Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I was given a Celeron 500MHz MMC-2 CPU.
I wonder if I would get any noticable performance gain if I would replace the PII 366MHz in my TP 600E by the Celeron, if only because of the increase in FSB from 66 to 100.
I have read all the 50+ pages of Wim's BIOS on the MOD : 127 error and the lot and wonder if it is worth the trouble.(or fun!)
I do welcome your advise.

Hans.

The 500mhz Celeron would run faster. However, it's not compatible with the 600E; the Celeron uses a non-AGP chipset.

Thanks, but are you sure?
In this Forum I saw a succesfull 600E upgrade with a PMN60001201AB Celeron.
Mine is a PMN50001101AB.
Is there so much of a difference between these two, apart from the MHz speed?
Hans

I upgraded a 600E (sold on this forum a few months back) with a 500mhz Celeron before. I did a bit of research back then and I'm pretty sure that the upgrade only works with Coppermine versions of the Celeron.

That is good news virge!
The PMN50001101AB is the coppermine version.
I'll give it a try next week.
Hans

I could be wrong on the issue. The 600E's incredibly easy to get inside of; just be super careful to make sure each screw goes exactly where it's supposed to when rebuilding. You'll also want to show caution when removing the keyboard not to destroy or damage either of the ribbon cables.

For upgrading the CPU, my knowledge is limited to the fact the L2 cache doesn't work on it's own with the Pentium III and that if you're using a speed step CPU, you'll either have to settle with a lower than rated speed or modify the module to disable speed step.

Thanks a lot AlphaKilo470 !
As you said the mod should not be too difficult.
I have the HMM available and have some experience with 600 and 770 series.
Regards, Hans

I upgraded mine with a 650-mhz Celeron. See this thread. Celeron, it was.

Thanks Rick, interesting reading these threads!
I must take the plunge shortly. Still hesitating though..
Hans

Today I have replaced the PII 366MHZ by the 500MHZ Celeron CPU.
Not so difficult after all.

Error 127 bypassed by the usual BIOS mod.
Thereafter L2 cache enabled by CPUMSR L2 cache enabler program.

The results of the mod I have tested using Chudnovski's PiFast ver4.1 program:

Before: PII 366MHZ: series: 378 sec ; total: 469 sec
After :Celeron 500 MHz: series: 288 sec ; total: 360 sec
RAM 32 MB onboard + 2x128MB, all OK as per CPUZ:
core speed 498.5MHZ
bus speed 99.7 MHz
level2 cache 128 Kbytes
WinXP pro SP1

Congrats on the successful upgrade. It makes quite a difference don't it?

Thanks Virge; I am very happy indeed with the outcome of the tests, but didn't have much time yet to see it in practice.
Looks promissing anyway.
Hans.