T61 + SATA3 - is it a dream?

[FryPpy]

T61 if BIOS unlocked have only SATA 2 speed. There are ExpressCards that can do SATA 3 functionality - but speed will be reduced to PCIe x1 speed...
Ultrabay SATA caddy allow us to gain no more than SATA 1 speed because ultrabay provide only ATA 100 (IDE) interface and controller adopts it to SATA but speed is limited to 100Mb/s.


Yesterday i have spent some time studying T61's schematics. The question was "How they do COM (RS232) ports in that thinkpads?". COM ports can be found in dock and in serial/paralel ultrabay adapter. Both of them makes COM ports from LPC bus routed through docking connector and... strange 2nd connector in ultrabay (LEGACY IO INTERFACE)...
Moreover there are PCIe 1x lanes present in this strange connector...

MOD PROPOSAL - use mini PCIe to SATA3 adapter or bare silicone chips and place them on custom PCB in thin (right wing) area* of standart ultrabay SATA adapter. Find out mating connector for 2nd socket in ultrabay and get PCIe 1x lanes out of there. Use standart ultrabay SATA adapter PCB for power distribution to SATA POWER connector, but SATA DATA connector route to the SATA 3 adapter*.

BAD NEWS - this strange 2nd connector only exists in T6x (R6x?) series. Starting from T4(5)00 series they have discarded this ting:( And in T60 PCIe lanes not connected to this connector.

PS
What ultrabay device in T61 era was designed to use PCIe lanes of this upgraded version of strange 2nd connector??? ThinkWiki didn't show differences in T60's and T61's ultrabay devices...

CONCLUSIONS (BAD):
I have checked PCIe ports distribution on T61 mainboard.
ICH8E have 5 PCIe ports (+ 1 for GigabitLAN).
#1 is for WWAN (leftmost) miniPCIe slot,
#2 for WLAN miniPCIe slot,
#3 for WUSB (rightmost) miniPCIe slot***,
#4 for ExpressCard,
#5 for docking connector.
*** - This WUSB slot present in 15.4" wide model and (i think it is unsoldered slot in modem area in 14" 4:3). And only in 14.1" wide model, where no 3nd miniPCIe slot, this port have been routed to Ultrabay. So if such PCIe Ulrabay device, if ever present, is compatible only with T61 14.1" wide modes (and this mod is not compatible with non 14.1" wide models). I think this was some experimental feature - but haven used on T61 series and become abandoned in modern 4(5)00 series.

[dr_st]

And PCIe x1 in a T61 is limited to 2.5Gbps, which is worse than SATA2.

Seems like a huge waste of time and effort for nothing gained.

Even if in theory there are practical advantages of SATA3 over SATA2, of which there are very few.

[FryPpy]

Ok - it is a dream.

But not only. Classic use case for T61 - is SATA 2 (3) SSD in main HDD bay + HDD in ultrabay which is limited to 100Mb/s (ATA 100). May be sub SATA 2 speeds (250) can improve perfomance of HDD in ultrabay.

[Pete B]

It seems that SATA 3 is a dream since the ICH8 hub does not support it and narrow lane PCIe interfaces are also a bottleneck. You should be able to get another full speed SATA 2 interface since I believe that the ICH8 supports at least 4. Are they currently unused in the T61? I believe that it also supports one eSATA interface: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_Controller_Hub

[FryPpy]

You should be able to get another full speed SATA 2 interface since I believe that the ICH8 supports at least 4. Are they currently unused in the T61?

BAD THINGS:( This mod was proposed at notebooksreview in times of Midleton's BIOS mod. T6x BIOS can boot from second channel and this channel haven't locked (from BIOS). But from mainboard... all RX pairs of SATA channels (except 1st) are tied to ground and TX pairs not connected at all. To get these channels back to live BGA reworking is needed on ICH chip.

[Pete B]

I was thinking of soldering something like 30 ga wire wrap wire directly to the pins, and lifting them if necessary. Oh, is it a BGA? Then probably not possible. I don't think I'd spend the time trying it, even if it was possible, but just thought I'd throw it out there.

[Qing Dao]

You should be able to get another full speed SATA 2 interface since I believe that the ICH8 supports at least 4. Are they currently unused in the T61?

