replacing the pearl in the clamshell. DIY iBook G3 Clamshell G4 CPU upgrade

[dosdude1]

About 20 minutes ago, my MBP Santa Rosa suddenly gave up the ghost. The ticking timebomb blew up after over a decade. Still on the original logic board. I think my next project will be a reflow using the checked out Katsu. If that goes well, I might look into reballing it with leaded solder. That means I shall have a legit excuse to invest in pricey flux.

If my understanding is correct, I need to flood the GPU with as much flux as I can cram in and then cook it with the hotgun until the flux flushes out as much crud as it can. That should allow the existing RoHS solder to reattach itself to the pads on the LB and chip. Correct?

No, reflowing the chip won't help a single thing... It's the GPU chips themselves that are defective, the solder is not the issue. What you need to do is get a new GPU chip for it (an nVidia G84-603-A2 chip -- Which is a revised/fixed version of the original G84-602-A2 chip). If your machine had a G84-600-A2 chip (the 64-bit variant, used in 128MB VRAM systems), you need the revised version of that, which is the G84-601-A2. I plan on swapping a defective G84-602-A2 chip on a 2.5 GHz Early 2008 A1260 model in the next couple weeks or so, when I get the time. I'll make a post about it when I do. Also, you need to be very careful with these A1226/A1229/A1260/A1261 boards. They warp VERY easily, and it is ESSENTIAL that you get a full board hot plate in order to prevent it from warping when heating the chip to remove and solder a new one on. If it warps, not all the solder balls will make contact with the pads on the board, and it will not work... I found this out the hard way.

 

[weckart]

I plan on swapping a defective G84-602-A2 chip on a 2.5 GHz Early 2008 A1260 model in the next couple weeks or so, when I get the time.

That reminds me, I got a dead one of these in nice condition as part of a joblot. Tried to reflow the gpu with a handheld hot air gun à la YouTube and that seemed to kill it. While switching before on had started the fans and some lights, after my elegant repair job the MBP suddenly got a case of the sulks and become totally unresponsive to any stimulus.

I think I nudged/moved the board while it was cooling. Might be able to salvage this, then assuming I haven't damaged the LB. Looking forward to the results of your endeavours in any case.

 

[LightBulbFun]

so im happy report some good new developments in the world of swapping CPUs around

the first one relates to Core voltage of various PPC CPUs, since the start of this whole thing we had been wondering how do we check the Core voltage of various PPC CPUs/Macs when yesterday it hit me, we can just measure across one of the many Bypass/filter capacitors that go between GND and the Core voltage rail, people do this all the time on MacBook logic-board repair to make sure the CPU is working so I thought why not apply it to PowerPC macs, I gave my Pismo a quick probe this way and I was able to record a Core voltage of 2.045V which is exactly what id expect (the PPC750L is said to have a core voltage of 2V)

the other one is to do with, Motorola G3s the MPC750 and XPC750 CPUs, it was thought that most of the Motorola parts all had a core voltage that was too high to work with the 7400/7410 CPUs but I did a bunch of internet sleuthing and as it turns out that is only true for the earliest of G3s, but the later ones, actually have a Core voltage that is compatible with 7400-7410 CPUs the way to tell which 750 is which. is

the 2.6V XPC/MPC750s say on the second line on the chip "ARX" followed by clock speed. the 1.9-2.05V G4 compatible MPC/XPC750 chips say "PRX" followed by the clock speed

here is a picture of a "PRX" G3 from a Rev A 400Mhz G3 BW (I measured the core voltage of this one and got 2.045V as well )

this opens up a few more Macs/CPU cards to being G4 upgraded now

but the issue still remained of what about the Bus voltage and L2 cache voltages, on the PPC750L 7400 and 7410 the L2 voltage is configured by a pin that is pulled to various states, where as the XPC/MPC750 only supports 3.3V, so these voltage configurations pins are just unused pins on the XPC/MPC750, luckily for us on the 7400-7410 these pads have an internal pull-up which configures the CPU to use the highest Voltage its compatible with, which on the 7400 is 3.3V for both the bus voltage and L2 cache voltage which is the same as what the 750 supports their-for solving those issues

