Thinkpads Forum

Before I buy this Please members with more experience tell me will this cpu work with my 600E? 2645-55U

link

Granted I do the L2 cache thing? Does it have to say something about speedstep? (I am somewhat clueless about the feature "speedstep")

Also is it a good deal pricewise? Or should I search elsewhere?
Would be a great step up from my current 366mhz!

Thank you.[

The 55U is a different beast that the regular 600Es. I had poor success using a PIII CPU. Here is the threadthat outlined my trials and tribulations in trying to upgrade a 55U. You can also search the forum for 55U and might find some more info.

The 55x and A5x series 600Es are all different from the other 600Es. They even have a different BIOS.

wmarqusm wrote=
FYI. I have a TP 2645-55U. I noticed after a PIII-650 (MMC2) upgrade that the fsb was running at 66mhz. I cut pin 25 on the sg577 clock
generator which is tied low on this motherboard and then tied pin
25 to vddref - pin 48 with a 1k resistor (I could not locate the pull-down resistor after searching for an hour with a VOM - but it is there Smile.

TP now boots at 100mhz fsb - runs great.

Have you given up then on your upgrade of the 55U?
Think maybe I'll just try to find a good 600X mobo or something.
Will my 600 2645-45U accept a p3 650mhz?

I have already sold off the 55U to someone that wanted a simple linux system, with no plans for modding.

I am not sure about upgrading a 45U, as it is only a 600, not a 600E. The 55U had been my first "mod". I have worked on over 250 600 and 600Es but it has been mostly repairs and rebuilds. I never stepped outside of the box until I was given a 500MHz and a 750MHz processor. Then I decided what the heck....lets try.

I was able to get the mod to work in a "normal" 600E.

As for the quote about cutting pins...not sure if I would be willing to try that...and even still that is only a work around for adjusting the FSB.

You can upgrade a ThinkPad 600, just not with a PIII. One of the key differences between the ThinkPad 600 and ThinkPad 600E is that the unlike the 600E which uses MMC-2 CPU boards, the ThinkPad 600 uses MMC-1 and if I'm not mistaken, the fastest MMC-1 module that will work in the ThinkPad 600 is a 400mhz Pentium II.

Alpha is exactly right. I wasn't even thinking about the different socket types. (I guess this is what I get for doing too many things at one time.....gotta love a 3 year old boy!!)

One last thing while I have your attention. A 600X system board will strap right in my 600E's base, right? Nothing special I gotta do or buy?

I'm afriad not. You might be able to fit a 600X motherboard into a 600 or 600E shell but you won't have access to the mini-PCI slot. There are a few small differences in chassis between the two models. If you want to upgrade to a 600X, the best option would be to buy a working bottom half of a 600X and move the keyboard and screen from your 600E to it.

Let me see if I have my head around this....
I have a 2645 55U 600e running with a 300 PII.
If I were to drop a 500 PIII into it it would in fact only run at 2/3 500 ie 335 similarly a 450 PIII would run at 301?
And apart from hardware hacking that would be it?

THe powerleap software will only enable the L2 cache?

Thanks for explaining this

I am not quite sure as to the 2:3 ratio, or the reasoning for it. I do know that I couldn't get it beyond about that point.

I was reading theat the bus speed on the 600E is set at 66 Mhz and the PIII is rated for 100Mhz. hence the true speed of the CPU will be 2/3 of its rated speed or have I got it completely wrong?

it will run 100 unles you got one of them beaut beta mobos
that only allow 66fsb max which is rare for a tp600e.
if 100 fsb is no go you can go pentium11 400 or celeron 433 or 466
which seem to be faster over the 300-366 variants regardless of less cache.

I put a P3 500 into my 600E (55U even)
Powerleap sayss the FSB is running at 100
The L2 cach is enabled and it is running at 500.
I put two 128 Mb sticks into the unit from Khalon (It counts up to 292 on POST though).