BAD THINGS:( This mod was proposed at notebooksreview in times of Midleton's BIOS mod. T6x BIOS can boot from second channel and this channel haven't locked (from BIOS). But from mainboard... all RX pairs of SATA channels (except 1st) are tied to ground and TX pairs not connected at all. To get these channels back to live BGA reworking is needed on ICH chip.

This is wrong. A quick look at the T61 schematics shows this to be false. Everything is connected to the mainboard and can be connected to there without having to touch the southbridge chip.

[Pete B]

Thanks for clarifying. Where do you find T61 schematics, are they online for download?

[Qing Dao]

Thanks for clarifying. Where do you find T61 schematics, are they online for download?

Yes. With a little detective work you can find them online. I don't think it can be posted on here.

[FryPpy]

This is wrong. A quick look at the T61 schematics shows this to be false. Everything is connected to the mainboard and can be connected to there without having to touch the southbridge chip.

May be... I have only "T61 with NVidia" schematics - and it clearly states that AF1, AF2, AG3 and AG4 connected to the ground. And AJ3, AJ4, AE3 and AE4 marked as "NC" - Notconnectd?!

I haven't tested this on T61 mainboard, but long time ago i have tested this on T60 with multimeter. And they really have connected RX pairs to ground there.

[Qing Dao]

This is wrong. A quick look at the T61 schematics shows this to be false. Everything is connected to the mainboard and can be connected to there without having to touch the southbridge chip.

May be... I have only "T61 with NVidia" schematics - and it clearly states that AF1, AF2, AG3 and AG4 connected to the ground. And AJ3, AJ4, AE3 and AE4 marked as "NC" - Notconnectd?!

I haven't tested this on T61 mainboard, but long time ago i have tested this on T60 with multimeter. And they really have connected RX pairs to ground there.

Ok, I need to check again. One sec.

Edit: Alright, I think there is a very high probability that all the pins, even unconnected ones, have test points underneath the motherboard. Sorry, but I was wrong about it being on the diagram. Look at the bottom of the motherboard, and you will see tons of tiny little holes. That is what I am talking about. The ones connected to ground can be easily separated from ground by cutting around the test point. The only issue is that these pins are completely unmarked. You would need to find the pinout of the southbridge and figure out the relation of all the pins.

One could use this method to add a sata ultrabay and a msata SSD.

[FryPpy]

Edit: Alright, I think there is a very high probability that all the pins, even unconnected ones, have test points underneath the motherboard. Sorry, but I was wrong about it being on the diagram. Look at the bottom of the motherboard, and you will see tons of tiny little holes. That is what I am talking about. The ones connected to ground can be easily separated from ground by cutting around the test point. The only issue is that these pins are completely unmarked. You would need to find the pinout of the southbridge and figure out the relation of all the pins.

One could use this method to add a sata ultrabay and a msata SSD.

I was doing this research couple years ago (on T60 mainboard) and have forgot all details. After your words i begin to belive that i have lost something and it is real to get native SATA ultrabay with Blu-Ray;) or help flyingfishfinger from X6x forum to build X61 with msata + HDD combo. BUT ALAS:(

0. This holes on mainboard it is not test points it is interlayer connections - but yes we can solder to them to connect to needed pins.
1. I think they dont do holes for NotConnected pins. See imags.


WARNING PCS > 170K below.

T60. It have ICH7M. 2x SATA-1 ports for mobile (SATA0 + SATA2 | SATA1 and SATA3 for nonmobile versions only)
http://postimg.org/image/9c5rwulpp/

T61. It have ICH8M-E. 3x SATA-2 ports for mobile (SATA0 + SATA1 + SATA2).
http://postimg.org/image/hp9kabsid/

Note:
On ball grid layout (from ICH specification) balls (pins) shown as if see ICH from top. On photos we see ICH from bottom, so the "left" and "right" diretions are changed.
Green points are really used SATA0. It can be traced from SATA connector of HDD bay. And it is good starting point for navigation. On T60 photo green point i have used to mark corner of BGA (AH1 pin) and blue for SATA0.
Red points are absent. And i doubt this pins are accessible somewhere else on PCB.
Blue point on T61 (SATA2RXP) connected only to R563 (on image it shown as "R5") and multimeter indicate that it connects to the ground. So connection to the ground is made in other layer than bottom and i think it is in the top layer where the ICH's balls are soldered:(

[Qing Dao]

Thanks for doing your homework on this. I was thinking that this might be the case and I thought up a solution. It would require a small custom PCB fit between the the southbridge and the motherboard. It would simply be a straight down passthrough for almost all of the pins. However, for the unused Sata and possibly PCI-E lanes, it would not be connected to the motherboard but instead have open connections on the side of the new PCB. This would raise the southbridge chip away from the motherboard by several millimeters, so the heatsink would need to be modified, but this could net you a msata SSD, a sata Ultrabay, and a 3 lane pci-e connector if you want to run an external video card. This same PCB could be used in the X61 as well.

