T61/X61 SATA II 1.5 Gb/s cap - willing to pay for a solution

Let's put it this way:

1) I was never a believer in updating the BIOS on one's machine unless the update addresses a particular concern experienced by the user because

2) Any BIOS update/downgrade - be it Lenovo's or Middleton's - carries a very real risk of bricking one's machine should something go haywire.

My *61 series units are running just fine the way they are now.

This approach has worked well for me over the past 15 years and half a zillion ThinkPads, but as previously stated - to each their own.

 

Fair enough. Although I feel the need to make a comment.

The risk while changing Bios is obviously very real and it should be done with care. But that doesn't mean that risk is significantly high, or unmanageable. Otherwise, manufacturers would not release Bios updates to the public, and bios update would always void warranties.
In reality, updating Bios not only has no effect on your warranty, but virtually all manufacturers publish regular bios updates on their websites in Download sections.

On top of that, the risk of changing Bios on a laptop is additionally minimalised by uninterruptable power supply.

I probably wouldn't do it on a fleet of corporate laptops, if there was no clear advantage (mainly because of the unnecessary work).
But on a personal laptop and with potential real benefits? For me, it's a no-brainer. I've been changing bioses for nearly 20 years - on desktop, laptops, graphic cards - and never had it go wrong on me.

So sure, to each his own. But quoting Vincent Hanna from Heat "You could get killed walking your doggy!"
Let us not overstate the danger.

 

Yes and no.

Most BIOS update failures that I've come in contact with came from the upgrade/downgrade hanging onto a particular "block" and getting stuck there...ad infinituum...

Being someone who in fact *did* manage a fleet of corporate ThinkPads in his younger years, I wouldn't treat my own laptop any differently than a work one. They are tools of a trade, regardless of the ownership.

Once again, to each their own.

I'm not the one who enjoys creating panic on any level. Having said that, I've also swapped numerous ThinkPad planars that were bricked by a BIOS update/downgrade over the past decade.

 

Hi!
I've got Lenovo T61 7659-CR5 that comes without wifi card. Today i've tried to install atheros one in it and of course bios gave me an error message that this card is not authorized.
Next I removed the card, flashed Middleton BIOS and then put the card back in. After power-on laptop booted without an error, but Windows does not detected any wireless cards at all - no unknown devices in device manager, no wireless cards in network cards section. I've checked the bios settings - radios is on, also tried to reset settings back to default. I've tried two different wireless cards - they works well in another MSI laptop but does not in Lenovo. I've tried different OS - Win 8.1 and Win XP - same result. I've tried to flash bios with different software - Winphlash and WINUPTP.EXE (with -s parameter too!) - its all the same - windows does not see any wireless card at all.
Could somebody please tell me what else can I try to get wireless working on my T61? Thanks in advice!

 

Boot from some linux livecd (I recommend Bridge Linux) and see if it can detect the card automatically and if you are able to connect to any wifi.
If not, then run "lspci" command in terminal to see if the card is even visible to the system.

 

Hi!
I've tried live linux Bactrack 5 (it have a lot of wifi drivers), but it does not detect any wireless. lspci did not listed any wireless devices at all.

 

If you'd like a lenovo wifi card I could send you one if you cover the postage. I have both the Intel pro 3945ag (2 antenna leads) and 4965 (3antenna leads) cards pulled from T61.

BTW, I meant to comment on the Middleton bios. I've flashed well over 200 T61 series laptops in the past two years using this bios and only once had a problem. I do them all from a harddrive with 32bit windows and I make sure the system is stable before I begin by running it for several hours and observing temps. The one failure I had was a result of a bad optical drive when I used the bootable disc. When I booted I could tell there was a problem, the drive was grinding away, spinning up and down and much to my disappointment there was no prompt advising me not to continue if the system appeared unstable so all I could do was let it continue and hope for the best.

The board was useless after the flash failed.

My advice is if you must use the bootable disc, burn it slow and verify it multiple times and also confirm that you have a good optical drive before you proceed.. If you are going to be doing many of them, get an harddrive and use it to test and flash all your T61 models.

 

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad R61i-8932-FWU with IEEE 1394, I downloaded Middleton Bios and extracted it, I placed on it 32Bit Windows 7 SP1 drive and flashed from the drive,,it flashed the bios up and said it was successful ,I rebooted the system and it booted right thru the Bios said its version was 2,24 from 2,23.. I installed T8100-Penryn , the machine booted up and shut off, tried a couple of times, I then reinstalled T2390(merom) with win 7sp1 x 64 booted right,,alls middleton bios updated did was change the number in the bios and the date,,Sata controller is still Sata 1 1.5GB/s, I used the bios 2.24-1.08 downloaded from mediafire.

