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PowerBook 500 Series full 040 CPU swap

croissantking

Well-known member
I've just obtained one of these chips. All indications are - particularly the film of dirt - that it's a genuine part. I'm going to swap it into one of my 68LC040 processor cards later and hopefully, gain an FPU.

This will go in my PB 540c if successful.

I'm dead curious as to what the donor PCB was. I haven't yet seen these chips used anywhere other than in the PowerBook 550c. I have a hunch it would have been something industrial rather than consumer oriented.

IMG_7136.JPG
 

Bolle

Well-known member
That looks really good. Did they just cut out part of the PCB around the chip? 😅
Mine at least came on an interposer that could be reused at some point.

IMG_0723.jpg

As mentioned in the other thread somewhere, the swap is going to work with standard 520/540 CPU cards.
The 550 ROMs are not needed for the FPU to work.
 

croissantking

Well-known member
Very cool, I was thinking about this as well. Along with possibly increasing the onboard RAM
I saw someone claiming to have done this on a Japanese website. If it’s possible, it would be similar to @max1zzz ’s LCIII mod where you use flying wires to pick up the additional RAS signals.

I think it would be tough to say the least, given the very small amount of working area.
 

MacUp72

Well-known member
Just need to fit a 68060 and make the ROM patches needed to get it going now ;)
now thats an idea.. the 060 is somewhat similar to a Pentium, also has a power saving option..has someone done that sucessfully, is there even a QFP one? but rare and not cheap🤟
 

Phipli

Well-known member
now thats an idea.. the 060 is somewhat similar to a Pentium, also has a power saving option..has someone done that sucessfully, is there even a QFP one? but rare and not cheap🤟
It wouldn't work without hardware and ROM mods sadly :)
 

Daniël

Well-known member
That looks really good. Did they just cut out part of the PCB around the chip? 😅

Not the first time I've seen IC salvagers from China and such take this approach.
Honestly, I prefer it over desoldering, because they have some truly dodgy ways of doing that, like holding PCBs over hot flames and just slapping the board against a surface 'til they fall off 😬
 

Powerbook27364

Well-known member
Ooh this looks like a fun project for my 540c. How difficult was it to source and swap over the chips? Did anything cause any problems during the process?
 

Phipli

Well-known member
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