Thinkpad T20 700Mhz - runs without Battery always at 550Mhz?

[HomerJ-XXL]

Hello,

i have a Thinkpad T20 with an PIII-700MHz SpeedStep CPU, Bios 1.21; when the Battery is plugged in it works correctly:

without power cord at 550Mhz
with power cord at 700Mhz

when i remove the battery the thinkpad runs at 550Mhz with power cord;
i changed the PowerManagment to all availabel options, although i tried all Speed Step Options, including "reverse" modes etc
bute it always runs only at 550Mhz, if there is no battery installed

what can i do?? i would like to remove the battery when i'm at home, in order to make it live longer

greetings

[ambientscape]

You might wanna adjust some settings in your BIOS. Set everything to max. peformance....Why you wanna run max performance in battery mode? Might as well....run slower to extend the battery usage time.[/quote]

[HomerJ-XXL]

Hello,

i only want to run at 700Mhz when the power cord is connected; this works only if the battery is plugged in too (bad solution, this shortens the life of my battery)
without battery and power cord connected it runs only at 550Mhz...

i switched to the following settings for test:

Power Mode for AC: Maximum Performance
Power Mode for Battery: Maximum Performance
Intel Speed Step Techn: Maximum Performance

and again, only 550Mhz without battery plugged in;
i also checked the speed unter Dos, again 550mhz

then i tried so:
everthing to max. Battery life
again only 550mhz (this time it's ok so...)


as soon as i plug the battery additional in it runs at 700mhz...


any ideas?

greetings

[beeblebrox]

Update your BIOS!

It seems you still have one of the very old BIOSes, that show exactly your problem.

[HomerJ-XXL]

Hello,

i have Bios Version 1.21, this is the newest version, except 1.22;
but the version 1.22 has only one new feature: you can't use batteries which are not made by ibm; so it doesn't make any sense to install this update...

i should be up to date with the 1.21 bios, it's the best solution for the T20

Greetings

[Nolonemo]

version 1.22 has only one new feature: you can't use batteries which are not made by ibm

Where do you get this from, the changelog only refers to "enhancement of the battery control?" Just curious, because there are a lot of non-IBM batteries sold on eBay for the T2x series, so I assume they work.

[HomerJ-XXL]

Hello,

i read this in the internet, some users seem to have recognized this new "feature"

every bios updates with the text "Enhancement of the battery control" will only recognize original IBM batteries
only solution: to flash down to an older bios version, but for this you would need a fully charged, original (!) battery...
that means if you only have an non original battery und updated to 1.22, you won't be able to downgrade the bios with your battery; you will have to get an original one for this...


but i have an working, original IBM battery, so this can't be the reason for my problems; and the "second newest" bios 1.21 should be enough to be up to date


any other ideas? or are there any other t20 users, which don't have this porblems?

greetings

[egibbs]

IIRC that is a chipset limitation on the T20.

There was a lot of discusion of it back when the T20 was new but I don't remember anyone ever finding a way around it. It is written up somewhere in an IBM document as a feature, not a bug.

Ed Gibbs