Blizzard PPC 603e upgrade

[StormLord]

you can even change the ppc with an 740 (G3 without cache).
its the only chip that its fully bus, pin and voltage compatible with 603.
its core is almost the same with some minor optimization, as I have found you don't need a new firmware for that cpu.
But the problem is the bga soldering..
and really.... IS IT WORTH THE RISK??
I have destroyed one bppc with that experiment, althought it managed to boot, I think the instability was because of bga soldering technique that it might have destroyed in some way the card and /or even the 740 chip because of excessive heat.
BGA soldering in a full populated card, is something almost not possible without some specialized (and I think way too expensive) tools. Even production lines doesn't have them, if something goes wrong they just throw the card with that bga chip on the bin.

[StormLord]

delshay wrote:


FREESCALE no longer do a 740 its now 745.
also how did you solder the CPU?
what did you do with the EXTRA signals? :-)

EXTRA signals?? what do you mean by that? if you study the data sheets of both processors you will see that there are not differences in signaling. exept PIDs that are also on the same pins. if I remember correctly (this project was MANY years ago) 603 pids could program the multiplier till 6x and 740 till 10x. even though for the first 12 stages (6x) they used the same codes. now that Im trying to remember 603 could do 1x but 740 started at 3x. but don't count my word for sure, there 've been many years since. Data sheets are always your friend!
;-)
As for soldering... I solder it in a panasonic service store, NO BGA rework tools except the 2 hot air-guns with programable degrees (one upper-side one downside). We made 2 aluminum  frames to not allow massive hot air escape to other components. I desolder all components from downside of the board to where 603 is placed. upper frame was a like U because we used an infrared camera to verify on the process that at LEAST one line of balls were melted and soldered.
For desoldering nothing deficullt because I used a card that had an PLCC 603 soldered so it was an easy task.

EDIT:
DCE cards are very bad quality that with only a percentage more of heat, solder points are pop-up from the board. DONT MESS WITH IT BY ANY REASON!!!
From the other hand P5 boards are more tolerate to heat abuse!
;-)