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

Hi middleton,

Thank you for your great efforts modifying the BIOS.
I'd like to know if this BIOS "SATA-II_Whitelist_SLIC21_Thermal_Sensing_Error_ThinkPad_T61_T61p_BIOS_(2.27-1.08)" supports T61p 15.4 widescreen.
I have been flashing this BIOS for more than 10 times, but my T61p is still limited to SATA I.
I'm using WIN7 32bit and I have installed the latest Intel Matrix Storage Console and the hard disk is SATA II.

Need your help.

 

Hello.

I flashed the X61 bios and everything seems to work as expected so far. SATA speed is now Generation 2, ctrl + fn works, slic is reported to be 2.1. Can't check for the whitelist, as I have no need for it at the moment.

Anyone tried flashing the SXGA+ modded bios on a X61? The readme file only lists X61s and not plain X61 as supported. I would love the SXGA+ bios +ctrl/fn to work on the X61.

Middleton, great work there, appreciate it! Tried to donate but Paypal recently has some trouble with my credit card for unknown reasons, I have to check that.

To all those who might have waited for the final version to be beta-tested when I posted I would do that, I am really sorry, my GPRS connection betrayed me in the worst possible moment.

Kind regards,
Panagiotis

 

It seems your hard drive is locked at SATA I. Some HDDs have jumpers to enable SATA II mode, some let you turn SATA II on by an utility from disk manufacturer.
Anyway laptop HDDs really don't need SATA II. Only SSDs benefit from SATA II full speed. You won't detect any difference in performance with your HDD.

 

Yes, there is not much difference for HDD. But I'm going to buy SSD if this BIOS really works for my T61P. My HDD is SATA II enabled, becuase I checked the info in Everest.
Just want to make sure that there is no problem for T61P 15.4 widescreen?

 

There is only one BIOS for T61/T61p. So you can't find a special firmware for T61P 15.4 widescreen. I can't help you If SATA-II BIOS patch doesn't work on your machine. You probably have hardware issues.

 

Yes, I believe it is not a common issue. Thanks a lot!

 

Anyone running a SSD Hybrid. I don't think a 320gb or 500gb SSD exist and I need that space for my virtual machines. Don't think work would buy me a pure SSD at that size/price point but a SSD hybrid is cheap. Anybody benchmark one before the hacked bios and after? I'll probably be testing this out in the next month.

 

I have the same concern and will use and ultrabay adapter for drop in a HDD while keeping the SSD for OS and apps.

 

Hi,

first of all: wow, this is what lenovo/ibm should have done in the first place. Great to see we are finally able to have ctrl as the leftmost key. This has been driving me nuts as i'm regularly switching between desktop keyboards and my x61s. I also have to use ctrl a lot (IDE hotkeys galore).

Now i'm a proud owner of an sxga+ modded x61s and sadly the table in this post lists x61s/sxga+ as the only one without the swap.
Is it an error in the table, or is that still WiP?

Kudos
gazpel

 

There are no errors in the table. Leokim changed BIOS version in his X61 SXGA+ patch, so lenovo's BIOS update tools will reject to flash SXGA+ modified firmware. You have to flash it directly by winphlash.exe. That's why I didn't include CTRL-FN swap in X61 SXGA+ version.

If you like CTRL-FN swap, then there are two options:

- Flash the usual X61/X61s BIOS with CTRL-FN swap. Then flash SXGA+ BIOS with winphlash.exe.

- Or you can take $01B2000.FL2 file from the usual X61/X61s BIOS with CTRL-FN swap and flash it with winphlash.exe. This method has never been tested and can potentially brick your laptop.

 

Hello.

I have a big problem. I just started the flash tool 30 minutes before. But now since 20 minutes it´s standing still at "Flash New BIOS Verifying block 2 of 2" (see attachment) and nothing happens. I don´t can use the mouse and everything is freezed

I just started the "BIOS/32bit/WINUPTP.exe" and followed the instructions.

What should I do now?

Should I put the middleton bios on an usb stick an start the t61 new?

