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

what does TRIM command have to do with the T410s bios firmware? i thought it is only limited to the OS and the SSD drive....

 

You may be right, I meant the SSD firmware...
Samsung says the SSD model installed in my t410s supports TRIM, the diagnostic software says opposite. I am not sure what and where is the problem.

 

i've had four of the recent lenovo-issued 1.8" samsung MLC SSDs and they don't seem to slow down.   they seem to have internal garbage collection rather than TRIM.

 

I cannot remember where I read it (it was before TRIM existed on SSDs) but someone stated that Samsung then sold their SSDs with the NAND in a fully "dirty" state, which resulted in the constant benchmarked performance.

 

Is this better than TRIM or at least has it the same result? It would be great news

 

not sure if it's better but i can't say my intel SSDs run any quicker than my samsung SSDs in performing everyday tasks.   we'll see how things go long-term.   i'll probably upgrade before wearing anything out.

 

I get an error code 'Error during flash. Error code = 99 (179 )' when I try and update the BIOS on this T61. It's model number is 8892-02U .. T7500, 128MB nvidia 140m ..

Any hints?

I'm using the 'BIOS update' from CD, the one *without* the Ctrl-Fn switch. Embedded controller on the BIOS display says 1.06 .. not sure if that helps?

 

Unfortunately I don't know what this error code means.
Try Windows flashing instead. If you have Windows 64-bit installed, then either create BartPE bootable CD and use it to flash the BIOS or install Windows 32-bit on another partition and flash the BIOS under it.

 

That did the trick.

I happened to have the hard drive still around that was in the machine when I got it, and that was helpfully installed with Windows 7 32-bit.

I booted the machine with the Windows 7 32-bit HD, Ran the WINUPTP.EXE and it did its stuff. Shut off and restarted with my Ubuntu 64 bit installation (on my SSD) and all is good.

Code:

[    1.640115] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[    1.690997] ata3.00: ACPI cmd ef/02:00:00:00:00:a0 (SET FEATURES) succeeded
[    1.691006] ata3.00: ACPI cmd f5/00:00:00:00:00:a0 (SECURITY FREEZE LOCK) filtered out
[    1.691009] ata3.00: ACPI cmd ef/10:03:00:00:00:a0 (SET FEATURES) filtered out
[    1.741008] ata3.00: ATA-8: OCZ-AGILITY2, 1.11, max UDMA/133

Getting 180+MB/sec instead of the 120 before. Great, thanks! I'll be donating asap.


Update: Changed RAM to my Kingston Hyper-X and am getting 208MB/sec transfer on the SSD

 

Hi, Middleton,

Thanks. Now my SSD is running at 3 Gigabit model. I have donated $20 to the Paypal account few minutes ago. You did a wonderful work. Shame on Lenovo.

A Chinese T61 user in Louisville, KY.

Here is my T61.
ThinkPad T61 6465 57U
T7100(1.8GHz 2 MB L2cache)
Intel 965GM chipset family
4G (2X2G) PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz
Intel SSDSA2M080G2GC
320GB (7200 rpm) HDD 16M in a UltraBase
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (resolution 1280x900)
Intel 82566 MM Ethernet
ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter (replaced Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG)

 

Hi, Middleton;
would you please Re-modify a BIOS for T61?
BIOS: 2.26 / ECP: 1.08
It is better control of the fan.

 

The fan is controlled by ECP (Embedded Controller). BIOS has no relation to the fan.

 

The strange thing is that the fan can stop with 2.26 version ,and it can't stop with 2.27 version.

 

The modified BIOS works on my x61 Tablet - excellent work! For anyone interested in a bit more exiting boot screens than the default logo, download a logo.mod and put it in your BIOS folder before running the WINUPTP.EXE file.

Tablet image:


Amiga nostalgia:

 

I installed this BIOS on my T61 (model 7665-Y4F) with the bootCD, because i have Windows 7 64bit installed.

My SSD (intel 40GB) has gained 40MB/s in read speed so that is very nice!!!!

But........ the WD3200BEVT 320GB SATA drive that i am using in an cheap Ultrabay adapter is now only getting 13MB/sec read, while before the BIOS mod it was at 64MB/s read speed.

I already checked my device manager, and the ATA channel is set to Multi-Word DMA Mode 2

If i put the put the Ultrabay caddy in my T40 (with R51 motherboard) it is reading at 64MB/sec, just like it should. (The caddy has a PATA SATA converter, that is why it is working in the older R51 )

But how do i get it to run at the good speed (64MB/sec instead of 13MB/sec) in my T61 Ultrabay?


When i flashed the modified BIOS i got an "2302 Ultrabay initialize error" on the first reboot, but after another reboot that error was gone.

