280x768 or 1280x800. Fine if all you do is watch DVD's but not very useful for web browsing or word processing.
I am also very encouraged by the fact that I can do even more. Down the road I can move to a faster, Speedstep II P-III like 750 or 850 MHz. I am researching a reliable, safe way to modify the Speedstep module to force it to run in high performance mode all the time (I couldn't care less about battery life).
I also plan to collect info on what RAM modules will work in what sockets to give me the max 512MB RAM.
But for now, I'm VERY happy with my 'new' ThinkPad 770X
BTW, some things I might do differently in the future. Replace the factory heat transfer tape with a good sliver paste. Though so far it doesn't seem to overheat. Though I have a note on this. Before I re-installed Windows, I did have some heat issues and the fan didn't seem to run on high very often. After the fresh install, it seems to run very solid and cool and the fan runs more like it should. I recommend everyone that tries this wipe their drives and install fresh with any OS. I might also look at finding a brighter backlight tube.
Thanks all,
Tachyon