Thinkpads Forum

Hello to all!

I have a 600X Speedstep laptop that someone converted into a fancy picture frame/wall-mounted computer for me. It's really cool! However, I'm having a Speedstep issue.

I bought the laptop from eBay and the seller indicated it was a 650 Speedstep laptop with 256Mb RAM and a 12Gb hard drive. It's a 2645-9FU. The BIOS is ITET55WW. I verified by the FRU on the processor card that it is a 650Mhz. However, after becoming a picture frame, the device will not run past 500Mhz. I installed the Intel processor check utility and it reports it as 500Mhz Max. CPU-Z reports it as a Coppermine PIII E 500Mhz. The Intel Speedstep Utility from the Lenovo site that shows up in the Power Management utilities of the Control Panel of Win XP is set to Max Performance on both battery and AC but it says right below the dropdowns "Current Mode: Battery Optimized Performance" and I can't get that to change.

Obviously, the device has been modified to fit inside a frame. The modifications are:

-hard drive removed and 4Gb CF card used instead
-battery removed
-BIOS altered to boot without keyboard/trackpoint

Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom to help me get this to run at 650Mhz?

Thanks,
Steve

landsmarra wrote:-battery removed

The 600X will not run at max SpeedStep speed with the battery removed, or with a non-IBM battery. You can have an almost dead battery, but not a clone or an empty slot.

There are other possible issues as XP and SpeedStep are a bit finicky, but the missing battery is the one that I would guess at as the culprit.

landsmarra wrote:The Intel Speedstep Utility from the Lenovo site that shows up in the Power Management utilities of the Control Panel of Win XP

Not sure about this one. My XP does not have an Intel SpeedStep utility, and I thought that XP didn't come with one. XP has its own SpeedStep drivers and whatnot I think...though I haven't double-checked the device driver matrix in a while.

Phil.

Phil,

Thanks so much for this info!!! Any idea if there's a workaround for this either by doing something with the battery terminals to fool the comp into thinking there's a battery there or anything else that can be done?

BTW, the Speedstep utility was downloaded from the Lenovo site. It must have integrated itself into the Power Management section of the Control Panel.

Thanks,
Steve

landsmarra wrote:Any idea if there's a workaround for this either by doing something with the battery terminals to fool the comp into thinking there's a battery there or anything else that can be done?

Probably nothing can be done with the battery terminals, because I think the Thinkpad needs to receive the correct signal from some kind of circuit inside the battery itself. That is just a guess, but it would explain why it doesn't work with non-IBM batteries at any rate.

I don't have a workaround, but if you are adventurous, you might want to try changing the processor driver. There are 3 to choose from, see 600X. Is This a Non-Speedstep Board.. or what?. But I don't think there is any evidence that this has worked for anyone trying to do what you are trying to do, so it may be a waste of time.

Also, you could try fiddling with the 600E "DeepSleep" utility, but that was designed for use in a 600E with specific hardware mods applied, and so may have the potential of causing some kind of harm to your 600X...

landsmarra wrote:BTW, the Speedstep utility was downloaded from the Lenovo site. It must have integrated itself into the Power Management section of the Control Panel.

OK, but I'm pretty sure that utility is not designed to work with XP and I am not sure what effect it is having on your system. The one that is listed in the Thinkpad 600 Driver Matrix is this one: Intel SpeedStep Technology Applet - ThinkPad 600X, A2*, T2*, X2*, TransNote and XP is not listed as one of the operating systems supported. I don't think the lack of XP support is an oversight in the documentation: I think that you really shouldn't be using the Intel SpeedStep applet with XP. If you want to use a SpeedStep applet with XP, then you should use Christian Diefer's SpeedswitchXP instead. Not only is Christian's applet designed for XP, but it works better than Intel's anyways.

Phil.

The Intel SpeedStepUtility was designed for w2k only. I found no way to install this feature with XP.

Dietmars SpeedSwitch doesn't work with PIII+MMC2 ... that's no PIII-M-processor!

My 600x 2645-4eg (non-ss-board with PIII 850mHz) and my 600x 2645-5fg (ss-board with PIII 850) have no issures with XP SP2 and the driver processr.sys. I'm using IBM batteries and cheep clones and speedstep is allways working.

With the non-ss-mainbords + ss-processor I have to press Fn+F2 after POST - when any battery *and* powersupply are installed.

Uwe.

u.mac wrote:Dietmars SpeedSwitch doesn't work with PIII+MMC2 ... that's no PIII-M-processor!

Works fine here with my PIII 850MHz MMC-2. Maybe it depends what you mean by "work". All I want it to do is the same as the original Intel SpeedSwitch utiltity did -- which is almost nothing, except properly control whether you are running at max speed or not. Diefer's applet does that by accurately connecting it to the "max performance" and "battery optimized" settings for the CPU. That part doesn't work for you?

Phil.

pkiff wrote:

u.mac wrote:Dietmars SpeedSwitch doesn't work with PIII+MMC2 ... that's no PIII-M-processor!

Works fine here with my PIII 850MHz MMC-2.

Hi Phil,

you can switch to high mhz on battery only (without powersupply)? ...or switch down with powersupply and battery?

That's what I want - sometimes

I've tested SpeedSwitch with a non-ss-mainboard Do you have your 850mhz in a ss-mainboard?

Uwe.

OK, any idea if it will work with an OEM battery that will no longer charge?

OK, I tried all the different processor drivers as well as Deepsleep to no avail. Any idea if a working battery can be taken apart and perhaps compacted in size so I could fit it inside my frame?