EDIT: DONE, the flash just interrupted and after reseting the T61 started normally

 

What model and OS you use? Personally I dislike flashing under Windows because it can run background services which can disrupt the flashing process (hence why I do it by CD-ROM via the BIOS, plus I felt the pain of a bad Windows BIOS flash on my ASUS P5B Deluxe ). It is recommend that you turn off things like Anti-Virus, Firewalls, Internet Connectivity etc. temporarily during the flash process under Windows.

Based on your screenshot if it's still doing the flashing then I recommend leaving it for a bit before doing anything. Sometimes it does look like it's frozen where in fact it hasn't. Leave it for a bit then report back because if you switch it off now you probably do more bad for the laptop then good.

EDIT: OK based on the latest update from becks76 it all seems good. But my advice still stands, if it looks frozen then don't be tempted to turn it off!

 

Everything is okay, becks76 T61 lives (he wrote it in the german ThinkPad-Forum). He had a lot of external hardware connected via USB-Hub, had the book on external monitor,...

For everybody: its more save to burn the ISO and flash it under DOS. Also deconnect all peripheral hardware.

 

Tried the iso on my T61p 6459-CTO running Windows 7 64 and everything went smoothly. It successfully changed the SATA mode to Generation 2. I'm currently running a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 SATA 3.0Gb/s, however there wasn't any speed increase just running that (in fact the tests I ran gave a decrease, though minimal).

I ordered a SSD this weekend (Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC SSD) and then happened upon this post - glad I went looking and I hope things are quite speedy with my new SSD. I also picked up two 4GB sticks to hopefully push my T61p to 8GB ... I'll report back after I get both of those installed!

Thanks again for this! Donation forthcoming...

Lenovo Thinkpad T61p 15.6" - Intel Core 2 Duo [email protected], 4GB RAM, WD 320GB 7200 HDD, NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

 

Hmm ok. Option 1 sounds safer, but does it work without removing the sxga+ display? Does the usual (xga) bios allow booting (with an external screen) even when the primary display is unknown (sxga+) so that the second flash can be done?

(sorry for the paranoid question, but i really don't want to undo the mod, even if it's temporary. It was kinda hard to fit it all together like it is now )

 

You'd better email me (see my address on page 18). I'll patch winuptp.exe for you.

 

Is there any point in using this bios patch if you don't have a SSD? Will I see a speed increase on a HDD?

 

I saw no increase with just a HDD.

 

what type of HD do you have? I've got http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/03E516A3C41738C78625743B005AD957/$file/TS7K320_DS.pdf which says 300 gb/s so I'm tempted to do this. Also mine came from the factory with a penryn chip t9300 and I never get thermal error or have any SLIC issues. I'm wondering if my mobo is slightly different.

 

I didn't expect a speed increase on my HDD but after doing benchmarks it seems that the modded BIOS had increased sequential read/write of my HDD by approx 7-10mb/s. I was getting around mid 80s for read, 70s for write before, though I still plan to upgrade my system to SSD anyway!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 93.265 MB/s
Sequential Write : 90.457 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 32.108 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 38.668 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.402 MB/s [ 98.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.673 MB/s [ 164.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.764 MB/s [ 186.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.635 MB/s [ 155.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 39.8% (46.4/116.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/08/01 21:18:37
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)


Maybe others can post their HDD benchmarks and verify? My HDD is a Seagate Momentus 250GB 7200.4 16MB Cache ST9250410AS (SATA II/300 Compliant) HDD drive for reference.

 

The Thermal Sensing Error you will get only on elder T61 boards. Nobody has SLIC issues here, its a feature if you want to setup Windows 7 with OEM license.

Greetz,

XStoneX

 

I have a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s (newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280). Though I'm getting only 62-63 read and 59-61 write. Wondering if I have other issues now ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 63.550 MB/s
Sequential Write : 59.673 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 25.550 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 34.227 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.342 MB/s [ 83.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.786 MB/s [ 191.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.650 MB/s [ 158.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.752 MB/s [ 183.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 51.7% (154.1/298.0 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/07/31 15:31:33
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Expect lower performance from fragmented drives or if you drive is full and the test is using the outermost part of the platter.