[RMSMajestic]

Yes it is almost just a dream, unless you can get 4 PCI-e inside T61 and bridge SATA3 from there. BIOS modification will be extremely difficult.
but maybe it's no that hard to get a SATA 2 RAID. And, it'd better if some1 can change the IDE interface of T61's Ultrabay to SATA (Lenovo stated that the T61's Ultrabay is bridged from SATA)

[Qing Dao]

Yes it is almost just a dream, unless you can get 4 PCI-e inside T61 and bridge SATA3 from there. BIOS modification will be extremely difficult.
but maybe it's no that hard to get a SATA 2 RAID. And, it'd better if some1 can change the IDE interface of T61's Ultrabay to SATA (Lenovo stated that the T61's Ultrabay is bridged from SATA)

If the T61 schematics available online are correct, the Ultrabay is not bridged from SATA. There is no need for it to be anyway, since the chipset supports a single IDE channel and the Ultrabay is the only IDE connection on the T61.

[Saucey]

Too bad the T61 can't support RAID 0 with its ultrabay.

[86turbodsl]

Is the t61 really special enough to go to all this work? Just saying.

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk

[Qing Dao]

Is the t61 really special enough to go to all this work? Just saying.

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk

I think what is special is the 15" 4:3 aspect ratio, and a T61 Frankenpad is the most powerful laptop one can get in that form factor by a long shot.

[RMSMajestic]

Yes it is almost just a dream, unless you can get 4 PCI-e inside T61 and bridge SATA3 from there. BIOS modification will be extremely difficult.
but maybe it's no that hard to get a SATA 2 RAID. And, it'd better if some1 can change the IDE interface of T61's Ultrabay to SATA (Lenovo stated that the T61's Ultrabay is bridged from SATA)

If the T61 schematics available online are correct, the Ultrabay is not bridged from SATA. There is no need for it to be anyway, since the chipset supports a single IDE channel and the Ultrabay is the only IDE connection on the T61.

lenovo stated that the SATA I cap was introduced because the SATA to PATA bridge chip couldn't operate stably under SATA II.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... 464/page/6

[Qing Dao]

lenovo stated that the SATA I cap was introduced because the SATA to PATA bridge chip couldn't operate stably under SATA II.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... 464/page/6

That is kind of weird. It is possible that the schematics are completely wrong, but that still leaves another problem. There is no logical reason for using a bridge chip. The chipset already supports one PATA channel and the laptop only needs one. It isn't like the T43 that wanted two but had a chipset that only supported one. In addition, there don't seem to be many people with complaints about compatibility issues or other problems from using a SATA II enabled BIOS, are there?

It is easy to check. Could you do it? I don't have a T61. If you look in the BIOS and it lists three SATA channels plus a PATA channel, there is for sure no bridge chip.

Also note the wording of this sentence: "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." It can mean that the ultrabay hard drive adapters are the ones with the bridge chip in them.

[FryPpy]

It is easy to check. Could you do it? I don't have a T61.

I have checked it on ded T61 mobo. Allmost all PATA vias from ICH (T1->V6) is connected to ultrabay connector. I haven't checked shematics (dont compared pin numbers o ultrabay connector).

If you look in the BIOS and it lists three SATA channels plus a PATA channel, there is for sure no bridge chip.

Our (Thinkpad) BIOS don't show ATA information - it only show devices in "boot order" page and they type, And it have 3! ATA HDD0, ATA HDD1, ATA HDD2.
0 - is main sata HDD
1 - is shown when HDD in ultrabay is connected
and i didn't saw any ATA HDD2 devices...
Also it have ATAPI CD0 and ATAPI CD1 devices.

[Kasm279]

This would raise the southbridge chip away from the motherboard by several millimeters, so the heatsink would need to be modified...

The southbridge isn't heatsinked, but the structure frame and CMOS battery are in the way.