(the Rev 11.3 7410s found in Apple machines are only compatible with 1.8/2.5V bus and L2 cache voltages, but the Rev 11.4 7410s like the ones on ebay are compatible with 3.3V bus voltage but only do 2.5V L2 cache still, so if your planning to G4 swap an MPC/XPC750 machine/CPU card I recommend using a 7400 and not a 7410)

if you can adjust core voltage down from 2.6V to 1.8-2.1V then XPC/MPC750A based boards should work with G4 7400 chips too

for those looking for the Juicy technical stuff and my references ill link bellow some data sheets and PDFs that helped me figure all this out

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/application-note/AN1812.pdf

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/MPC750EC.pdf

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/MPC750PEC.pdf

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/MPC7400EC.pdf

https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/MPC7410EC.pdf

 

[CooperBox]

Thanks to all those who gave comments on rework stations. I'm tempted to go for the Katsu 852D, but will decide in a month or two..... so many things on at the moment.
As soon as I'm suitably equipped, one of the first tasks will be to change out the capacitors on an iMac G5 logic board, as I've already ordered and received a complete replacement capacitor kit. Also fully aware of the difficulty of removing these, due to the combination of lead-free solder used & the board thickness/heat transfer issues.
Is it true that capacitor removal can be eased by pre-heating these thick, multilayer boards, prior to attacking the legs with the iron?
Have read and watched a number of videos on the procedure and determined to give it a try. Not a lot to lose really, as the IMac (which powers up ok - but with the typical graphics issue) was obtained fron a thrift store for almost peanuts.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Thanks to all those who gave comments on rework stations. I'm tempted to go for the Katsu 852D, but will decide in a month or two..... so many things on at the moment.
As soon as I'm suitably equipped, one of the first tasks will be to change out the capacitors on an iMac G5 logic board, as I've already ordered and received a complete replacement capacitor kit. Also fully aware of the difficulty of removing these, due to the combination of lead-free solder used & the board thickness/heat transfer issues.
Is it true that capacitor removal can be eased by pre-heating these thick, multilayer boards, prior to attacking the legs with the iron?
Have read and watched a number of videos on the procedure and determined to give it a try. Not a lot to lose really, as the IMac (which powers up ok - but with the typical graphics issue) was obtained fron a thrift store for almost peanuts.

indeed preheating the board can help a lot when soldering/de-soldering Joints that have a lot of thermal mass.

 

[weckart]

the show fake Britain is a fun one to watch in regards to that I would still make sure to check out your kit. (esp the Plug and earthing)

The Katsu does not have a fixed power cable but has a standard C13 socket. Another detail that tipped my choice towards it. Inside, I saw three earth cables (to rear power socket plus two front tool sockets) properly attached with screwed crimp plugs.

The one let down is that a very tightly attached power cable, if yanked smartly, might conceivably pull the socket out as it is only kept in by a bit of flexed plastic acting as a pressure spring. Some user reviews have complained of that. A bit of epoxy should sort that out.

 

[wdygwd]

Wow, this is amazing. Makes me wonder about upgrading graphics chips as well. I wonder if any bga radeons are pin compatible with any of the rage series.

 

[dosdude1]

Wow, this is amazing. Makes me wonder about upgrading graphics chips as well. I wonder if any bga radeons are pin compatible with any of the rage series.

Nah, graphics cards don't work this way... They all use different memory, supporting circuitry, pinouts, etc.

