Violating my Virgin 600E

[Katch]

Moved to a topic of its own as per Whizkids suggestion

I have a virgin 600E that I'm just about to start violating Smile I had pretty much given up on it and was all set to leave it as a router cum firewall. Then I 'found' a new battery for it lying around at work and a FDD.

So, flashed the BIOS to kingdom come - now nicely at the highest revision. Currently the pig is running a P2 366 - 32Mb Internal Ram + 1 x 64Mb 66Mhz and 1 X 128Mb 100Mhz - Nasty 6Gb HDD clicky slow [censored] - DVD SlimROM. XP

Nice stable system, considering it is almost always on now downtime due to hardware in the last couple of years Very Happy

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The Plan - Never knew it was possible till I came here

I'm picking up a P3 Celeron 600Mhz or P3 500Mhz MMC-2 in the next day or two - not sure which yet aiming for the 600.

2 x 256Mb RAM already enroute

New HDD yet to decide and order

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Any advice on the upgrades would be great. With the whole CPU upgrade causing 127 post error keystroke to resume. I'm a little hazy on the work around. Do I need to HEX edit the BIOS rom file then reflash, then use the Powerleap tool to re-enable the L2?

Any considerations on choosing a HDD - ie can I just go get a nuts fast 7200rpm 80gig 2.5" and away I go?

Also is the modem in this 600E minipci? If so can I make this puppy go wireless?

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I will keep a nice detailed log of this little adventure and post the results and procedures for everyone once I'm done.

Regards

Katch

[Katch]

So a very quick update -

I have now ordered the P3 Celeron 600Mhz, should be here in a week or so.

Carried out some further research regards upgrading the CPU;

It seems the main concerns when installing a P3 into the 600E are an irratating BIOS error requiring some F1 ESC manouver to bypass, and the onboard 32Megs of RAM not liking the increased 100Mhz BUS speeds.

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There appears to be an easy work arround that I have tested pre installation.

To make these changes you need to get into the Easy Setup Menus and select CONFIG - once there press ctrl-d to open up a handy and previously unbeknown to me HEX Editor (NICE !)

Ok on the first section of code that appears you need to make a couple of changes;

Byte 20 - change to 0A from 02 to disable the L2 Cache (gets rid of the 127 error)

Byte 2B - change to 81 from 80 to disable the onboard 32Mb

Hit F2 and turn the laptop off (if you just reset the changes aren't applied)

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After making these changes I checked the system status with CPUz

DIMM Slot #1 reports empty and L2 cache is not present.

Hmmm but once I've installed the new CPU (when it arrives) I don't want to be cripplied with no L2 cache...

No fear work around #3 also tested and fine

I downloaded the Powerleap Control Panel here;

http://hnpy.onlinedown.net/down/PLeapCCP_V5_1_0_0_1.rar

You can set this little utility to autostart upon XP boot and force the L2 cache

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Well thats it for the theory - as soon as the CPU turns up I'll let you know how it goes in practise.

[Katch]

Registered think I'll be here for a while.

Edit by JHEM: Please limit Sigs to text only or very SMALL (thumbnail!) images!

[pkiff]

Byte 2B - change to 81 from 80 to disable the onboard 32Mb

I didn't know that byte(bit) had been identified. Thanks for the info. Maybe it will be the same byte for the 770X/770Z models, and that might help folks fiddling with those as well.

Phil.

[shined]

Hello Katch.
Let me give you a piece of advice in this upgrade path.

If you upgrade the CPU to a Cel-600 of PIII-500, the CPU temperature may go too
high since faster processors generate more heat but the fan assy for TP600E is
not designed to provide enough cooling capacity for such a CPU.

I suggest you should check the CPU temp by using mobilemeter after replacing
the CPU, and if it is found to go to very high temp, you should think about replacing
the fan assy to the one for TP600X, or going to a SS enabled PIII.

Have fun.

[wa8yxm]

When it comes to choosing a hard drive, Remember the rule of hard drives

Rule of Hard Drives; It's too small

No matter how big a drive you get, it will be TOO SMALL, so get the largest you can lay your hands on...... Bill tells me the 600E will take 60 Gig

Second, Get an "Slim USB 2" case for your old hard drive (no reason you should throw it away) note, many of these use 2 USB connectors, this is for power, you want one that takes PS/2 or it's own wall wort for power if you can find one, You don't have 2 USB ports, optional, use the 2 port model with a powered hub.