Cheers

3Fees

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad R61i-8932-FWU with IEEE 1394, I downloaded Middleton Bios and extracted it, I placed on it 32Bit Windows 7 SP1 drive and flashed from the drive,,it flashed the bios up and said it was successful ,I rebooted the system and it booted right thru the Bios said its version was 2,24 from 2,23.. I installed T8100-Penryn , the machine booted up and shut off, tried a couple of times, I then reinstalled T2390(merom) with win 7sp1 x 64 booted right,,alls middleton bios updated did was change the number of the bios and date,,Sata controller is still Sata 1 1.5GB/s, I used the bios 2.24-1.08 downloaded from mediafire.

System Information shows BIOS version /Date : Lenovo 7OETC4WW(2.24),4/9/2010

7OETC3WW (2.23 ) date: 05/12/2009.

At least I got a fresh bios and

7OETC4WW (2.24)

(New) Added support for 1600x900 screen resolution on the external display.
(New) Added support for SanDisk SSD.

None of which I'll use.

Nothing more than what was on Lenovo Site, Middleon has changed the patch,,I seen earlier in testing a 8932 got the patch and it worked...


Cheers

3Fees

 

Sorry, I did not see your post. Must be a problem with notifications.

Backtrack 5 is way too old to be useful. You need something with a new kernel, because in linux, drivers are inside the kernel.

1. Boot from this http://mirrors.aggregate.org/archlinux/iso/2014.01.05/archlinux-2014.01.05-dual.iso
2. Login as root/root (I think that's the login)
3. type lspci

If you still can't see your wifi card, then it is either dead, or you put it in wrong.

 

By examine the contents of archive file, I found the the modified bios(X61, X61s) is based on 2.21 not 2.22, is a TYPO here?

 

By comparing the contents of 7nuj21uc.iso (original file from lenovo website) and "BIOS update\7nuj22uc.iso" (from Dual-IDA_SATA-II_Whitelist_SLIC21_ThinkPad_X61_X61s_BIOS_(2.22-1.03).rar), only 1 file is modified.



So the BIOS patch is based on 2.21, not 2.22, is it a TYPO here?

 

It would be normal for there to be very little difference in the files between a stock and modified bios, or between two different versions. Why do you feel something is unusual or am I not understanding your question?

 

Your T2390 has a 533mhz FSB speed, the T8100 Penryn has an 800mhz bus. I know every R61 I've worked on can run an 800mhz FSB Merom or Penryn (some requiring modded bios), but the R61i uses a different board and may not support this class of cpu chip.

I'd like to do more research on this but don't have one of these models to work on but I can tell you that a typical penryn on a merom board won't present as you described, you'll get a thermal sensing error and if you don't hit escape it will refuse to boot. You're error is more likely due to the board not supporting 800mhz bus.

If you want to try an 800mhz bus Merom, I'll send you one for the cost of postage if you're willing to document your results and publish them at thinkpads.com forum. I'd consider it a worthwhile contribution to the community if we knew for sure what board you have, exact model and what cpu chips it supports.


Edit: This topic has some interesting info in it... http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...rade-my-intel-pentium-dc-t2370-c2d-p8400.html

Not sure how relevant it is since it's a different notebook, but you might want to try a 667mhz and 800mhz merom chip on your board. I'd also check the hardware manual and see how many boards are listed for this model, you might find the better cpu options use a different board.

 

Hi all!

I was happy to find this thread in a Google search, and THRILLED to find it was still active.

Since it is going to take me forever to read 100+ pages, can someone help me out by answering my question for me:

Are the BIOS files by middleton, listed in post #75 on page 8, the most current BIOS for my x61s (7688-CTO)? Are they the best method for SATA II support for my machine?

The only reason I have interest in new BIOS is for SATA II support. (I recently installed a SSD).

Thanks a lot!!!

 

Yes and yes.

 

Let me clarify it. For 'X61, X61s', the modified BIOS is based on official 2.21 BIOS, not official 2.22 BIOS, so I guess the version of the modified BIOS should be 2.21-1.03 not 2.22-1.03.

 

Hi all,
My first visit/post here. My question probably already answered, but I can't find.

