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New BIOS versions for 600m

post #1 of 61
1/23/05 at 12:42am
Thread Starter 
Dell released a new bios versions for 600m: a15 and a16. Strange thing though: they seem to have pulled a15 from their ftp server but a16 is in there:

ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/ (keep searching for "600m" on the page")

The main update seems to be the support for 333Mhz memory speed in newest 600m's.

I hope they didn't ship me a PC2700 stick for nothin'.
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post #2 of 61
1/23/05 at 3:58pm
whats the difference between the newest 600m's and the older ones? mine is shipped February 2004.. thats an old or new one?

its shipped with 266mhz ram, but i can easily swap them for 333Mhz if the motherboard supports it together with the new bios.. question is..does it?
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post #3 of 61
1/23/05 at 4:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ixeo
whats the difference between the newest 600m's and the older ones? mine is shipped February 2004.. thats an old or new one?

its shipped with 266mhz ram, but i can easily swap them for 333Mhz if the motherboard supports it together with the new bios.. question is..does it?
By "newest 600m's" I believe they mean with the newly released pentium m processor. I don't think they began to ship the new 600m's yet because the configuration page still says Pentium M 755 (Dothan). I got another 600m last week updated the bios to a16 yesterday but it still says 266mhz.

If you really want the 333mhz support and are still under warranty just bullshit to tech support in a few weeks that your motherboard died or something. They'll exchange it with the new one. Just kidding of course I would never do simething like that myself.
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post #4 of 61
1/23/05 at 4:32pm
i thought the 600M could only support Dothan & Banias? doesnt the Sonoma use a different chipset?

since you already updated the bios, is your ram itself rated 333Mhz or 266Mhz? i have a stick of 256MB which is PC2100 and a stick of 512MB @ PC2700.. if the motherboard does support 333Mhz out goes the 256MB stick and in comes another 512MB stick.

i'm so hoping my mobo supports 333Mhz, and when they say "newest" it means those shipped with 333MHz RAM..
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post #5 of 61
1/23/05 at 4:37pm
Thread Starter 
I don't know if 600m's will have the Sonoma chipset but I'm guessing that's what they mean by "newest".

My new 600m did ship with a 333mhz 512mb stick but the a16 bios still says 266mhz.
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post #6 of 61
1/23/05 at 4:49pm
600M runs on the 855PM chipset.. a quick digging got me this
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...pdt/253488.htm

i downloaded the PDF file, it is dated September 2003, and the chipset has been supporting 333Mhz since then with its B1 revision of chipsets. there's only 2 revision of the 855PM chipset, the A3 & B1 with the latter supporting 333Mhz DDR.

the question is, how do we find out whether we have the B1 revision or A3 revision? considering that B1 has been out since September 2003, my machine and most of the 600M should be 333Mhz capable..unless Dell has been selling us old, outdated A3 revision chipsets.
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post #7 of 61
1/23/05 at 4:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ixeo
600M runs on the 855PM chipset.. a quick digging got me this
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...pdt/253488.htm

i downloaded the PDF file, it is dated September 2003, and the chipset has been supporting 333Mhz since then with its B1 revision of chipsets. there's only 2 revision of the 855PM chipset, the A3 & B1 with the latter supporting 333Mhz DDR.

the question is, how do we find out whether we have the B1 revision or A3 revision? considering that B1 has been out since September 2003, my machine and most of the 600M should be 333Mhz capable..unless Dell has been selling us old, outdated A3 revision chipsets.
Your system board more than likely supports the PC2700 RAM speed. The only way to know for 100% certainty would be to install 333MHz RAM and then look at the first screen of the BIOS details where it lists the speed of the RAM. If only 266MHz is listed then your board only supports the slower speed. If the BIOS reads the memory as 333MHz, then you are good to go.
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post #8 of 61
1/23/05 at 5:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by somms
Your system board more than likely supports the PC2700 RAM speed. The only way to know for 100% certainty would be to install 333MHz RAM and then look at the first screen of the BIOS details where it lists the speed of the RAM. If only 266MHz is listed then your board only supports the slower speed. If the BIOS reads the memory as 333MHz, then you are good to go.
Yeah but we're hoping 600m's bios is "crippled" as stated in the FAQ. For example,D800's bios says (or used to) 266mhz but it can be flashed to M60's bios and you get 333mhz.
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post #9 of 61
1/23/05 at 5:18pm

