On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 14:23:28 +0900 Bryan Linton <p...@shoshoni.info> dijo:
>One thing I forgot to mention, you may want to consider installing >a third-party modified BIOS. Indeed if SATA II is your goal, the >pages on ThinkWiki seem to imply that the official BIOS won't >enable SATA II speeds. > >https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton%27s_BIOS > > "SATA II Mod: While the X61/T61/R61/X300 possess a SATA > II-interface (up to 3.0 GBit/s) they were limited to SATA > I (up to 1.5 GBit/s) in the BIOS to maintain compatibility > with older drives. Normal hard drives will rarely max out > SATA I speeds, but nowadays, SSDs can handle the full 3.0 > GBit/s (and more)." > >And indeed, on Lenovo's forums, I found this page: > >https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T61-and-prior-T-series-plus-Other-Legacy-ThinkPads/T61-Support-SATA-II/m-p/64464?page=6#97928 > > "For Santa Rosa-based systems, the Intel ICH8 supports a > SATA bus speed of up to 3.0 Gb/s. Lenovo made a design > decision to prioritize maintaining compatibility with > Ultrabay disk drives, which are connected via a > SATA-to-PATA conversion chip which could not handle a 3.0 > Gb/s SATA bus speed reliably. Therefore the system was > standardized to 1.5 Gb/s." > >So it would seem that if SATA II is your goal, the only option is >to use a third-party BIOS. Obviously, they aren't officially >supported by Lenovo and would void your warranty, though >considering the age of the T61 series, I'm sure any warranties on >them expired about a decade ago. Indeed, the only reason I want to flash the BIOS is to get 3.0GB/s with the new SSD that I have on order. And that means the Middleton BIOS. It is not supported by Lenovo, but I haven't read any disaster stories about it. Lots of posts say that if it fails you would have to replace the motherboard to recover. That doesn't make sense to me - why not just re-flash the BIOS with the latest official BIOS? Anyway, if I brick my T61 I'll just turn the new drive into a USB drive for backups. Thanks for including the link above, as I had been looking for a place to download the Middleton BIOS. Unfortunately, the site requires me to give them my e-mail, and then install their app (Java?) on my computer before I can download it. That's ridiculous. I'll have to find it someplace else, or just forget about it. >From reading the above, you may sacrifice compatibility with >using a hard disk in the Ultrabay were you to install the >third-party BIOS. I'm not sure if this would affect the CD-ROM >drive which is what is installed in the Ultrabay by default >though. I'll never use the Ultrabay for anything besides the DVD drive that came with the computer. Back in the day when this was my main computer I used the DVD drive constantly, but nowadays it's doubtful that I'll use it at all. >The Middleton BIOS comes with a somewhat strong disclaimer: I'm willing to take the risk. I just need to find a decent place to download it. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