I have a:
T61 w (I think it's a "w") 7662-CTO
WIN Vista Business Pro
3GB RAM
100 G Hitachi HTS7200 10K9SA00
BIOS Lenovo 7LETDOWW (2.30 - 1.08) 2/27/2012

I'd like to upgrade to:
WIN 7 (have bought WIN PRO 7 SP1 x64 OEM)
SSD, (looking at SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal)
8GB RAM

What do I need to do to BIOS if anything. I've seen something about a "Middleton" flash.
Is this something I should do. I've flashed the BIOS before, but I'm not a super "propeller-head"

Thanks,
Mad_Dog80

 

you'll want charge your battery and plug into an ac source then download the appropriate flle for you laptop. Unzip/unrar it and inside should be an iso file. Use cd burning program to burn the iso image to disc. Insert disc and keep pressing F12 after you turn on the PC. When the boot option menu comes up pick your cd/dvd drive. Just answer yes if they ask if you want to flash.

I take no responsibility if the flash goes bad and bricks your machine. If you have a techy friend have him help.

 

Thanks for quick answer. I'll give a try. Am very excited for expected performance increase.
If it bricks, oh well! Anything can be fixed.

Thanks again,

Mad_Dog80

 

My scores didnt seem to change

I have a 1TB 7200rpm drive that is supposed to be SATA III compatible in my T61P:

Unpatched:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 128.770 MB/s
Sequential Write : 110.586 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 36.621 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 53.193 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.486 MB/s [ 118.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.078 MB/s [ 263.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 1.040 MB/s [ 253.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.085 MB/s [ 265.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 18.1% (42.1/232.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2014/02/13 15:14:31
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)


Patched:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 128.533 MB/s
Sequential Write : 127.254 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 39.582 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 55.901 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.490 MB/s [ 119.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.017 MB/s [ 248.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 1.072 MB/s [ 261.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.043 MB/s [ 254.7 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 18.1% (42.1/232.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2014/02/13 15:31:47
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

Welcome to the forum!

You'll never notice the difference with a spinning drive.

To take advantage of SATA II speeds you'll need a SSD.

The rest is just clever marketing on the part of HDD manufacturers.

 

Thank you. This is my second day with my (new to me) T61P. Ended up getting her for $90 with 6gb memory and the body seems to be in excellent condition. The screen brightness is a total bummer, and I recently have learned I have the infamous "hinge wobble". The 9-cell battery lasts about an hour

I purchased her thinking I would be needing to grab a new battery, but with the dismal display brightness and screen wobble I am having second thoughts...

 

Both are well-known issues on this generation of ThinkPads.

Having said that, $90 for a working machine with 6GB DDR2 is a steal, no matter where one went to school.

You may want to start a new thread regarding any problems that you're having with it, and we'll take it from there.

Good luck.

 

Hello everyone,
First time here. I just installed the Middleton bios on my Lenovo T61 6459CTO for the sake of utilizing a 2.6 processor from my 2.4 and moving to 8gig memory from my 4gigs.
*The problem I ran into is that most of the Fn key does not work with the key combination with other keys.
*Also, the Ctr./Alt./Delete key combination does not work.
* Also the Think light (Fn.+PgUp) does not work any more.
I noticed this just after changing to the 3rd. party Middleton bios.
I see there is two versions; one with Ctrl + function swap and one without. I have the second one installed. Is this why?
Is there a work around for this? I made sure all my updates from Lenovo where up to date.
Or do I have to re-install the Lenovo Bios to get this all back?

If someone knows about this, could you please advise?
Thank you ,
Regards,
Taz1956

 

Hi, I have to set Security Chip to DISABLE before flashing this?

 

Welcome to the forum!

I would disable it.

 

I was really scared on the end beep sound!! :thumbsup:

r61 8935 updated and used this settings

 

---

Hello,

I have been using the middleton firmware for a while and noticed something strange about the fan speed.
The RPM settings seem to be quite low so when the heat is increasing, the fan is not spinning fast enough and the laptop just shuts down.

Here is a comparison of the RPM I have compared to the ones I should have (according to How to control fan speed - ThinkWiki ) :

FAN level	Expected speed	My speed
0	off	off
1 - 2	~2980rpm	~2600rpm
3-5	~3330rpm	~3100rpm
6-7	~3760rpm	~3400rpm
disengaged	~4500rpm	~5200rpm

The only level at which I really hear the fan spinning is when it is disengaged but my system does not seem to report a value.

Clearly the level 7 is not enough to dissipate the heat when playing games because if I don't disengage the fan, the laptop will go up to 98°C and shut down.

Do you think this is related to the middleton BIOS?