HDD performance improvements

sataII will provide some measure of HDD performance improvement. This is because buffer cache read/writes are now liberated to work at > 130MB/s speed. We see from Tomshardware interface performance chart here that recent HDDs do have buffer cache that work at 180-211MB/s. Now such read/writes will form some portion of overall read/writes so it will not be a huge improvement.

 

Yeah that makes sense. This drive I have is less than a year old and I've never maxed it out (currently at ~51% usage). I defrag it weekly and it was at 0 fragmentation when I ran the tests (I double checked this because I noticed how slow it seemed compared to others). I should put in my old drive and see how it performs.

 

Works on my x61 tablet, just bought ssd today too. My boot time went from 50-55 seconds (with 7200 rpm hard drive), to 25 seconds (with intel x25 m).

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/2987/benchmark.png

Planning to donate as soon as I get some money in my bank. This is a civil service you are doing right here middleton, thanks!

 

Should the X61s SXGA+ BIOS be flashed after the panel ugprade or will it work if it is flashed before the panel upgrade (i.e. does the added SXGA+ support remove support for the regular XGA screen?).

Also, you refer to this BIOS as an X61s BIOS. Is it not compatible with X61 as well (I thought both BIOSes were the same)?

 

It doesn't matter whether you flash before or after, I think. But if you want to be safe, do it after. Also, this works with X61. Maybe middleton should add that in.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 94.920 MB/s
Sequential Write : 92.508 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 33.095 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 40.479 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.417 MB/s [ 101.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.799 MB/s [ 195.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.729 MB/s [ 178.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.811 MB/s [ 198.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 48.2% (75.4/156.2 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/08/02 10:23:28
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB 16MB cache ST9500420ASG

 

would it be possible to the same to t60/x60 bios?
regarding the specs of the 945 chipset it has the ability to rock with sata2.
Intel 945G Express Chipset - Overview

would be so great

 

welcome to the forum!

unfortunately chipset doesn't matter.   the ICH7M southbridge in those systems is SATA 150, not 300.

http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/307013.pdf

from page 196:

SATA 1.0 = 1.5 Gb/sec.

sorry.

 

thanks for the info erik! :-(

 

I went from this:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 63.550 MB/s
Sequential Write : 59.673 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 25.550 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 34.227 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.342 MB/s [ 83.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.786 MB/s [ 191.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.650 MB/s [ 158.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.752 MB/s [ 183.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 51.7% (154.1/298.0 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/07/31 15:31:33
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)


To this...
Newegg.com - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 266.847 MB/s
Sequential Write : 204.620 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 246.846 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 207.794 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 19.803 MB/s [ 4834.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 36.948 MB/s [ 9020.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 131.736 MB/s [ 32162.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 117.432 MB/s [ 28669.9 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 15.7% (37.4/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/08/05 0:15:23
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

Nice SSD - should be a little performance improvement

 

Hi, I am a thinkpad user in Taiwan, I donate to you and please keep going on this project, thank you! Fu-Chia Lin, from Taiwan

 

whoa, how is the real world performance. Anybody test a hybrid ssd drive?

 

The real world perf is also great. I went from about 2-5 minute wait for Visual Studio 2010 to load to about 3 seconds. To be fair, this is also a clean install, so VS2010 probably would have loaded faster on a clean install on the HDD. I also had several minutes of wait for my desktop to load from the login screen, which now is near instant. Several minutes of bootup to between 20-25 seconds.

The only snag I've currently seen is that I've had the computer crash (tried it twice, crashed twice) when in full-screen mode of Silverlight. I know that Silverlight uses hardware acceleration while in full-screen mode, so there could be some funkyness going on there. I haven't tested if this is a SSD issue or RAM issue (since I'm also running 8GB on my T61p).

Overall I couldn't be happier though!