Please advice.

Edit: Nevermind, fixed it by resetting the BIOS to its defaults, now my Ultrabay is again working at the speed it was before the modification !

 

The bios update from middleton works great on my T61.
Improves the performance of my ocz vertex2 greatly!

Thanks! I send you 25$.

 

Hello middleton!

Thank you for the great job!

I have a little problem after the flashing your BIOS. The write-speed of my new SSD is now ca. 35 MB/s slower than before. What can be the problem?


Greetings

Cade

 

Cade, I don't have a ThinkPad with SSD installed. I've even never seen any lenovo laptop in real life. What can I advise you ? Only the standard things: load BIOS setup defaults, make sure that SATA II full speed is really enabled, reflash BIOS again etc.
Please understand me: I just unlocked the full SATA II speed for your laptop and nothing more. I can't guarantee that this mod works on any machine with any SSD. If something goes wrong, then I'm useless because don't have big experience neither in SSDs nor in ThinkPads.
If you need some advice, then ask other ThinkPad owners in this thread. At the moment I have nearly 4000 downloads of SATA II modded BIOS. It's more likely that real ThinkPad owners know the answer to your question.

 

Hey Middleton,

I have a question for you that you might not have been asked yet regarding this whole T61 BIOS thing...

When you look at the BIOS code as you had been modding it, did you happen to notice if the unused, second ICH8m SATA controller was enabled or disabled?

I have read several posts similar to this: INFO: How to enable SATA on mba rev.1 - MacRumors Forums

and this: INFO: How to enable SATA on mba rev.1 - MacRumors Forums

...which detail on how to locate the correct copper traces on the motherboard to connect the second, unused SATA controller on the ICH8m controller.

I am a very tech savvy individual who would like to attempt this mod on a T61p, but I also realize that if the unused SATA controller is not even enabled in the BIOS then it must be enabled in order for it to work and detect a hard drive on that second port. I do not know anything about modding BIOS firmware, so this is why I am asking you (since you seem to be a top expert in this field).

If this would be possible and easy for you to do, we could start a whole separate thread to specifically discuss this, and I would definitely give you a much larger donation if you could pull this off. There is also a specific T61 owner crowd I ran across who also wanted to figure out how to do this as well.

I have not yet tried your current modded firmware on my T61p as I just found this thread last night, but I do plan to try your firmware and give you an appropriate donation for the current work you have done thus far. I just wanted to post about this issue of enabling the second ICH8m SATA controller port to you now, to get it out there so you could see it.

If it is possible to make this mod without too much trouble, and if you may want to try to do it, then I will of course want to go ahead and start my process for locating the correct traces inside on the motherboard for that second SATA port and I am planning to wire in a very small SATA SSD drive (they are the ones that are SATA but have a mini pci-e connector on them which is not the mini pci-e protocol but real SATA interface). Certain models of these little drives offer full SATA2 speeds but are very compact in size and can be mounted inside the unit without trouble.

If it did really work, I might even attempt to configure it as RAID 0 with one of those compact 64GB SSD, and my current 1.8 64GB SSD which is in the primary bay.

So have you noticed if the second port is enabled, and if not, could it easily be enabled?

THANKS

EDIT: Here is a rough example of a drive with a SATA2 interface on it that could be used on a second controller:

http://cgi.ebay.com/STT-64GB-MLC-Mi...C_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item3f00e6c08f

I even have all the pinout diagrams for wiring one of these into an ICH8m SATA controller. I am going to use an SLC one but of a similar variety to this. If I cannot find a place for it to fit inside, them I will make it occupy one of the 2 PCMCIA slots, and I will like make it use the PCMCIA pins and all, but just rewire all of those pins to connect how I want them to (using an old PCMCIA card gutted out with my SSD inside it).
.
.

 

The problem is not enabling the port so much as directing the boot process to use it. That can be done without a bios mod already, but means more wiring: would need to route the primary HDD connector tracks to your mPCIe SSD and route the additional sata controller board traces to your existing HDD. Then can boot from your mPCIe SSD. Just enable the additional port using grub2 bootloader's mem write feature OR when you've booted up in Win7 using baredit or r-w everything to access your HDD.

 

You don't need to enable the second SATA controller of ICH8-M. According to Intel's documentation: "the second controller (Device 31: Function 5) supports ports 4 and 5". But these ports are available in desktop version of ICH8 only. We are limited by three ports (0, 1 and 2) in mobile version of ICH8. These ports are controlled by the first SATA controller which is enabled by BIOS.

As far as I know port 0 is occupied by primary HDD (or SSD) but ports 1 and 2 are free. You don't need to patch BIOS for enabling ports 1 and 2. It can be done right under Windows. I briefly looked at BIOS code: It seems BIOS enables ports 1 and 2 only if something is connected to them. Otherwise ports are disabled. But it's the first look - I didn't analyze the code carefully.