 

[LightBulbFun]

So I have been fiddling/tinkering/messing with the Clamshell some more

and im pleased to report that I was able to overclock the bus from 66Mhz to 100Mhz

I figured out how to do so with the help of this guide: http://web.archive.org/web/20070825055749/http://homepage.mac.com:80/ytotsuka/FW.html (I came across this guide many moons ago but never saved it. it took much internet sleuthing and a trip to the web archive to find it again LOL)

this guide is for FW Clamshells but luckily for us the exact same resistors exist on First gen non FW iBooks next time I open up the iBook ill grab a picture of my mod since the picture in the guide is not very clear. (im kinda curious what R60/61 does... its a real shame we dont have schematics for these machines, my Macintosh logic-board schematic collection only goes as far back as the GigE TiBook...)

im not all that surprised that I was able to hit 100Mhz even on my early First Gen iBook G3. the Uninorth 1 chipset is a very stable chipset and is known to clock to 120Mhz and even 133Mhz if your lucky, in sawtooths(sawteeth?). I suspect the reason the person in the original guide could not hit 100Mhz was because he did not change his CPU multipliers and I doubt his 366Mhz 750CXe could run at 550Mhz. (66.6*5.5=366Mhz 100*5.5=550Mhz)

since I have a 533Mhz Rated 7410 from a PMG4 DA, I left my multiplier/PLL resistors alone at 4.5x which at 66.6Mhz=300Mhz, but at 100Mhz=450Mhz giving me a nice little cpu "overclock" as well

one of the quirks of overclocking Uninorth 1 Macs is that OpenFirmware and as such Mac OS 9/OS X does not recognise/display the frequency change, so for example in my iBook, OS9/OS X still reported 66Mhz/300Mhz clock speeds but using a tool like Gauge Pro or Metronome shows the actual Bus speed is indeed running at 100Mhz and the CPU at 450Mhz and in OS X running GeekBench I saw a nice bump in my score to what id expect for a 100/450Mhz G4 system

while this is just a cosmetic thing for the most part it would still be nice if the OS reported the true speed, luckily there is a way to do this using an nvramrc script in OF note the nvramrc script itself is not entirely my own work but i have edited it quite a bit to make it work for this machine setup. my version is just for uninorth machines with a 100Mhz bus speed and a 4.5x CPU multiplier the original work can be found here : http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G4ZONE/sawtooth/SawtoothCPUdesign.html. if your overclocking the bus on a stock iBook G3, then replace PowerPC,G4 with PowerPC,750

first boot into OpenFirmware

then type nvedit<return> then type the following (<return> means you hit the enter/return key):

• " /" select-dev<return>
• 05f3e27a " clock-frequency" get-my-property 2drop !<return>
• " /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0" select-dev<return>
• 1ad27480 " clock-frequency" get-my-property 2drop !<return>
• 05f3e27a " bus-frequency" get-my-property 2drop !<return>
• 017cf89f " timebase-frequency" get-my-property 2drop !

then once you have got all that done

do the keyboard combo "ctrl c" to exit the nvramrc editor.

then at the OF prompt(this saves the script to NVRAM):

nvstore<return>

then (this tells OF to use the script):

setenv use-nvramrc? true<return>

then finally (this reboots the machine :

reset-all<return>

if you have done everything correctly then you should see Mac OS 9/OS X reports the right clock frequencies

its worth noting this is low level OpenFirmware stuff if you make a Typo (dont forget the spaces!) you could brick your machine if you cant reset your PRAM/NVRAM, if you dont feel comfy messing around in OF like this, you dont have to use this script its for the most part just cosmetic fixes

and also since this is an NVRAM thing, if you lose/reset your NVRAM you lose this script as well. if you want to keep the script in NVRAM but turn it off for something, you can do

setenv use-nvramrc? false<return>

this tells OF not to use nvramrc, and as such will ignore the script in it.

also if you want to make edits or make sure you have not made a typo somewhere, you can use the arrow keys while in nvedit to navigate and edit each line. (I recommend you do this before saving the script to nvram with nvstore)

now with all the technical mumbo-jumbo out of the way time for some pictures

here is the iBook with the FSB overclocked but without the nvramrc script, you can see Mac OS 9 still thinks the machine is running at 66/300Mhz but as you can see using tools like gauge pro/Metronome we can see the real clock frequency

here is Mac OS 9 with the nvramrc script, now it reports the correct frequency

here is OS X 10.5.8 Leopard with the nvramrc script

and heres a GeekBench result at 100/450Mhz https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/2652202

im also happy to say that the machine has been 100% stable for me with no issues, the iBooks stock cooling even manages to Just about keep the 7410 now clocked at 450Mhz happy (thats another thing that tells me it is really running at 100/450Mhz as the system does run warmer)

this is one properly souped up iBook now I think (and possibly the only Clamshell in the world with a 100Mhz bus speed, for now at least )