Here are my specs:

• Model: T61p
• OS: Linux (archlinux to be precise, up-to-date with latest kernel)
• MB: 42w7653 (so GPU FX570m)
• CPU: Merom T7500

Thanks in advance!
Regards,
lilorox

Edit: typos

 

Try this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Thinkpad_Fan_Control

 

On Kubuntu I'm using tpfand and my r61 is silent on idle. Maybe You must clean your fan.
Ready debs for Ubuntu tpfand_deb.tar.gz

 

He's on Arch and what I gave him is Arch wiki about the successor of this very program, with binary packages ready to install with one command:

Yep, because Arch is that cool

 

I've got an X61 which I want to update BIOS to Middleton, I've spent quite some time scanning the thread to see how to do it via USB pen drive. I've used the HP USB Format tool and installed Win98 Boot on a 1GB USB pen drive (format as FAT32) - I then copied across the extracted Middleton BIOS (7nuj22uc folder) onto the pen drive.

When I boot up X61 with pen drive inserted I just get a C: command prompt on screen, I'm unsure what to do next as I thought it updated the BIOS automatically! I've also tried copying just the ISO BIOS file onto pen drive but X61 just boots into Windows (Vista x64 bit).

Any advice on what I'm doing wrong (or not doing correctly) would be most appreciated

update:
1. I do have an xbox external CD/DVD drive I can use if that helps.
2. When I copy across 7nuj22uc folder to pen drive its asks if I want to replace 'Command' file, I've tried both replacing and keeping both files, but still doesn't work!
3. The USB pen drive setup was all done on a Windows 7 64 bit laptop

another update: I've also tried updating BIOS using the xbox external CD/DVD drive, first burning ISO onto CD using ImgBurn - X61 complains it doesn't have CD/DVD driver. I don't recall it being this difficult last time I updated an X61, maybe its because the existing BIOS is such an old version 1.2x ?

SUCCESS - Finally managed to flash BIOS using alternative boot disk here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...sh-drive-flash-aw-bios-updates-under-dos.html
BIOS reports version 2.22 and upon boot Windows found 2nd IDA and installed driver, so all looks good, Thanks Middleton for great BIOS

 

Hi all. I am building a frankenpad based on my T60. Bought a T61, type 8889-CTO, T9500 processor, SSD, 2x2GB RAM, and now I wat to flash the machine with Middleton BIOS in order to benefit the advantages of the SSD. Firs of all, I din't see any available BIOS for 4:3 T61 machines, not only on page 8, but anywhere in the web. Second, I can't find what is the FRU of my motherboard - there is no label down the RAM slots, so can I identify it by the serial number - it starts with 11S42W9382........... so I suppose that the FRU is 42W9382, is that right or i should look at some other place? Also it would be very kind if someone provides a guide for BIOS updating of T61, preferably using USB flash drive.

 

Welcome to the forum!

All T61/p units use the same BIOS, regardless of their physical format.

You can find the FRU of your board using the parts lookup on Lenovo's website.

Lenovo Support - Parts Lookup (US)

I always update BIOS from a bootable CD, and would advise you to do the same. Verify that the CD is properly burned, and media drive fully functional prior to flashing, though.

Happy FrankenPadding!

 

Thank You very much, didn't know that modified BIOS is same for all T61, guess I got confused by R61 detailed description. About BIOS flashing - do I need to apply the latest BIOS from Lenovo, and then the modded one, and what do you mean by verifying that the CD is properly burned? Which program to use for burning the cd and to test it?

 

Flash the modded BIOS first and don't concern yourself with Lenovo one.

Your burning program should have the "verify" option - try ImgBurn if in doubt.

 

Hi guys, I've got a T61 (14", 4:3 LCD) with a dead battery. I've put in a SATA3 SSD and at first decided against updating the bios as it was fast enough, but today I tried installing an 4965AGN wifi (instead of the built in 4965AG) and I got a 1802 error. So I need a BIOS without a wifi card whitelist, and the added bonus of having SATA2 support would be very nice.
It has Win7 64bit installed so I can't flash it from the OS. I burned a bootable CD, once it boots the error I get is #14 battery charge is low (dead battery).
I tried running 'phlash16.exe /B:$01AF000.FL1' and the flash program opens up and gives an error that it can't run with Hi-Mem enabled and won't continue.
I also tried updtflsh.exe but it exited with a low battery error.
So does anyone have any suggestions how to flash this thing?

 

Well I finally beat it and was able to flash it with the new BIOS.
Since I didn't want to reinstall Windows from scratch I used tftboot to start it from LAN and boot into a 32bit Vista kernel WinPE.
Then I plugged in a flash drive with the winphlash program and bios files. I renamed the $01AF000.FL1 and $01AF000.FL2 to bios.rom and platform.bin.
Started winphlash, pointed it to the ROM file and let it flash. Here is the result:


I followed by plugging the new Wifi 802.11N card back into the system, it started fine and went right into Windows, updated the driver and let me connect without a hitch.

