New T420 BIOS 1.35

Is it just me or did anyone else notice the newest T420 BIOS update? I haven't seen anything on the threads! man.. finally, I can use the eGPU dock without any special hacks. just plug and play.. what an awesome gaming machine. i7 2720QM with 8GB of Ram and my GTX 550Ti.. love playing Crysis 2 at 60FPS everything high at 1280x1024.. beautiful, just beautiful..

go and get it!! NOW

BIOS Update Utility for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad T420, T420i

 

Thanks for the heads up, will update the T420 thread on the latest BIOS. The fact that people can now enjoy eGPU without downgrading the BIOS is a welcome addition.

 

nice that day has finally came for us to rejoice.

 

ha1o2surfer, any chance you could find out your TOLUD value with your eGPU in?

You can do this by going to "Device Manager", then "view->resources by type" and open the "memory" tab. You're looking for a PCI bus entry that looks like A/B/C/D/E00000000.

Courtesy of Nando:
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/851/insp1440tolud.png

See this thread here:
Request to fix TOLUD in newer BIOS files - Page 13 - Lenovo Community

 

Here ya go! Side Note: This is with the BIOS set to integrated graphics only. I have not tried optimus yet but I can tell you setting it to just discreet causes it to show the "Not enough free resources" error but that was a given since someone said Lenovo modified the Intel HD card config to allow this to work.




and again, I am using a nVidia GTX 550Ti. Even though it is running at x1 it has amazing performance. In BF3, with all settings high at 1280x1024 I get 35-60 FPS. In Just Cause 2 I get 60 all the time.

Also, my hardware of Choice is the ViDock 3 Plus with the 225 watt peak output power supply. It has 2 USB built in that run devices: Mouse, Keyboard, Hard Drive, Speakers, Headset, and another HUB that has a flash drive in it. If I copy files and listen to music while playing a game it does NOT hinder performance at all. Also, I have the Express Card setting at Automatic, no Crashes yet and I have been doing all sorts of testing from hibernate, to stand-by to stand-by unplug the dock and wake it up. All working well!!

 

oh, and 3D Mark 06 number coming soon.

 

Thanks for posting this--it does appear that the TOLUD changes when it detects an eGPU. Looking forward to seeing your benchmarks.

 

alright, I got 13353 3DMarks.

 

anybody have any requests? I think I have a good combo with this CPU and my Hyper X ram because I get 27-28GB/s on the winsat mem test. not too shabby, that's gaming desktop territory

 

very impressive.. I will say I am getting around the same results in FPS at my current resolution in games. I will have to bring out my 1920x1080 screen and do some tests to see if I can start to reach the bandwidth limit of the Express Card controller.

 

Given the NVS4200M dGPU, the bios would have had to allocate additional resources for it. Now it appears when you disable the dGPU, those resources are freed. A nice solution for dGPU equipped T420 systems, but we're not sure if the iGPU-only models will behave the same.

Can you run GPU-Z to extract the details of the link speed your GTX550Ti is running? We've had a X220 + T420 owner here find their ViDock 4 runs at pci-e 1.0 speed, rather than pci-e 2.0 that the expresscard is capable of (and which Villagetronic claim their device can operate under). If it is indeed running at pci-e 1.0 speed then you have right to request either an alternative pci-e 2.0 capable product or a refund.

FYI: There is a pci-e 2.0 compliant DIY eGPU solution scheduled for release in the coming weeks.

 

It seems as though it is running at x1 2.0..



That could explain why my card doesn't seemed to be bottle-necked at my resolution.


I got P2588 3DMarks for 3DMark 2011

 

Now to see if they've fixed the MTRR mess...

 

Not sure it runs at 2.0 speed. According to your scores, it doesn't seem

 

well the 550Ti GTX isn't an all star.. the 3DMark 06 score my T420 gets with the 550Ti beats the score I get with my AMD Quad Core desktop with the 550Ti in it.. so I think it's doing something right..