 

[AphoticD]

Excellent work @LightBulbFun ! I'm tempted to see if the stock 300Mhz 750 CPU could handle the 100Mhz bus at 4x multiplier.

It has been running cool and reliable with the 366Mhz overclock.

So your 7410 iBook 100/450 GB results are on par with the Pismo with the 7410 @ 100/600Mhz when the L2 was disabled and just a step below the Flower Power G4 at 500Mhz with 512k L2. Nice scores.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Excellent work @LightBulbFun ! I'm tempted to see if the stock 300Mhz 750 CPU could handle the 100Mhz bus at 4x multiplier.

It has been running cool and reliable with the 366Mhz overclock.

So your 7410 iBook 100/450 GB results are on par with the Pismo with the 7410 @ 100/600Mhz when the L2 was disabled and just a step below the Flower Power G4 at 500Mhz with 512k L2. Nice scores.

thanks indeed, sadly theres a bug with the GeekBench 2 browser that stops me from changing the Name of the results, i reported the bug a while back to which i was told they where going to fix it, but nothing happened. I might ask them again whats up.

I would recommend first if your trying the 100Mhz bus mod with the stock PPC750L, that you set the multiplier to something like 350, a speed known to work, then stress test the machine to make sure the Overclock on the uninorth chipset is stable, before overclocking the CPU even further

also if your planning to use my nvramrc script you let me know what speeds you settle on and ill make a new script with the values adjusted accordingly

BTW its interesting to note that OS X Server 1.2v3 has no issues detecting the actual speed of the iBook even without the nvramrc script fix. edit: I adjusted the nvramrc script to reflect the new time base and bus clock frequencies. interestingly my Sawtooth runs at 99.6Mhz (where I got my values from originally) but the iBook and my iMac G3 run at 99.9Mhz.

 

[reukiodo]

Would you be willing to replace the G3 in my clamshell with a G4 and bump up the bus speed? I am most definitely not capable of doing this myself and all the BGA reflow places around Seattle want an arm and a leg to rework.

 

[CooperBox]

Great work you're doing here, although I must confess to not understanding the technical mumbo-jumbo - more's the pity!
As this was a proof of concept, do you plan on doing others, as a interesting little earner, or would the time involved not be cost effective?
Btw I love your title, Replacing the Pearl in the Clamshell. Very appropriate indeed!

 

[LightBulbFun]

Would you be willing to replace the G3 in my clamshell with a G4 and bump up the bus speed? I am most definitely not capable of doing this myself and all the BGA reflow places around Seattle want an arm and a leg to rework.

this is still highly experimental stuff for me right now (constantly trying new things and tweaking my set up here and there ), and I dont want do this as "business" atm. (what if a Customers machine breaks or something...)

plus im in the UK and your in the US, shipping probably wont be fun. (also which clamshell do you have? not all are compatible)

Great work you're doing here, although I must confess to not understanding the technical mumbo-jumbo - more's the pity!
As this was a proof of concept, do you plan on doing others, as a interesting little earner, or would the time involved not be cost effective?
Btw I love your title, Replacing the Pearl in the Clamshell. Very appropriate indeed!

thanks

in terms of doing others, if your referring to doing the same swap on the same Machine multiple times

I dont think ill be going out buying a bunch of Clamshells CPU swapping them and flipping them any time soon. (Good luck trying to find a large quantity of clamshells at a decent price for a start LOL)

but if you have a machine of some kind yourself, that you want CPU swapped let me know and maybe we can work something out (as I said this is highly experimental for me still)

 

[dosdude1]

Would you be willing to replace the G3 in my clamshell with a G4 and bump up the bus speed? I am most definitely not capable of doing this myself and all the BGA reflow places around Seattle want an arm and a leg to rework.