 

Cool, that is very informative. The main reason I figured it needed to be patched was because some other people trying this project with a certain Dell model laptop claimed patching was necessary on theirs.

I am waiting for a used T61p I just acquired on eBay with a broken screen that I am going to use for prototyping this mod to see if it is physically possible. I think it might arrive in a couple days and then I plan to disassemble it and check out the accessibility of the connections I would need to make.

So theoretically, if I wire it up, it should just work then... That would be nice if it does. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

THANKS for the response

 

(Just found this post and let me say, I am relieved. Thanks guys for all your hard work)

Now for my comment, I am interested on how your progress goes because I would be interested in re-wiring the ultrabay PATA to an SATA.

 

I'll paypal you some cash if you hack the R61 BIOS in the same way as you've hacked the T61.

Aren't the two motherboards almost identical? It shouldn't be much different than what you've done already.

Thanks.

EDIT: I have the 14inch without IEEE version.. running latest official bios.

 

Yeah, +1 from me. I'd love to try modified bios and finally see real performance of OCZ Agility 64GB SSD in my 15.4 inch widescreen R61i
I'm also considering CPU upgrade to some T9xxx, so I would really appearance "thermal hack" too.
Here you can find original, correct BIOS for these models: Lenovo Support & downloads - BIOS Update Utility - ThinkPad R61 and R61i 15.4 inch widescreen
Hope you'll find some spare time soon and bring us this awesome hack!

Greetings from Poland,
Good luck

 

The-Traveler
ThinkLover

Guys, I answered the questions about R61 BIOS patch. Use search in this thread.
In two words: I'll make R61 patch as soon as I'll have time for it. There is a high probability that it will happen very soon. Watch this thread.

 

Thanks for all your effort, I will keep my eyes on this thread.

 

Yes thanks for your help! It's people like you that help us simpletons get the power we should have got from the start in regards of sata speeds! Cant wait till you release r61 15.4 for the rest of us! Not complaining just being patient till the day it arrives. Keep up the good work. Will donate once this is done!

 

to all R61 owners

I've finally made 4 BIOS patches for your machines. Supported ThinkPad systems:

- R61 (15 inch normal screen models, Machine types: 8942, 8943, 8944, 8945, 8947, 8948, 8949)
- R61i (15 inch normal screen model, Machine type: 8943)

- R61e
- R61i (15.4 inch widescreen model without IEEE 1394, Machine type: 7650)

- R61 (15.4 inch widescreen models, Machine types: 8930, 8932, 8933, 8934, 8935, 8936, 8937)
- R61i (15.4 inch widescreen model with IEEE 1394, Machine type: 8932)

- R61 (14.1 inch widescreen models without IEEE 1394, Machine types and models: 7732, 7733, 7734, 7735, 7736, 7737, 7738)
- R61 (15.4 inch widescreen models, Machine types: 8914, 8918, 8919, 8920, 8927, 8928, 8929)
- R61i (15.4 inch widescreen models, Machine types: 8918)


Now I need testers mainly to make sure that modified BIOS-es don't brick R61 notebooks. I'll post here download link to each BIOS after confirmation that everything works fine.
Send your requests via email. You can find my address in this thread (for example here).

 

I've send you an email

 

anybody using a hybrid drive? Any noticeable boost?

 

Confirmed that the BIOS for R61 is safe! Just flashed it on my R61i 8918 and it's working perfectly fine.

Before:

After:

+60%... Thats really amazing! Big thanks to middleton !

 

I can be tester for R61 15.4 with 1394 (8932).

Oops didnt see about emailing lol.

 

Just updated as a tester and good news it all worked on my R61 15.4 (8932). It got rid of thermal sensing error and my ssd is at sata 300 speeds.

Thanks middleton your the best. Make sure you all donate like I did cause without this guy we would still be waiting for a solution.

 

Hi, about to try out the modded bios.
Are there any md5sums available that I missed?
I get 05E7A2990EEAA010FA3AD74EB164C16A md5 on the BIOS update + CTRL-FN swap image named 7luj26uc

 

Hi, I have a problem with updating the bios on my x61s. The updater needs the "flashabl.rom" file which is not included in the bios package..

Booting into the BIOS update I meet an error that states
"The system program file was not found on the CD. Insert the correct CD in the drive."

And when I try to update my bios in windows:
"Bios image file can not be found. The utility process has not completed."


???