Heat: You can use a TARGUS cool pad (the powered version) Takes the same wall wort as my USB hub BTW (Or plugs into the hub but if you plug in both the HD and the Targus you may run into "too much drain" issues)


Finally, A question re; Mobilmeter

On my 600E, Win-98se, Mobilemeter does nothign, I mean nothing, I click on the icon and nothing happens. HELP (Thanks in advance)

[pkiff]

Second, Get an "Slim USB 2" case for your old hard drive (no reason you should throw it away)

Unless a user plans on getting additional hard drives to use in a Slim USB case or plans on using the same drive with a range of ThinkPads, I would first recommend getting a 2nd hard drive adapter (IBM model designed for this ThinkPad) instead of an external USB case for a 600 series ThinkPad. It will be considerably cheaper, will achieve faster transfer rates, and will probably be easier to set up with backup/cloning software...I suppose it depends on your needs, but nevertheless my first recommendation would be for the cheapest, functional solution: other solutions such as getting an external USB drive enclosure make sense as alternative, or additional options to consider if it turns out that the 2nd hard drive adapter doesn't meet one's needs.

Though for a drive that the original poster calls "Nasty 6Gb HDD clicky slow [censored]" I would say it's probably not worth it to get any adapter or enclosure system at all!

On my 600E, Win-98se, Mobilemeter does nothign, I mean nothing, I click on the icon and nothing happens. HELP (Thanks in advance)

MobileMeter is not compatible with Windows 98 (nor with Windows NT4/95/Me either). Here is a link to a translation of the Readme file for MobileMeter including the statement about OS compatibility.

Phil.

[wa8yxm]

Thanks Phil, that explains it, Any suggestions for w Win-98se user?

(Mobile Meter is not compatable with win98se)

[Katch]

With regards Hdd - 30 or 40Gb will be ample for my requirements. My home network file server has just under 1Tb of storage for my archives and large files etc.

With regards Heat - I am a little concerned about this issue but I will wait and see how it is once the mod is done. I'm an experienced overclocker running a Mobile Barton XP2500 system at 250FSB and 2.5Ghz, so if need be I'll lap the fook out of the heatsink and have an Artic Silver 5 party. I'll get it cool enough

[MadeInJapan]

You seem very confident. I hope everything works out as you've planned. Keep us posted. My son has my old 600E and any unknown (up until now, and up until you) upgrades that work would definitely be appreciated and will keep my interest up in this forum.

[Katch]

Ok quick update -

CPU arrived this morning and its all settled in now.

The installation went fairly easily, the most anoying thing is getting the keyboard connector reattached afterwards.

Another point worth noting is the cooling sollution. When I removed it from the original CPU I found it have a nasty thermal pad on the heatsink. I am an avid hater of these things so ripped it off and gave the base a good clean with Isopropyl alcohol. Upon dry fitting it on the new processor I realised there is about a 1mm gap between the CPU and the HS. I remedied this by using a generous application of Artic Silver 5. After screwing down the heatsink I carefully removed the excess. Remember AS5 is conductive, don't get it anywhere it shouldn't be!

The Laptop does feel a little bit warmer at full load, but not concernigly so. When I had the puppy open I thought the fan in the heatsink was a little pathetic, I may uprate that if I get bored one day.

So anyway upgrade all installed, for the first nail biting power up I took out one of my 2 SODIMMS; as a result of the upgrade the FSB increases to 100Mhz and the second DIMM is only rated at 66Mhz (as is the 32Mb on board).

Power on and I get the expected 127 error. A bit of ESC and enter bashing later I'm into the easy setup menus. I pulled up the HEX editor I mentioned earlier and disabled the on chip cache and on board ram and rebooted. 127 error all gone and straight into windows. Set powerleap to auto re-enable the on chip cache on more reboot.

Everything seems fine and stable ran a few benchmarks and stress tests, so decided to whack the other SODIMM back in and re-enable the 32Mb on board. Again no problems, the 66Mhz memory seems to run fine at 100Mhz. I'm gonna do a long stress test with prime 95 to be certain.

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Some benchies

CPU Benchmark

366Mhz ==> 3
600MHz ==> 4.7

Sandra

CPU Arith

366 Dhry ==>1168
366 Whet ==>480

600 Dhry ==>1938
600 Whet ==>793

CPU MultiM

366 Int ==>2394
366 Float ==>891

600 Int ==>5147
600 Float ==>6122

Memory Bandwidth

366 Int ==>221
366 Float ==>226

600 Int ==>712
600 Float ==>419

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Ok to sum up, nice easy upgrade if you can get your hands on a P3 MMC-2 Processor.

One thing I've noticed but am yet to explore, powerleap only seems to re-enable 128K of the 256K on chip cache.

Still waiting on the SODIMMs to arrive and yet to choose a new Hdd. I'll keep you all posted.

Edited by Moderator on very slow dialup line:

Nice post, but to quote James' earlier request Please limit Sigs to text only or very SMALL (thumbnail!) images!

[shined]

Hi, Katch. Just two quick comments.

Everything seems fine and stable ran a few benchmarks and stress tests, so decided to whack the other SODIMM back in and re-enable the 32Mb on board. Again no problems, the 66Mhz memory seems to run fine at 100Mhz. I'm gonna do a long stress test with prime 95 to be certain.

Even if it works, you may want to disable the onboard 32MB RAM
because I once saw that the benchmark result was better without the
onboard memory, even when it did not cause any stability problem.
Just compare the performance with and without the onboard RAM and
see if there is any change.

