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

PatchySan:

Thank you for the detailed instructions: yes I'm about to flash a number of my X61s laptops (got as many as 4 in my household, so good they are with the SSDs!). After creating a bootable USB key out of my 128MB I can see 3 files written there as the screenshot shows:
- COMMAND.COM
- IO.SYS
- MSDOS.SYS

(afaik this is the very minimum required for DOS - meanwhile wondering if I have to copy the rest of win98boot.zip contents onto the USB key manually afterwards or none of them are required for BIOS flashing? Apparently they're not picked up by the HP tool)

Now when we attempt to copy the contents of 7nuj22uc.iso into the root of the USB key we inevitably get a conflict as the .iso contains its own COMMAND.COM file. That's where I stopped as the latter one is suspiciously small compared to the original one. Do you happen to remember having the same conflict while copying Middleton BIOS files onto the USB key and if so how exactly did you settle it?

 

I never had to deal with COMMAND.COM when I made my Bootable USB BIOS. When you used the HP USB Format tool did you extract the contents of the win98boot file or did you just point it to the zip file? You should extract the win98boot contents into a directory and then point the HP USB Format tool to that.

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It should work straight after without having to deal with the COMMAND.COM file and then you can copy the ISO files over.

 

PatchySan:

> You should extract the win98boot contents into a directory and then point the HP USB Format tool to that.

That's exactly what I did: I think the tool just won't work otherwise as it probably needs the systems files as they are (in particular uncompressed)...
Btw with system files hidden by default in Windows there should be no files visible on the bootable USB key when the process is over (the 3 files I mentioned in my previous post are all system files, hence invisible). Still don't understand how Windows got around copying the file in question from BIOS update so as not to throw out overwrite dialog. Will try again from scratch and if it shows up again will probably have to use the Windows way just in case... thanks for your help!

 

I fix table from HTML to BBCode from page 8 of this thread:

ThinkPad model : machine type	modified BIOS file	SATA-II 3 Gb/s	SLIC 2.1	whitelist removed	Thermal sensing	CTRL-FN swap	Dual-IDA support
X61, X61s	2.22-1.03	+	+	+	n/a	+	+
X61/X61s SXGA+	2.22-1.03	+	+	+	n/a	+	+
X61 Tablet	1.25-1.02	+	+	+	n/a	+	+
X300	1.10-1.01	+	+	+	n/a	+	+
T61, T61p R61 (14.1" widescreen with IEEE 1394): 7732, 7733, 7734, 7735, 7738, 7742, 7744, 7751, 7753, 7754, 7755 R61i (14.1" widescreen with IEEE 1394): 7732, 7742	2.29-1.08	+	+	+	+	+	+
R61 (15" normal screen): 8942, 8943, 8944, 8945, 8947, 8948, 8949 R61i (15" normal screen): 8943	1.24-1.00	+	+	+	n/a	+	+
R61e R61i (15.4" widescreen without IEEE 1394): 7650	2.23-1.08	+	+	+	+	+	+
R61 (15.4" widescreen): 8930, 8932, 8933, 8934, 8935, 8936, 8937 R61i (15.4" widescreen with IEEE 1394): 8932	2.24-1.08	+	+	+	+	+	+
R61 (14.1" widescreen without IEEE 1394): 7732, 7733, 7734, 7735, 7736, 7737, 7738 R61 (15.4" widescreen): 8914, 8918, 8919, 8920, 8927, 8928, 8929 R61i (15.4" widescreen): 8918	2.29-1.08	+	+	+	+	+	+

Table HTML is still available on the: webarchive

 

Is it possible to add NVIDIA undervoldings mod to these BIOS ?
(0.90V, 0.95V, 1.00V)

This would help lowering GPU temp.

 

Some versions of the X61 and X61s have a second cooling fan for WWAN and WLAN cards. Recently there was an error Fan Error. The reason for this was just second fan (CPU fan working OK but second fan not work). Is possible add to BIOS option System Fan Check like in HP laptop? http://retrohelix.com/2012/09/how-to-fix-the-f2-system-fan-error-on-some-hp-computers/

 

To the previous two posters (posts # 1175 and 1176) :

Middleton has dropped developing modded BIOSes for this generation of ThinkPads several years ago. You're on your own.

 

I am not sure if this is a good speed for a T61 with a brand new Samsung 850EVO SSD and fresh Windows 10 installation.
See printscreen of the test below.

I have upgraded BIOS with Middleton's latest 2.29-1.08 version. Should i do anything else in order to get a better performance? I have a feeling this is not the speed i should get with SATA II...Am I right?

 

Given your CDM results, the machine IS running at SATA II...

 

Thank you for positive information

But how come that I get so slow transfer speeds, around 120MB/s ?? This is the actual speed showing in Win10 when transfering files, etc.