*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

[User Retired 2]

Flashing older bios versions

There's a few patched HPQFlash to that don't do bios version or signature checking so have more flexibility in going an older bios, eg: F.0A, if you wanted. Though can't go older than F.0A as they have some different bootblocks. Useful too if wanting to overcome delays/flashing of some warning message when using the optical bay caddy instead of the optical drive.

Freeing up resources - disabling TPM/VPro's PCI Serial Port and IDE Controller/Onboard LAN

There was always the TPM and PCI Serial Port (SOL) and Second IDE Controller (IDER) bios bloat associated with with Intel's VPro that I could disable in XP but the devices would still be there. I've been able to permanently disable these so XP doesn't ever see then with:

1. Download HPBI103 and save to a bootable USB key.
   
2. Read current Vpro state:
   
   

   C:\> HPBI103 read VPRO
   
   Assets Utility Version 1.02 Copyright (c) 2006 Hewlett-Packard Corporation
   VPro Enabled
   Descriptor locked
   Management Engine enabled
   Flash Protection Override disabled

3. Disable TPM and VPro
   

   C:\> hpbi103 write vpro.vpro_state disabled
   C:\> hpbi103 write TPM off

It's changed my bios menu too. I can now disable LAN in there, and the AMT menu is gone. Only issue is my brief attempt at re-enabling VPRO/TPM hasn't worked. Might reduce a bit of load on XP for better battery life or free up resources?

[sfsilicon]

I believe those benchmarks and various incompatabilites are from the Runcore Pro using the jmicron controller and original problems getting the ZIF cables right. Runcore ProIV is a new product, with faster transfers. They should have ironed out their ZIF cabling issues too.

Yes the incompatibility issues where with the V1 Pro and Runcore marketing is assuring that the ZIF cabling is a thing of the past. My concern is less with the product issues, but more with the fact that they rushed the product to the market with little testing outside of a few initial netbooks. They then underestimated the difficulty of supporting the different variations of ZIF implemented in products back then. Finally they messed up the end user support. The community was very enthusiastic about them initially because they were like half the price of a Samsung, Mtron, etc. They responded very openly in support of initial complaints (they are one of the few companies I know that actively post in user forums (OCZ is another example). But then they clammed up and stopped responding after 2-3 bad fixes it became clear they didn't know what they were doing and not enough was done to test the drives properly. I hope the IV is better, but this thing about limiting the PATA interface to UMDA4 to maintain stability is another shady thing to do. You see then very publicly touting the Indilinx level of performance on the SATA based drives, but it has been strangely quiet on the ZIF front. I'm guessing we will hear more soon as the drives come out, but this will not be what most folks are expecting from an Indilinx drive. As we know with the caddies putting a bridge chip infront of a native SATA chip is not trivial from a performance perspective. The safe call is to wait for a couple 1000 parts to be sold into retail and make sure the biggest issues are resolved.

BTW, the benchmarks above are from the actual 1.8" ZIF Pro IV drive. Check them out. They match quite well with what we expect from an Indilinx/PATA bridge solution. They are somewhere inbetween the new modus and ebay caddy reference points.

[sfsilicon]

Manually setting ZIF/IDE transfer mode

Thanks again nando4. I'll try this out and report my findings. It would be nice to unlock more performance from the eBay solution, but right now I'd recommend the newmodus solution unless your on a budget or planning to use an HDD.

[sfsilicon]

I can't see any indicator in the linked tweaktown thread that those results are of the Runcore ProIV product. Especially since mydigitaldiscount have it for preorder, shipping out 24th of August (today).

The tweaktown link comes from the twitter account of the CMO of Runcore. See the post from 8/19 which I pasted below. It has the link and refrences.

Aspire One 110 Mini Zif Runcore updated version has been delivered and are ready for purchase with great results. http://digs.by/2td

[sfsilicon]

Since you are seeing around that number, it would be worthwhile ensuring that the ebay solution works as Master and not as cable select and considering too the bios may reporting the wrong data if it reads the CSEL pin which is hardwired.

How to properly set the ebay caddy as master? That is the big question. You may need the Marvell chip's datasheet to identify what pin(s) sets Master mode. I've collated all my previous info on the ebay caddy here, with the photos near the end perhaps giving more clues by following the tracks leading from the Master/Slave jumper on another product that uses the Marvell sata-to-pata chip.