I can do this for you also if you're located in the US... In fact I already recently did one for somebody (I posted pictures in a previous post on this thread). The only difficult part is actually sourcing the CPUs... I've been just taking them off old PowerBook G4 Titanium logic boards and PowerMac G4 CPU cards. Then there's also the matter of cooling... I have a video on my YouTube channel here showing the one I did as well.

 

[philgxxd]

Thank you @dosdude1 for that interesting Link.
I'm a user of your Patch for running High Sierra on my unsupported MBP so thanks also for THAT magic.

 

[LightBulbFun]

discovered something interesting about the iBook Clamshell

in that the Super capacitor on the motherboard only backs up the PRAM/NVRAM it self it does not keep the RTC going

the way I found this out was I knew my iBook was always forgetting the Time and i was worried id have to keep entering my nvramrc script.

so I left the iBook unpowered over night to see what it would do and although it forgot the data and time it did remember its NVRAM settings

it makes sense that the RTC is only kept going by the main battery/Charger as I imagine keeping an RTC going consumes a lot more power then just keeping some RAM alive

its good to know people wont have to worry about loss of NVRAM/PRAM settings even if your iBook wont keep time

I imagine other Macs that use Super capacitors also work the same way...

 

[CooperBox]

I can do this for you also if you're located in the US... In fact I already recently did one for somebody (I posted pictures in a previous post on this thread). The only difficult part is actually sourcing the CPUs... I've been just taking them off old PowerBook G4 Titanium logic boards and PowerMac G4 CPU cards. Then there's also the matter of cooling... I have a video on my YouTube channel here showing the one I did as well.

Hi, just watched your video, and enjoyed.Nice work! Please let us know if you do succeed in quietening that fan, the noise of which personally I'd find hard to live with.
During refurb of most of my purchased powerbooks, I make a point of peeling back the fan central sticker and putting a minute drop of light oil on the spindle.

 

[dosdude1]

Hi, just watched your video, and enjoyed.Nice work! Please let us know if you do succeed in quietening that fan, the noise of which personally I'd find hard to live with.
During refurb of most of my purchased powerbooks, I make a point of peeling back the fan central sticker and putting a minute drop of light oil on the spindle.

Yeah, I think a bit of oil is all that one needed. A better quality fan would help too.

 

[hrutkaymods]

Yeah, I think a bit of oil is all that one needed. A better quality fan would help too.

The fan has loosened up with continuous running... It'll buzz maybe a minute if that, before it quiets down to normal if it sits off for a few hours... Remember that fan was from my iBook G4 800MHz... it probably barely ran a day in it's whole life... so of course it's a little sticky... with some more use it may be fine... I just don't wanna pop the case back open until I do the SSD upgrade

 

[andloph]

silent lurker here but had to chime in

Very interesting discussion, thanks a lot for all the provided information !!

i´m obviously very tempted but :

- would the same work on SE models ?
- what would be the limit without any active cooling ?
- I don´t have the skills (nor the equipment) to do this myself, does anyone know of a service that would actually be interested in such a mod ?

And by the way : kudos to @dosdude1 for your continued work ! I´m still struggling with my Santa Rosa based MBP though, none of the cpus we tried worked so far, still running on stock T7700.

thanks !

 

[dosdude1]

silent lurker here but had to chime in

Very interesting discussion, thanks a lot for all the provided information !!

i´m obviously very tempted but :

- would the same work on SE models ?
- what would be the limit without any active cooling ?
- I don´t have the skills (nor the equipment) to do this myself, does anyone know of a service that would actually be interested in such a mod ?

And by the way : kudos to @dosdude1 for your continued work ! I´m still struggling with my Santa Rosa based MBP though, none of the cpus we tried worked so far, still running on stock T7700.

thanks !

