Thinkpads Forum

[Moderator Edit: Moved from Official Upgrade thread in order to focus discussion]

I just installed a 500mhz PIII on my 600E. It seems to work fine, but is only running at 330mhz, tops. I check in Powerleap and it says that the FSB is 100mhz, but the Bus is only 66mhz. Anybody know why this is? I tried the speedstep mod, but it didn't change anything.
I wonder what is keeping the bus from running at the full 100mhz?

Thanks,
--James

Not sure why this would be, but I have a couple questions to help narrow things down and remove certain possibilities.

Are you running Windows 2000? What is your OS?
- Windows 2000 has built in CPU "throttling" that can appear similar to SpeedStep under certain configurations.

What memory do you have installed? Are you sure that it is PC100?

What are your power settings?
- They should be set at Max Performance or "Always On" until you figure out what is going on with your CPU.

What is the exact model number on your CPU?
- The SpeedStep PIII 500 is very rare, so I would expect yours is a regular PIII 500 without SpeedStep.

Phil.

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

I have two 128mb 100mhz sticks of SD RAM installed, along with the internal 32mb that I've disabled and re-enabled with no difference.

Yes, I have it on "Always On" and I also turned of power management.

I'm not sure of the exact model number, where would I find it?

jamiphar wrote:I'm not sure of the exact model number, where would I find it?

It is a 13-character string printed directly on the MMC-2 module in tiny grey/black text on a small white rectangular background. To decipher the numbers, check out DNA_DAN's explanation of Intel's Product Tracking Code in the Official 600 Upgrade thread. Your CPU should start with PMM500... or PML500...

But it still should be running with a bus speed of 100MHz, regardless of whether it is a SpeedStep CPU or not, so even if you locate the number, it won't necessarily solve your bus speed issue. I guess I'm just wondering if the CPU really is a standard Intel Pentium III 500MHz or not (?!)...

I don't have many more ideas about this one. Maybe someone else on the Forum can help?

Phil.

Ok, the number is PML50002001AA, which seems to be a non-speedstep PIII with 256kb cache.

Does anyone else have experience with this kind of problem?

jamiphar wrote:Does anyone else have experience with this kind of problem?

Which driver are you using?

PIII or intel processor driver?

cmarti wrote:

jamiphar wrote:Does anyone else have experience with this kind of problem?

Which driver are you using?

PIII or intel processor driver?

How would I determine that? I haven't installed any drivers for it, so I would assume it's using the default Windows drivers.

Let me see if i remember.

Go to control panel/system/hardware/device manager/look for the processor and right click on it the coose to update driver from there select to install form a specific location, then select don't search i will choose the driver to install then select the second driver update and restart the laptop let's see if that works.

Good luck!

I just installed a 500mhz PIII on my 600E. It seems to work fine, but is only running at 330mhz, tops. I check in Powerleap and it says that the FSB is 100mhz, but the Bus is only 66mhz.

This is a well known problem for some old 600Es. Read this thread.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ight=66mhz

cmarti wrote:Let me see if i remember.

Go to control panel/system/hardware/device manager/look for the processor and right click on it the coose to update driver from there select to install form a specific location, then select don't search i will choose the driver to install then select the second driver update and restart the laptop let's see if that works.

Good luck!

Where would I find a driver to update it with?


Thanks, shined! I might try one of sharedoc's mods to force 100mhz.

jamiphar wrote: Where would I find a driver to update it with?

Follow the instructions provided in the previous post, XP has it you just have to choose from the list there are three just select the second.

Carlos.

Ok, I just tried that and there wasn't any difference. I don't think it's a driver issue, I see in the bios that it's only running at 330mhz. I think I may try one of the clock generator mods to force it up to 100mhz.

jamiphar wrote:I think I may try one of the clock generator mods to force it up to 100mhz.

Please keep us posted!

Well, I did the mod and it booted up fine after disabling the onboard RAM. Powerleap showed it running at 500mhz with 98mhz bus!
So then I shut down and put the second 128mb stick of RAM back in and turned it back on only to get some fan noise and the indicator lights, but no boot and no display. I've tried several things, along with removing the mod and also trying it with the PII, but it still does this.

I'm thinking I messed up my motherboard with this somehow. I wonder what would cause it to work at first, but not not after rebooting.


By the way, this is what I did as far as the mod goes:

I located the clock generator (the chip with 24 pins on either side), lifted pin 25 from the board, and soldered a 1K Ohm resistor from pin 25 to pin 48, made sure that the mod wasn't touching anything else, and then reassembled the laptop.