new CPU for my T61

long live T61 ... last of its kind, LOL

the only reason that I went with CPU upgrade from my T7500 is that I love to play Unreal Tournament 3, and this is the only software that makes my CPU hit flat 100% usage on both cores, over half the time while I play.

so there it is, nice T9500 on the way .. in hope of no more FPS drop over CPU


- little info for the geeks, CPUs marked by VID, all socket P

T7500 - current

*SLAF8: 1.075 - 1.250 ; (running at 1.000 - 1.125 with RMClock, SuperLFM at 0.850V)

T9300 - (undervolting with RMClock will result in 2.4GHz max speed as half multipliers are not supported - 12x with 200MHz FSB, instead of 12.5x)

*SLAQG: 1.062 - 1.150
*SLAYY: 1.050 - 1.137
*SLAZB: 1.000 - 1.250
*SLAPV: 1.000 - 1.250

T9500 - significantly more expensive than T9300, like .. ~twice

*SLAQH: 1.062V-1.150
*SLAYX: 1.050V-1.137


as performance goes, here's some PassMark scores

T7500 - 1,272
T9300 - 1,689 or 33% increase; T9300@2.4GHz ~ 1,525 or 20% increase
T9500 - 1,852 or 45% increase

T7800 - 1,468 or 15% increase, but is still a Merom, not worth the money


So as everybody aims for the SLAYX T9500 (thus keeping the price high), I went with the SLAQH that I found a lot cheaper It was either that or a SLAYY T9300, which I plan to beat with lower voltage from SLAQH T9500 and RMCLock.

as price goes these days, SLAYY T9300 can be found for ~125 and SLAYX T9500 for close to 250. I got this SLAQH for right in between these two

.. expecting the thermal error to pop up at start up, so hacked bios flash will take place as well, enabling SATA2 speeds and more. Speaking of bios, if my laptop works after the flash I'll be happily sending donation to the bios creator, as I've said long time ago

P.S.

the so called defective video card in this T61 still runs at 625/950 MHz core/memory for like 3 years - huge thumbs up for TPFanControl for making it nicely not going past 72 deg C As I remember, 3DMark06 scores are currently around 2,400

 

new CPU in and running already and undervolted quite good, with 0.1V lower than the T7500

x13 (2.6GHz) -> 1.025V.

It ran fine at 1.0125V but gave error at 1.000V on the 4th minute so I left margin for error there. The SuperLFM is 0.925, hither than the one for the T7500

I flashed the BIOS with hacked bios by Middleton so no thermal error on start up. However, I see some differences in temperature readings from different programs ... Here:

When I open HWMonitor:
under ACPI -> TH0 is what TPFanControl reads, i.e. 15 to 17 deg C higher
under ACPI -> TH1 is about same as the temp under the CPU core 0 and 1, but still with about 5 deg C higher than what RMClock reads ... go figure

no biggie though, just my fan may start working harder when not needed as much. Overall the T9500 runs cooler than the T7500, obviously cant tell by how much but I would say like up to 10 deg C cooler.

performance-wise -> Windows loads somewhat quicker, not by much though. The new Super_PI calculation to the 2M finished for like 43 sec ... where as before it used to be like 58 sec (as I remember), so that shows big improvement. As for the Unreal Tournament 3 - going to test it right now

EDIT: I forgot to enable the x14 IDA mode while undervolting, so I just checked that again and realized it needs higher than one_step_over_last_multiplier voltage to operate. At 0.050 the CPU bricked my laptop, working fine at 1.075. Test went with Super_PI as it is single threated application, which BTW finished with 2 sec faster, due to working at 2.8GHz single core and not at 2.6GHz, i.e. 41 sec

 

So, why didn't get the hottest processot you could?

Renee

 

what do you mean by the hottest ? ... I got the T9500 which is best of what I can put. Not talking about the X series as they heat up a lot more, and my CPU and GPU sit on one heatsink.

also, UT3 plays much better, cant see the 10 FPS drop that I had before so all is good. I'm still hitting 100% CPU usage but it doesn't show as flat region, just hits from time to time.

overall - very happy

P.S.
on the side note, the new CPU is smaller than the old one. I got picture of both, may post it later.

