Do I really need a upgraded BIOS in a 600x?

[Olde Man]

OS Windows 98/Linux Mint 8

Rig works quite well except for a tendency to freeze after long use but starts up right away after rebooting. (Temp problem?) Still has the original BIOS. I have no intention to going to XP on this rig.

1. Do I really need to upgrade the BIOS if everything seems to be working for what I do with it?

2. Does the last upgrade include all the earlier ones, or does each one have to be entered separately?

[pkiff]

The general advice that many support personnel give about BIOS upgrades is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless you have a specific symptom that is fixed by a particular BIOS upgrade, then there is no need to upgrade. I'm not 100% sure of all the things that the various 600X BIOSes claim to fix, but I would bet that everything will run fine if you are using Win98.

Me? Well, I'm a finicky person, and I know that I'm going to be installing new operating systems and testing various things out on my Thinkpads, and generally pushing their limits pretty hard. So I always update all my Thinkpads to the latest BIOS, the first chance I get. That way I can eliminate BIOS problems from the list of issues that I am certain to run in to eventually.

Regarding which BIOS to apply -- for the 600X, you definitely want to apply just the final, latest BIOS that appears in the driver matrix. There is no need to install any intervening BIOS, regardless of which BIOS version you have currently.

Latest BIOS for 600X:
1.11 (ITET55WW)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4FYS2U

List of Symptoms corrected by that BIOS:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4SSPZ8

Phil.

[ozzymud]

And i have often seen not just on thinkpads, but other systems, that the changleog aint the only thing to go by on a bios update... I have seen unlisted problems go away on updating the bios.

I'm like pkiff, especially for no longer supported machines, get the newest and be done with it, one less thing to worry about later. I'n the case of Linux, if a problem arises on an older manufacturer unsupported machine, the communnity normally finds out about it and works around it (it being the latest available bios).

As another aside, this bios is relativly safe, it's been around forever and it is well tested at this point. those techs that say if it aint broke don't fix it are most likely referring to day one bios updates, they can and do often pose new issues. Bout the only thing you'd havta worry with is power outage if using a dead battery, I solve that issue with a $30 UPS (uninteruptible power supply).

And you never know, you might find a use for linux(v1.10 bios needed) or XP(v1.11 needed) eventually

[Olde Man]

I appreciate the quick responses. I have a perfectly good battery so that is not a problem. Maybe when I get my nerve up.....

Thanks again.

[Olde Man]

My NET OS is Linux Mint8. If I download BIOS upgrades via Linux, will the computer know what to do with it?

I have no NET connection with Win98 and have a remarkable lack of interest in securing same if it can be avoided.

[RealBlackStuff]

Ask someone with a Windows computer that has a floppy drive to download that file, then doubleclick it.
It will require an empty 3.5" floppy disk, onto which it will write the BIOS updater.
Then put that floppy disk in your 600X and boot from it. Follow its instructions.
That's all.

[ozzymud]

Or get anyone here todo the same with VFD (Virtual Floppy Drive), and then link to or email you the resulting image...

then use dd if=that_image.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k count=1

then boot from it

P.M. Me if you need help, dunno if it is legal to post a link publicly as you have to aggree to terms to create the original disk.


[EDIT: you MIGHT be able to use dosbox to make the floppy image... A: = 1.44_imagefile.img then put the ibm exe on dosbox's C: drive...

[Olde Man]

Well, oddly enough, my 'mainframe' XP OS has a 3.5" drive and naturally I have the 3.5" drive for the 600 series that I own so.....

Thanks for the help.

[ozzymud]

haha! I got one of those "mainframe" machines... It's a full tower case, that doubles as 2 legs on my custome built desk... K6@500 with Debian. fileserver, pxe boot server, ssh server, etc etc. (It MULTI-boots varios DOS, Windows, and Linux distros as well, never know what your gonna need)

[Olde Man]

Heh, mine holds up some important stuff too, but it has everything on it, old 3.5 and Zip disks which sometimes comes in handy.

OK, I upgraded the BIOS in my 600x and got so excited with the fire and music, that I upgraded the BIOS in the 600e too. May as well go First Class.

OK so I run the check recommended on the 600e. Got to 'memory' and the machine locked up, the graph only going about 20%. When booted up it shows 228000 on the screen. Has two 128 boards in it I think, on Win 98SE.

So what went wrong? Bad chip in one of the boards?

[Neil]

Pull both sticks of memory out of the slots, and run the diagnostics again on just the internal 32MB, and see what happens. Then add the other sticks one at a time running the diagnostics with each new addition. If you have a bad stick, you will be able to isolate it that way. From the looks of your total RAM on boot, you have one 128MB stick, one 64MB and the on-board 32MB.

Whoa! Just noticed, I need to update the BIOS on my 600X too. I'm still at 1.03 - ITET48WW - 30 Nov 1999.

[Olde Man]

I am beginning to regret that I got into this.

Finally got mem diagnostics to work after changing for some spare mem sticks (doesn't everybody have spares?) and ended up with 294336 on the screen which diagnostics now likes.

Now the Bad News

When I fire up Linux Mint 8 I get a whole bunch of ominous messages;

"Mount of the file system failed.

Last mount time April 25, 2011 Uh...that's next week!

And it mutters ominously about detecting an IBM OS on the machine, which is true.

Do you suppose if I wait until April 25, the whole thing will go away?

Or maybe I could set the current clock at April 25?

[Olde Man]

Well, I set the date to April 26 and now everything seems to work.

None of this is conducive to a tranquil mind.

Thanks for the help.

[ozzymud]

I see that often when i forget to set the correct timezone, but it normally just want's to check the filesystem as the last mount time is in the future... checks it, then it is done... but you might want to keep the correct time instead of the future one.

Does your machine otherwise boot with the correct time set?

[Olde Man]

If I go on line, it resets to the correct date and then will refuse to boot the next time. So I set it each time after I have gone on line.

If I stay off line, it keeps the date set and will reboot.

It appears I am creeping up on the internal date which does not appear to change. When the set date coincides with the internal date, things will work, let us hope. .

Amazing what modern tech. can do.