upgrading the ibook clamshell's L2 cache to 1MB

[alectrona6400]

hello everyone! i am undertaking a nice little project with an ibook clamshell i just acquired; upgrading the living hell out of it. so far i've done the following: max out the RAM, upgrade the hard drive to a 30GB SSD, and (attempt to) swap the 512KB L2 cache for 1MB.

this mainly went smoothly except for one issue. i did not realize the chips i put on got damaged due to excess heat when i was removing them from a powermac G4 CPU card, so the built in cache test failed in OS 9. i have new chips on the way and will update you with the results when i get them in, or if i decide to pull them from another G4 CPU card... also i would install a 7410 if A. i had the chip, and B. if i didn't suck at reballing processors

posting from my phone so sorry if the pictures got flipped.

also here is what i plan to do:
-overclock the FSB to 100MHz and run the CPU at 400MHz
-install an LED backlight into the original display (stock CFL backlight is worn out as you can see)
-install OS 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 (with shuriken to optimize performance)
-look into bumping up the onboard RAM to 64MB (there are 4 unpopulated pads on the motherboard which are provisions for another 32MB it looks like)

thanks for checking out this project. if you have any input please feel free to talk to me here.

 

[finkmac]

10.4.11 gold edition? that poor G3

 

[alectrona6400]

someone made a package of optimizations for 10.4.11 that make it run more like panther or jaguar, and ive run it on other G3 macs. it performs quite well.

 

[finkmac]

i would recommend avoiding silly " mac os x gold edition " distributions and sticking to proper OS releases.

what do you really need 10.4 for?

 

[Nixontheknight]

i would recommend avoiding silly " mac os x gold edition " distributions and sticking to proper OS releases.

what do you really need 10.4 for?

Shuriken is not a "gold edition", it's a bunch of scripts that make 10.4 run better. I've run it on my 2000 iMac DV and 2002 iMac G4, and it runs better

 

[finkmac]

did safari feel snappier?

 

[davidg5678]

Fascinating work! Were you able to run any benchmarks before and after completing the upgrade? Any idea whether some of these Clamshell models already have the upgraded cache from the factory?

 

[alectrona6400]

sadly the cache is not working due to heat damage, i put my heat gun too close to each chip and heard a pop sound when i was removing them from the G4 CPU card. i am waiting on replacement chips from ebay.

also, i have managed to overclock the bus to 100MHz and the CPU to 400MHz (100x4), will test when i get the new chips in. sadly i forgot to run benchmarks before doing the upgrade.

 

[obsolete]

Those TQFP chips are incredibly sensitive. They absorb moisture and pop like popcorn when abruptly heated. You need to bake them to drive the moisture out before heat gunning them.

 

[alectrona6400]

yeah thats what i figured...

 

[croissantking]

Hmm, I've desoldered a few TQFP cache chips and they seemed to fare OK!

 

[alectrona6400]

i saw an article on low end mac where someone maxed out the clamshell's onboard memory to 128MB. at first i wasn't gonna do this but then i realized while i'm at it, why not?

also bad news... USPS mis-delivered my cache chips to another house apparently so i don't know if or when i'll be getting them... might have to find another G4 card to salvage them from or something

 

[croissantking]

Hmm, I've desoldered a few TQFP cache chips and they seemed to fare OK!

Pff, serves me right for being smug, I might have popped my first BGA chip yesterday. Need to get a reflow oven or just take it really easy with the heat next time.

i saw an article on low end mac where someone maxed out the clamshell's onboard memory to 128MB. at first i wasn't gonna do this but then i realized while i'm at it, why not?

Didn’t @dosdude1 do this recently? I thought he had to modify the iBooks’ firmware.