Flashing the Zender BIOS on an X60 via Ultrabase X6 CD drive

[axur-delmeria]

I want to replace the wifi card in my aunt's X60 with a non-lenovo part.

I already have the Zender BIOS on a CD.

I booted from the CD drive on the Ultrabase X6.

The "Read me First" says that if the laptop is connected to an expansion unit, it should be powered down and the expansion unit removed.

Can I safely ignore this warning and continue? Or should I just boot from a USB-connected CD drive?

[RealBlackStuff]

Use a USB drive rather than the X6-base.

[axur-delmeria]

Thanks for the advice.

I've successfully flashed the Zender BIOS using a USB-connected CD drive.

The Broadcom wifi card (scavenged from my brother's dead CQ40) works like a charm, and runs a bit cooler than the original Intel 3945ABG.

But I've noticed that the CPU temps are quite higher. I noticed TPFC's icon going up to 70C+ during startup.

Before the BIOS update it only hits around 60c during startup.

Is the Zender BIOS responsible for the sudden temperature spike?

[RealBlackStuff]

No, but the thermal paste between CPU and fin might be dried up after so many years.
Buy some Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) and refresh the paste.

[axur-delmeria]

Hmm. I just changed the paste last year.
Used Noctua NT-H1 though. Still have some of it left.
Will probably use it again.

One thing I noticed though, is that this X60's CPU heatsink looks different from the one in my X61.
I wonder if it's busted or something.

My X61 runs cooler, but then again it's a Penryn C2D T8100 compared to this X60's Merom C2D T5600.

As much as possible, I don't want to swap heatsinks just to check. Completely disassembling an X6x series is a chore, doing two at the same time is .

[axur-delmeria]

What began as a simple "flash BIOS to remove whitelist" became an afternoon of aggressive undervolting to keep the temps under control, with moderate success.

As old as RMClock is, it's still up to the task. My only complaint is that I have to run it with administrative privileges, necessitating the use of programs like RunAsSpc http://robotronic.de/runasspcEn.html or SuRun http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/surun.html.

I tried RunAsSpc because it didn't require installation like SuRun.

It worked on testing, but when I put a shortcut in the Startup folder and restarted the laptop, it failed because "the Secondary Login service cannot be started" or something like that.

It seemed that RunAsSpc was being executed before the Secondar Login service (which it requires) has finished loading. No surprise there, since the X60's still using the original 60GB hard drive. ~_~

I went around this by making a batch file and setting a 15 second delay (using choice.exe's timeout function).

Kludgy and inelegant, I know, but at least it works.