One thing I've noticed but am yet to explore, powerleap only seems to re-enable 128K of the 256K on chip cache.

I guess you gotta have put a Celeron. It has 128KB cache so there is
nothing wrong with it.

Do not bother the moderator of this forum by insertng a big image
in your signature. Other than this point, your post is now being
appreciated by many people.

[Katch]

Guide to identifying MMC Processor Specs

After buying what I thought was a 600MHz P3 w/ 256Kb L2 Cache and actually getting a Cel w/ 128Kb I thought I'd add a little guide to identifying which are which from the part numbers.

Example: PMN60001201AB

PM=Processor Module
N=Intel Celeron processor Mobile Module (MMC-2)
600=600 MHz
01=128 KB Cache
201=201 Notifiable Design Revision
AB=AB Notifiable Processor Revision

So the little 01 in bold is the bit to look for; 01=128Kb L2 Cache 02=256Kb

PS - Sorry about the sig, its the one I use in many other tech forums. I'll remove it from my profile.

[RGunner]

Thanks for this information, I might go the same route (Celeron 600).

What I am having trouble with, is either finding a Celeron 600 or making sure the PIII-500's on Ebay are the correct ones.

Katch, where on earth did you find your Celeron??

[Katch]

I picked this Celeron up off ebay for £20.

If you want to check what the processors are off ebay just get the part number off the seller and google it.

The 600 I have may be up for grabs in a few weeks coz I'm chasing a 750 or 800 P3 to play with

[Katch]

Ok financial issues all sorted, on with the perversion.

I have just ordered 2 x 256Mb of RAM and a Seagate Momentus 5400rpm 8Mb Cache 40Gb Hdd.

Those of you in the UK might like to know there is an Ebayer called 'laptopscheap' who has a lot of this PC100 memory going cheap - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... RK:MEWN:IT

I'll let you know how the installation goes when it all arrives.

[MadeInJapan]

That is a good deal on the memory...wish he lived in the U.S. or at least shipped across the pond.

[Katch]

Ok memory is all in fine no problems there. Just waiting for dabs(thelazylyingshisters).com to pull their finger out and send me the harddrive I already paid for days ago!

[Katch]

New Hard Drive installed with minimal problems.

Picked up a 40Gb 5400RPM 8Mb Cache Seagate Momentus.

Initially trying to install a copy of XP with SP1 slipstreamed the installation would BSOD after the first section of console installation. The drive would format fine and the initial payload of files would transfer fine the BSOD would occur always after the first reboot to continue the installation (the part where you choose timezones and langauge setting and enter the serial number)

So after 3 failed attempts and getting ready to send the drive back as a bad unit, I decided to give an original XP with no Service Packs a try. Installation completed without issue and I have updated to SP1 and all criticals with no problems. (I am still very anti SP2)

My lappy definitely feels snapier now Once I get all my apps back on and start working on it again I'll have a better idea. I will post some more benchies when I get a moment.

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The story should end here I guess. I've put far more time money and energy into what I thought was an obsolete laptop for my own good. Well I can't leave it here, terminal tweaker me

We're still hard at work in the attached link trying to make a better fix for the L2 cache issue. Would be nice to get it coded into the BIOS.

I'm also going to try and pick up either a 750, 800 or 850 to play with. One guy has managed to hotwire a 750 to over 800Mhz at 108FSB

http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopi ... &start=120

[DNA_DAN]

I have seen Katch over on the www.Wimsbios.com threads and see that he actually published his work in a nice condensed and easy to read format.

If you are interested in upgrading or modding your Thinkpad 600E (Please read that carefully, THINKPAD 600E) check out his site. Nice work!

www.xabk.co.uk/

I should also recognize that this isn't the work entirely of Katch, but a lot of other smart folks over there as well, with special mention of Sharedoc.

If you go to http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4046

You will see 40 pages of fantastic reading and great minds at work! I actually read all 40 pages of it and it was just a great read.

Thanks a bunch guys, off to ebay I go a huntin!

ooops! I forgot to add the website to the sticky thread. Can a moderator or someone see if the content of that webpage can be archived here permanently?? I would hate to see the site stop working in 6 months or something. I hate it when valuable information like this is lost because the people moved on and no longer support the site. Thanks!

[skygodtj]

I pass the scepter and bow before the new Grand PooBah of 600's!!! I thot I had run the gamut of 600 upgrades with maxed RAM and cpu-shoveling

James, yes, please, can you hit the archive button for this thread? The HEX editing tips are almost worth a Forum of its own Hmm, might be an idea to have a BIOS Editing Forum!

teege

[DNA_DAN]

That thread I mentioned in my previous post over on the wimsbios site is on fire!

Tons of great tutorials are coming out of it. I think the market for finding PIII's just went up! [censored] I better get one fast.

Another walkthrough for the 600E

http://www.fayoly.net/bbs/read.php?tabl ... ects&no=47