 

you can add T61 - 7661-gn3 to the list of non-bricked machines_
Didn't really gain anythin, just did it for the hell of it I guess, Gonna give my self a Vertex 2 and a T9300 for christmas and will make my donation afterwards whren I see that it actually works, Great work!.
Can't be bothered to read the entire thread again again, s o just one question.
I flashed from a bootable CDimage that was located in the folder of the ctrl-fn swap mod. Does the swap only work if I flash from win?
Or did I miss a bios setting? In any case it doesn't seem to work

 

All files needed for BIOS update are included in archive. Very strange issue. What is your current BIOS version?

It's known issue. Sometimes CTRL-FN patch doesn't work when you flash it with bootable CD. Send me email (you can find my address below) and we'll resolve your problem.


to all R61 owners

Two BIOS patches were tested and now available for download on the page 8 of this thread.
BIOS-es for the following machines still need testers:

- R61 (15 inch normal screen models, Machine types: 8942, 8943, 8944, 8945, 8947, 8948, 8949)
- R61i (15 inch normal screen model, Machine type: 8943)

- R61e
- R61i (15.4 inch widescreen model without IEEE 1394, Machine type: 7650)

Send your requests via email. You can find my address in this thread (for example here).

 

I can volunteer to test for the R61e (Type 7650), I sent you a request via email.

 

Hello all.

I would like to test BIOS for R61 7732-NEG, 14'1" WITH IEEE 1394.
There's no BIOS for models with IEEE 1394, is it a limitation on something?
Sent an email already.

Thanks.

EDIT:
I did not notice that already existed for this release:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...s-cap-willing-pay-solution-8.html#post6501443
I just installed on mine R61-7732 and everything is ok.
Thanks to everyone who made this patch possible, keep up the good work.

Regards, Nuno Moreira.

 

Just flashed the modified BIOS using the bootable CD-ROM method for the R61/R61e 15.4" (Type 7650) and i'm pleased to say it's working without problems. Upgraded from the official Lenovo BIOS 2.22 (2009/05/13) to the modified 2.23 (2010/04/12).

Everest seems to report SATA-II speeds which is good, can't say much for the Thermal Sensing removal as the machine was already equipped with a Penryn processor (T8100) but I believe it should be fine knowing from previous experience of the T61.

Overall great work Middleton, I believe it should be safe to put this particular BIOS on the download list for all.

 

Thanks to all testers.

Now only one R61 BIOS remains to be tested. It's intended for the following ThinkPads:

- R61 (15 inch normal screen models, Machine types: 8942, 8943, 8944, 8945, 8947, 8948, 8949)
- R61i (15 inch normal screen model, Machine type: 8943)

 

Just out of curiosity, are ppl starting to come through with donations as promised? (Will make my donation as soon my "greedy" bank raises my creditlimit so I can buy T8300/T9300 and Vertex 2)

 

wow, I sure learned alot from going through your threads guys both from the experts and from the newbies asking the right questions, my sincere thanks!
Ps, Middleton, you rock!

 

I've just removed the paypal link.
At the moment I have 4564 downloads and 58 donations: (58/4564)*100% = 1,27%
Don't know is it normal percent for donationware product or not. But anyway I see no point in further donations because I've finished this ThinkPad BIOS modding project.
It was a great experience for me. Many thanks to all donators.

 

You may wish to see if there are any donators willing to sponsor you making a dualIDA-capable modded bios, gaining 8-13% more cpu performance as I have done for the Santa Rosa HP systems here. The final bios would then be definitely the ultimate.

 

Hi Nando.

I'm replying to your private message but you're too fast . So I'll reply you here.
Could you remove the paypal links from your posts. I don't want to receive donations anymore.
I know - you have endless amount of BIOS modding ideas . Unfortunately I basically lost my interest to BIOS modding. Besides I don't have enough time for it.

Lets see how many R61/T61/X61/X300 owners want dualIDA-capable modded bios. But prospect to modify again nine BIOS packages really scares me .

 

Middleton, you transferred your intrest in modding BIOS on to me (inception? )
I was wondering is it as hard as it looks like, so I've thought that maybe I would try it. I know what reverse engineering is, but never actually tried it.
Could you point me to some place where I could start and get some basic info/skills? Again, thanks for ALL what you did there.

EDIT: I would be intrested in dualIDA. Sad about donations, I wish I could spare you some money, but I'm still in financial gap after buying my R61, even stopped smoking for a while... (poor student without work here...).

 

Apparently I had this conversation muted in gmail and missed the big announcement for the release of the R61 packages. I did finally get to install them lastnight and I must say "Thanks Middleton!" It made a huge improvement.

 

forums.mydigitallife.info is a good starting point. You can find all the tools for Phoenix BIOS modding there.
But I doubt they can teach you to analyze disassembled BIOS code. You should learn it by yourself reading datasheets and other literature on disassembling.