 

omg GPU temp dropped by 6 deg ...

used to hit 72 when my fan would switch to crazy speed ( at >70 deg C), now gets to ~65 and that's it, and this is while running on 625/950 overclock core/memory, just finished playing for like 3 hours

Penryn FTW

.. the coolest laptop I ever had, literally

 

GPU temp drop is probably caused by repasting it while changing CPU

 

not really ... I've put thermal paste twice before on both. It's just that the new CPU works much cooler, and the CPU and the GPU sit on one heat sink, i.e. you cool one and it affects the other

so as I was saying before - Penryn FTW

 

"what do you mean by the hottest ? ..."

Hot = Ghz per second....

Renee

 

OK, here's some usefull information about temperature readings

as most of you know, installing a Penryn CPU on a T61 laptop would result in the famous "thermal sensing error" at boot up, and therefore if you dont press ESC the laptop will reboot ... and going like that in a cycle. I have eliminated this issue with the hacked BIOS provided by middleton (huge thanks for which), and I dont see that error, which lets my laptop starts as normal. However, it's being said that there's an analog type thermal sensor in the Merom CPUs and a digital type sensor in the Penryn CPU, therefore misreadings on the CPU temperature is expected.

I can get temperature readings from couple different programs, but I'll focus on the 3 programs that give me CPU temps: HWMonitor, RMClock, and TPFanControl.

* RMClock - reads temps from both cores, currently showing ~30 deg C for both cores separately

* HWMonitor - read temps from ACPI THM0/1 and cores, currently showing ~35 deg C for both cores separetely

* TPFanControl - reads temperatures for various devices from the thinkpad-acpi module where up to 16 sensors are supported (for my T61 there are about 11 present). Currently the CPU reading shows the same temp as what you'll see under HWMonitor ACPI THM0 reading, or 42 deg C currently showing.

- The thinkpad-acpi module turns out to be quite usefull in our thinkpads

The CPU reading under the thinkpad-ACPI module comes from a sensor that is located very close to the CPU socket and is meant to give separate CPU temp information. Therefore, considering the misreadings that may happen with Penryn CPUs, I would consider that value as the most useful (same shows as THM0 in HWMonitor). The reading obviously would be only one for the CPU and will not show separate core temps, but frankly you dont need those that much. This turns out to be quite good as TPFanControl is the program that controls the speed of the fan, and will kick in fan speed according to your personal settings under the TPFanControl.ini file. Obviously it takes action based on the highest CPU temp reading among the rest of the programs, thus things look good.

also, dont forget that you can adjust the TPFanControl readings if you need to.

here is the explanation for all the sensors (found at thinkwiki.org) from the thinkpad-acpi module in a T61 laptop that you'll see in TPFanControl:

1 - sensor sits near CPU socket
2 - north bridge (?)
3 - Cardbus/ExpressCard Bay slot
4 - separate from the GPU integrated sensor
5 - 9-Cell Battery - Secondary; static @ 50C on 6-cell
6 - Ultrabay - Secondary; available only when device present
7 - 6/9-Cell Battery - Primary
8 - UltraBay - Primary
9 - RAM
10 - Right of RAM, Under Touchpad
11 - Mini-PCI Area (?)

hope this helps answer some if not all of your questions on the subject

EDIT:
I've changed RMClock with ThrottleStop for undervolting purposes, and I can report that it shows same temps as what HWMonitor shows under core 0/1.

- Here's quote of the author of ThrottleStop regarding the digital sensor in Penryn CPUs:
"DTS shows the direct reading of the on chip Digital Thermal Sensor. This sensor is designed to count down towards zero as the CPU heats up. Intel designed their processors so thermal throttling starts when this sensor reaches zero on any core. By clicking on the Temp button, you can convert this data to an approximate core temperature value."

 

flash middleton modified bios and you'll get rid of that annoying message about thermal sensors at startup. I've checked on mine T61 and it works like a charm with T9300