No, it won't work on SE models... They use a different CPU (750CX I believe) that isn't pin compatible with a G4. I'm honestly not exactly sure what kind of issues you'd encounter without active cooling... I'm sure if you kept the clock low enough (like 300 MHz) it would run OK without too much of a thermal problem. I could do this mod for you if you're located in the US... As I've said before, I have already done this for somebody.

As for your MBP 3,1, have you actually been BGA soldering on new CPUs and testing? If so, you need to solder on a T9300 or T9500 (both can be found in MacBookPro 4,1s), and it should work just fine. I'll be experimenting doing just this sometime soon (as well as upgrading MacBook Pro 1,1s to Core 2 Duo CPUs).

 

[LightBulbFun]

@andloph im guessing by SE models you are referring to the FireWire Clamshell (PowerBook2,2)? (The 366Mhz Non FW SE model uses a PPC750L so is fully compatible with 7400/7410s)

as @dosdude1 says the FW clamshells use the 750CXe which sadly are not pin compatible with any G4 or any other CPU apart from the 750CX and the PowerPC Gekko (we think) but the Bus speed mods are the same for both the First Gen clamshell PowerBook2,1 and FireWire Clamshell PowerBook2,2

but in theory at least, you could take a faster (say 600-700Mhz) 750CXe from a dead iMac Logicboard and transplant it onto the iBook Logicboard and make a 700Mhz G3 iBook clamshell

im guessing at 700Mhz its prolly going to want some beefed up cooling (granted the 700Mhz iMac G3 was a passive machine, but its "heatsink" was much bigger) but if your G4 Swapping a first Gen Clamshell the limit for stock cooling seems to be 450Mhz. (thats what mines at currently and it seems Ok...) but I know people who have tried 500+ have had over heating issues...

(you mention doing some work with a MBP3,1 are you trying to swap the Merom CPU for a Penryn one?)

 

[andloph]

No, it won't work on SE models

gah, the only one I have left is a FW SE .. sold my blueberries years ago ...

you could take a faster (say 600-700Mhz) 750CXe from a dead iMac Logicboard and transplant it onto the iBook Logicboard and make a 700Mhz G3 iBook clamshell

hmm, an evil thought crossed my mind ... i have a broken iMac here that could be an option ;-)
But that would require at least a heavy fan solution as you guys say, would that even fit inside the case ?
Maybe we try for fun but won't be a permanent mod I think.

you mention doing some work with a MBP3,1 are you trying to swap the Merom CPU for a Penryn one?

yes, we tried a couple of times.
I contacted @dosdude1 a couple of months ago and he provided us with lots of usefully information to give it a try.
No luck yet -none of the cpus we tried so far booted afterwards- but we will try with two more cpus in short.
If someone here tries and succeeds I would appreciate if you can provide the SN of the used processors.

Thanks a lot guys !

 

[Cox Orange]

Thanks for the braid and flux tips. I was using generic wick to recap a Mac SE board and it only did so much. I ended up using a Dremel to drill the remaining RoHS solder out of the holes. Not classy but it worked.

One other general bit of advice I would give is not to buy directly from China. Safety standards seem lower there and some soldering stations are not properly earthed.

from 10:30 mins in.

There was a consumer information magazine on public TV here in Germany, where they bought 7 electric tools via Amazon.de where the description said "sold by [insert chinese company name] and shipped by Amazon". They let the TÜV (technical control board) examine and test the tools. 5 of the tools wouldn't have passed EU and German savety regulations and standards, if they had been examined before import. They missed am earth-wire or certain electric parameters were off or they would build up so much heat that they caught fire.
The legal construct that Amazon uses there makes it possible that the stuff doesn't need to be pre-examined by a technical control board before sale/import. I can't really explain how that works and why, but the difference is, if Amazon wouldn't just store and ship the stuff for china, but also sell it themselves, they would have to put the stuff to test.

Long story short, you can't even be sure to get "healthy" electric tools via Amazon, unless you can verify that it is not a chinese company selling it.