 

awesome I have the same setup t61p, wuxga, t9300, except for hard drive. Think if I asked work to buy me a $600 256gb drive they'd laugh in my face. interest

 

Yeah I know what you mean. My T61p had been running so slow I was seriously considering buying a new laptop. I'm a consultant so I use my laptop everyday for work as well and I was really starting to feel like its current speed was seriously hindering my productivity. So after a couple weeks of deliberating I finally took the plunge. Overall I think its a good investment (it has a 3 year warranty at least) though yeah that initial $$ shell out is quite high.

I'm not sure I would have been mad if this BIOS bricked my machine because then I'd have to buy a new one! Though I'm happy with at least the higher speeds.

 

middleton,

I just donated some money.

Thank you so much for your hard work on this!

Thanks again!!

 

Thank you so much for this BIOS update, this is brilliant. I've been using an Intel X25-M G2 80GB on my Thinkpad X61T for about 8 months now (Win 7 PRO). It's been frustrating to know that I couldn't get most of it. Not any more! See the CrystalDisk 2.2 results before and after my BIOS update:

Before SATA II BIOS Update
--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
--------------------------------------------------

Sequential Read : 134.843 MB/s
Sequential Write : 83.194 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 124.686 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 82.524 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 14.332 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 25.861 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/08/07 22:57:50


After SATA II BIOS Update
--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
--------------------------------------------------

Sequential Read : 240.420 MB/s
Sequential Write : 89.878 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 198.140 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 89.681 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 15.606 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 30.829 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2010/08/07 23:14:52


My OS start-up is snappier, also overall time for opening applications. Incredible that Lenovo didn't release something that simple. I will be testing this machine and add to the topic if something strange happens.

My only concern now is the slightly increased running temperature of my X61T with the new update. I've been using Thinkpad Fan Control software for a quiet computing experience, but current values indicate about 5'C increase in overall CPU/GPU temperature. Any ideas?

My humble donation on the way... Hearty thanks to middleton.

Koray

 

I wanted to buy a faster processor to replace the t7300 in this t61. Does anyone know how high up in the T series I can go with this new bios? Also, does this bios work with windows 7 64bit?

Thanks
Rut

 

you can go with the T9xxx with 800 mhz FSB.. that is the highest you can go for this series of laptop.

 

I see T9300 in T61 systems. So could go up to the (pricey) T9500. Quite possibly then could put a X9000-2.8 in there too, applying Throttlestop to get it > 3Ghz. I've seen a Dell D630 on here with a X9000 in it.

 

Quick question to knowers.

Is there a BIOS version WITHOUT "CTRL-FN swap fix" ? I'm fine with FN key right now and don't want to change my habits.

Thanks.

 

yeah it's in the download, there is an iso for it.

 

Thanks. That's nice. Now I'm really considering getting an SSD.

I just downloaded rar file and saw there only 1 ISO file. Is that the one you're talking?

Since I'm not using windows I can't start WINUPTP.EXE and see what options it gives...

 

in the download there are two folder

1. bios update
2. bios update with ctrl+fn swap

in the plain bios update folder is an iso file. Just flashed mine. I think my boot time improved (is there a common benchmark proggie everyone uses, it'd make performance comparison more apples/apples). I only have a 320gb hitachi 16mb cache 7200 rpm old drive, so I don't have enough data, or a drive capable of utilizing this. Does seem a little faster, could be the placebo effect though.

 

Thanks. I found my problem... I was unpacking rar file incorectly, directory structure was ignored

Now makes sense and my prev post sounded stupid, I guess

Thanks again!

 

Theoretically the highest processor you can put in your T61 is the Core 2 Extreme X9000 (2.8GHz, 6MB Cache, 800Mhz FSB) but they will command a hefty price premium due to the fact it has unlocked multipliers and will run very hot. The next one will be the T9500 but I would recommend the T9300, the T9500 is only 100MHz faster than the T9300 yet the price premium for that mere 100MHz is exorbitant.

 

Why doesn't the t9600 - t9900 work? Is it the fsb speed that my mobo won't support?

Also, would I even see much of a difference between a 7300 and 9300?

Thanks