The most comprehensive way of confirming the ebay caddy is working as Master would be it operating together with the ZIF HDD set as Slave (pin 1 and 2 connected). The caddy would bootup as "Notebook Hard Disk" and the ZIF HDD would be "Optical Disk Drive". The newmodeus caddy when set as Master allows such operation without a problem. On our previous correspondance we were not able to achieve that with the ebay caddy. That still makes me question if the newmodeus solution is faster since I'm not entirely sure the ebay caddy is working correctly as Master. These benchmarks of a Lenovo T60 using a mtron SSD in a Marvell based sata-to-pata caddy does get read of 84MB/s and writes of over 55Mb/s.

I reread your summary post. I'm not sure if you read this post where where I confirmed that pin 47 is connected to the marvel bridge chip and the actual chip might be different from the ultrabay (couldn't find a pic).

That might explain the read performance issue. Another possibility is that I am experiencing the typical performance degradation when you need to erase rows when you do a random write. I installed window from a USB stick vs doing a clone so I don't know how much junk is on it. In theory I should do a trim on the drive and try it out again, but the trim tools are a bit scary since you need to set the sata port to a specific mode in the bios and I'm not sure if the bridge chip works this way. The only reliable way is to move the drive over.

I guess the only reliable way is as you suggested to get the datasheet for the chip from marvel. Didn't you say that they don't share that type of information readily with the public. I do recall reading somewhere that the master slave jumpers are not part of the standard ide interface pins. Anyway if you have any ideas how to do it that you want me to try just PM me and I'll give it a try.

[Nobackup]

Guys,


very good thread indeed, helped my find my way to the new modeus Caddy, now I seem to remember that there was a link at the beginning of this thread to a couple of retailers which sold of used and demo items, the links were there so that anyone (like me) could go upgrade to the 1.5/1.7 GHz CPU (?).

Could someone repost those links or if they were taken down due to policy PM them to me please...

Thanks in advance

[User Retired 2]

sold of used and demo items, the links were there so that anyone (like me) could go upgrade to the 1.5/1.7 GHz CPU (?).

Could someone repost those links or if they were taken down due to policy PM them to me please...

You can overclock your a U7x00 to likely 1.4Ghz or more. It is techically possible to upgrade to a L7700-1.8Ghz CPU, but you'd need special equipment to solder off the BGA CPU and attach another. Overall not worth it. Suggest sell up and get a low spec SU9300 2530P instead. Has dual-channel RAM, SATA interface on optical and primary bay and newer chipset with 45nm penryn CPU.

[Nobackup]

You can overclock your a U7x00 to likely 1.4Ghz or more. It is techically possible to upgrade to a L7700-1.8Ghz CPU, but you'd need special equipment to solder off the BGA CPU and attach another. Overall not worth it. Suggest sell up and get a low spec SU9300 2530P instead. Has dual-channel RAM, SATA interface on optical and primary bay and newer chipset with 45nm penryn CPU.

Yep agree, thats my intent (Already OC'ed to 1.4G but fan on all the time ), and like I said, Im looking for the links to refurb retailers, EBAY no good as most only ship to US addresses verified by P-PAL, which ant supported here .

[sfsilicon]

Yep agree, thats my intent (Already OC'ed to 1.4G but fan on all the time )

Are you using the 1.8" ZIF HDD and the default HP software image? Since putting my caddy SSD in and turning off my HDD my 2510p fan doesn't run as often or as loud anymore. The unit overall is much cooler. I don't know if it is because of the fresh XP install or by removing the HDD or both.

Still getting a 2530p might be the overall better approach because.

[Nobackup]

Are you using the 1.8" ZIF HDD and the default HP software image? Since putting my caddy SSD in and turning off my HDD my 2510p fan doesn't run as often or as loud anymore. The unit overall is much cooler. I don't know if it is because of the fresh XP install or by removing the HDD or both.

Still getting a 2530p might be the overall better approach because.

Been there done that, still not 100%, So thats why I have tried to find the links.. ... some sources I have ha mentioned that its up for a refresh, so no use going and buying a NEW device...