Thinkpads Forum

Thinkpad 600x (2645-9WU) 650Mhz, Windows XP SP3. I upgraded it to 800Mhz a few years ago and haven't used it in a couple of years. It was on long term loan to a friend of mine that finally bought a new computer and returned it. When I powered it up the battery LED flashed yellow and doesn't take a charge. I just ordered a new battery.

Anyway, When I powered it up I noticed it was running Windows XP SP1 (yet) and decided to install all the upgrades through SP3. When I completed the upgrades and looked at "System Info" it is now running at 650Mhz. I checked and Eazy Setup is reporting 800Mhz. Speedstep is set to "Always On". I'm at a loss, did Windows break speedstep or does a dead battery cause speedstep to not work? I wish I had checked system info before I started the windows upgrade, but it felt faster before the Windows upgrades.

See the post JUST under yours... same issue but with a workaround...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=96813

Since its not a speedstep motherboard if I turn the laptop on without the power supply connected, it will only run at 700mhz. It won't switch back to 850 after its powered on at 700mhz.

Thanks, I didn't want to hi-jack the other post. Changing the processor driver from "Intel PentiumIII Processor (Default)" to "Intel Processor" or "Processor" didn't work for me. Changing speedstep to "always on" didn't help either and mine is the speedstep 600X.

Dave...

You'll need the AC adapter AND a working battery to get the full 800Mhz.

Wow, that's a rip

So you only get 800/850(if your lucky enough to find that board) when plugged into mains WITH a good battery installed? No way to disable speedstep slowing it down?

Good info for a mental bookmark when I eventually get a 600

One further quirk about SpeedStep on the 600 series. In many case, you need to use an authentic, original IBM battery in order to achieve full throttle SpeedStep speeds. Apparently, in most Windows operating system environments, if you use a cloned battery, then the Thinkpad doesn't think you've got a proper battery or AC or something in there, and will drop down -150Mhz. This has not been fully tested on all applicable machines, but I recall learning about this through the Thinkpad mailing list some years ago, and discovering that indeed that was the case for both my 600X's. This is the main reason that I prefer to repack my original batteries in the 600 series rather than buying clone versions.

Also, if you are running XP, then you'll probably want to install Christian Diefer's SpeedSwitch software to help manage your SpeedStep settings:
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

I forget right now exactly what the situation is, but I recall vaguely that it can be a challenge to force Windows XP SP2 to run SpeedStep at full speed because of weird quirks in the SpeedStep driver under XP. Christian Diefer's software has always been reliable and better than whatever was offered from Microsoft or Intel for me, though I'm not 100% sure that I've tested the latest version available on the site above. I am not sure if this also applies to XP SP3 because I've never installed SP3 on one of my 600Xs.

Oh yeah, one more thing: the Sytem Info settings are entirely inaccurate and don't reflect what is really going on with your max speeds if you are running XP SP1 or SP2. You really need to spend some time with a couple different CPU testing software installs before you can actually get an accurate report of what your max speed is. XP strongly resists running a SpeedStep CPU at full speed unless you find a way of forcing it (like using Christian Diefer's SpeedSwitchXP software above).

And finally, you can also check out my post here, which sums up most of what I used to know about this issue 5-10 years ago, but have evidently since forgotten!:
SpeedStep Issues with XP on 600X Upgraded to PIII 850MHz

Phil.

pkiff wrote:And finally, you can also check out my post here, which sums up most of what I used to know about this issue 5-10 years ago, but have evidently since forgotten!

Heh, a tech from my own heart... one who has forgotten more then a lot of people know in the 1st place

pkiff wrote:One further quirk about SpeedStep on the 600 series. In many case, you need to use an authentic, original IBM battery in order to achieve full throttle SpeedStep speeds.

Phil.

Thanks, I need to improve my search skills. I ordered the battery (new) from battdepot.com and it says: " Replacement Notebook Battery for LP-IB600-LI 10.8 Volt Li-ion Laptop Battery". Which they say is the part number for the genuine IBM battery. So, when it gets here I suspect it wont work with speedstep and XP SP3. I'm pretty much done with the 600X as far as throwing money at it. It's been fun adding internal WIFI, DVD-RW, memory, and CPU and making it cosmetically new.

RealBlackStuff wrote:You'll need the AC adapter AND a working battery to get the full 800Mhz.

Good information guys. Saved me a lot of time

I got the battery and my 600X works @ 800Mhz with the new battery. After charging the battery, I shutdown and removed the charger. When I restarted the 600x continued to run @ 800Mhz for nearly 2 hours before it suspended due to the low battery. I plugged in the charger and it ran @ 650Mhz. The next morning when I turned the 600X on with a fully charged battery it ran at 800Mhz again. So it appears that a good battery is required but it doesn't have to be plugged in. Also, it will run at 800Mhz until the battery is exhausted.

I'm using the Intel processor driver and have speedstep set to "always on".

I ordered the battery from battdepot.com it's their part no LIB003.

Nice info/references... thanks for the followup