Thinkpads Forum

Hello everybody!

I'm quite new in the hardware area, so my questions can seem stupid for somebody. But I hope that I can get a valueable hint here.

At the present I have TP 600x with PIII 450MHz and 450 MB RAM. The machine runs perfectly - with both WinXP and Linux SuSE 9.1 Pro. But recently I experienced some problems with massive computations - it takes me too much time to process my data - I work in the area of image processing.

So, I'm wondering if it is possible to upgrade the CPU or/and main board for this model. If so, which variants are possible...

Thanks a lot in advance for any hints. I'm sorry if my question repeats any of the existing threads.

Regards,
A.

Hello again.

I found an answer about CPU update - it is possible. One has to find the MMC2 CPU PIII higher than 450MHz...

Is it technically difficult to replace the CPU? Does notebook recognize it immediately? I don't have a lot of experience with hardware and, therefore, do not loose my machine because of the wrongly connected pins.

Regards,
A.

I know you can upgrade the 500 or 650 Mhz 600X up to a PIII-850, but do not know about the 450 Mhz one, as I think it was an older chipset. Ping James (JHEM), as he is the expert in the "600X buffing" field. Mind you, even if you can upgrade it, you have to find the processor first, which might be a hard task, since eBay is pretty much the only source for them these days.

Stavros

BigCatAndy wrote:Hello again.

I found an answer about CPU update - it is possible. One has to find the MMC2 CPU PIII higher than 450MHz...

Is it technically difficult to replace the CPU? Does notebook recognize it immediately? I don't have a lot of experience with hardware and, therefore, do not loose my machine because of the wrongly connected pins.

Regards,
A.

Taking the laptop apart for the first time isn't pleasant, but not too difficult if you are careful and methodical. If something doesn't seem to want to open up or come apart look for missed screws etc.

Once you have the keyboard up and off, actually installing the processor is easy. Unscrew and lift the old one and carefully press the new one into place. I can't comment on the recocgnition on 600Xs but my 600E immediately recognised the new chip requiring only a little tinkering to get past a BIOS error particular to 600Es (I don't think it would be an issue on the 600X)

As for which Processors are compatible you'll need to ask someone else. I'm a 600E man myself.

Get your hardware maintenance manual. It shows you how to open the machine and remove parts. Work on a large clean surface or have a lot of little bins around for the screws. I like to put the parts from each step in the process in the same pile.

The 600X has two different system boards. One is for the 450- and 500-MHz CPU machines and does not have SpeedStep. The other is for the 650MHz machines and does have SpeedStep.

The 650MHz machines can use the fastest CPU that fits, and that is the 850MHz PIII MMC-2 module. Those are rare and very expensive. The 800MHz part (which I have in my 600X) is cheaper and more available. If you have the latest BIOS, the CPU is recognized immediately with no other action required.

If you put a SpeedStep CPU in a non-SpeedStep board, it will not run at full speed. I think a 650MHz SpeedStep CPU runs at about 450MHz in a non-SpeedStep board, but I'm not sure about that.

You can put in a SpeedStep board in your machine. Those boards are available on eBay, as are broken 600X's with good system boards.

Keep in mind that your memory will not speed up. It will still run at PC100 speed no matter the speed of your CPU. If you are processing large images, max out your memory to 576MB, and a faster hard drive will also give you a noticeable speed improvement.

For the poster who mentioned doing a CUP upgrade on his 600E

I'd be interested in learning more about that and teh required BIOS tweak

There are a couple of things I do where this 600E is just a bit... Anemic
(Or to be more specific... IT's very much "Minimum configuration"