its a no go. mine is an A03. you can get cpu-z here to find out the chipset revision you have. to say that i'm pissed that i'm sold an old revision chipset is an understatement

ffs the B1 has been out since September 2003 and 5 months later their still selling old technology? my girlfriend has a system shipped in June, i'll find out what revision she has.

on the note of getting a motherboard replacement, good idea. i've had this bug where DVDs won't play if i use WinDVD 4. it'll just crash. fresh Windows XP installation.. nothing else. it never bothered me since i have a PC to watch DVD... but now..yeah..why not? i'll try and get it swaped sometime next month.
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post #10 of 61
1/23/05 at 5:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ixeo

its a no go. mine is an A03. you can get cpu-z here to find out the chipset revision you have. to say that i'm pissed that i'm sold an old revision chipset is an understatement
Mine says A03 also. Those son of a bitches !
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post #11 of 61
1/23/05 at 7:57pm
i just checked my motherboard. i also have the A3 revision. i bought my laptop in DEC 04. it's less then 1 month old. what a bunch of bastards.
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post #12 of 61
1/24/05 at 9:55am
so does ANYBODY have the B1 revision?
don't worry about CPU-Z, its a clean program, doesn't need installation and you can simply delete it after using it and its off your laptop forever. no spyware there.
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post #13 of 61
1/24/05 at 10:09am
Disregard what CPU-Z says since my D800 also reads Rev3 yet the initial BIOS screen indicates 333MHz RAM and benchmarking test have proved that the D800 w/M60 BIOS does in fact support PC2700 RAM.
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post #14 of 61
1/24/05 at 3:43pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by somms
Disregard what CPU-Z says since my D800 also reads Rev3 yet the initial BIOS screen indicates 333MHz RAM and benchmarking test have proved that the D800 w/M60 BIOS does in fact support PC2700 RAM.
Thanks for giving us hope . Let's see what happens when dell re-releases the a15 bios officially (the link is still down). But it's probably the case that they'll upgrade the chipset in the upcoming weeks. They did when dothan was released - when I made an exchange of the 600m that I bought in May the cpu speed was the same but the L2 cache increased to 2Mb as opposed to 1MB.
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post #15 of 61
1/24/05 at 3:51pm
Hmmmmm..........interesting..........

Now the A16 bios is gone! What happened??

Does anybody still have info or the test file on what A16 was supposed to fix?? Any different than the A15??

Looks like A15 is back!?! (Totally confusing)
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post #16 of 61
1/24/05 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by redgtxdi
Does anybody still have info or the test file on what A16 was supposed to fix?
ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/bios/I600mA16.txt

Looks like the second battery problem is fixed.
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post #17 of 61
1/24/05 at 4:52pm
Yeah CPU-Z and WCPUID, along with a few other of H.Oda's programs, aren't all too reliable. If you run WCPUID on a Dothan it'll still say Banias.
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post #18 of 61
1/24/05 at 4:54pm
Hmm... neither of those BIOSs are on the Asia Pacific support page.

I got my 600m in August 2004, and it has PC2700 RAM. Don't really want to update the BIOS unless they have it on the AP support page though.
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post #19 of 61
1/24/05 at 11:57pm
i'll try it out tommorrow and report my findings. if A16 really allows 333Mhz i'll use it..else its back to A06 for me.
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post #20 of 61
1/25/05 at 3:04am
Well, and I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but if the RAM gets hot now, just imagine what it's gonna do at 333!

Maybe they need to back down a step on bus speed?? LOL!!!


J/K
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