I'd like to thank everyone who has worked on modifying the BIOS binaries and making them available for others, it's very much appreciated!

 

I had a similar struggle to flash middleton bios from a usb stick and eventually had success following "Approach 4" from this page BIOS Upgrade/X Series - ThinkWiki which appears to be the same as the one you used.
I tried using Rufus to format the USB drive without success, but I think it would work if, after formatting the USB stick as a bootable drive, the .iso file containing the BIOS is extracted (using 7zip or similar) to its own folder rather than to the root of the drive.

When I tried extracting the .iso to the root of the drive, there was a choice to overwrite command.com or keep the one created during formatting. Either way the flash didn't work, it either hung forever on a "starting flash" screen or gave me some crazy error messages that convinced me I'd bricked the laptop.
The answer is to extract to a separate directory, then there is no conflict between the two command.com files, the one on the root is used to boot into DOS and the one in the folder is a special one that starts the BIOS utility. It flashed easily using this method on an x61 tablet which thanks to middleton is now super-fast.

 

FYI for anyone who is having this error, try another ultrabay dvd drive. I ran into the same error and another dvd drive fixed the problem.

 

Hi guys,

I just used the Middelton bios 2.29-1.08 with success on a R61 7735.
I used the bios update without CTRL-FN swap and the 7kuj28uc.iso boot method.

My SSD Samsung 840 pro is now performing at ~250MB/s max instead of 100MB/s max before with the SATA I.
The SSD is now limited by the SATA II, but it's already not so bad ;-)

Now the R61 is running with a fresh Win8.1u1 install and I think it will go for another couple of years.
The next step is going to swap the Merom [email protected] with a Peryn [email protected] from another dead dell.

Thanks very much Middelton, the guys who helped him and the forum for all the information.

Mazaru

 

HELLO,

is there a Middleton bios for T61 7665-12G Model (FRU: 41W1489)

Thank in advance

 

Yes. It's the same BIOS as for the rest of T61 units.

 

So, I suppose this is it:

Dual-IDA_SATA-II_Whitelist_SLIC21_Thermal_Sensing_Error_ThinkPad_T61_T61p_BIOS_(2.29-1.08)

Thank you !

 

Yes, that's the one - and you're very welcome. Enjoy!

 

Hi all, today I first time find this thread with modded bios.

I own notebook Lenovo R61 model 8918-DFG (with cpu C2D T8100 and gpu Nvidia Quadro NVS 140)
and I have question about this modded bios:

I want install this ultimate bios, but now I have installed original Windows 8.1 with Update 1 (64-bit) and all updates via windows update. When I today flash this modded bios with slic 2.1 not exist any problem with this please?

I know that I must use .iso (burn to cd/dvd) and flash via bootable cd.
I only want know if not exist problem when I now flash bios with new table slic2.1 when I have already installed w8 which have/are compatible with newer table.

Thanks for answer.

 

I am impatient guy. So, I not wait on answer and I do update BIOS without answer
Everything works fine.
version without fn-ctrl switch:
Dual-IDA_SATA-II_Whitelist_SLIC2.1_Thermal_Sensing_Error_ThinkPad_R61_14.1_without_IEEE_1394_R61_15.4_(8914_8918_8919_8920_8927_8928_8929)_R61i_15.4_(8918)_BIOS_(2.29-1.08)

Maybe only one thing, just before procedure step "FlashingBios" in the first attempt to install/flash showed me error :-O "Error 99" I was scared, no, I was terrified realy many that my notebook is crash

Fortunately, I found a post here where it said, that need only set "SecurityChip" in BIOS on "Deactivate" and will be good. I made it and on second try was flash bios ok.

Thank you very much to all who created this modified bios :thumbsup:

 

maybe small q: now hwinfo64 showed sata2 3gb it's ok. but in aida64 is still write maximum ram as 4gb. so question is, if I want in future upgrade my 2*2gb on 2*4 will be work? is it only bad write or for maximum ram what support pm965 i must do something extra

 

Nothing to do. Just install the 2x4GB DIMMs, will work out of the box.

 

Hello, I am new to this forum. Today I bought a T61 1920*1200 with a t9300 for 150Euro. I think it's good deal. I just installed a Samsung 830 and trying to flash the bios. I made a iso cd with the right bios #1. But can't figure out how to flash it. It must be really easy from now on. Just searched the thread for half a hour. Hope any one can help me.