Printable View
In the foolhardy realisation that i'm not getting any younger I've decided that i'm going to speed up my Blizzard PPC. I'm first going to try by increasing the speed of my 040 to 33 MHZ (heatsink and fan are already fitted i just need to fit a 66.67 MHZ Crystal) and then i'll think about boosting my PPC to 240 MHZ (If i can find a 80Mhz crystal) I'll be taking out the old crystal and fitting a socket so that if things get a bit warm with the new speeds i'll be able to fit the old crystal.
@Buleste
in truth you would see a much better return on speed (like nearly 200%) if you saved up and got a 50Mhz 060 chip in there.
060's are awesome :D i have a few of them :D
The problem is the 040 is not in a socket and removing it and installing a new 060 would be beyond my skills.
ahhhh but PG over at A.org and Jaque at JJB Amiga Center France can help you :D
For the time being i don't need an 060 and i'll just try boosting the 040 and if i decide to upgrade to an 060 the new crystal i'll be putting in will mean that i can run the 060 at 66.67 mhz for a small turbo boost if i ever decide to get one.
@Buleste
sounds like a plan m8y.
the 040@40 will push about 35Mips, where as an 060@50,hz will push closer to 80Mips.
if you get a latent revision mask of the MC68060 these will clock to 100MHz... thats.... thats a shit load of Mips. :D
one of the problems you may / are likely to encounter with over clocking the 040, is the memory access speed, you will need to change / make sure that you are using the good 60ns or better memory. you may need to add another clock / oscilator for independent memory speed.
I'll be following all the instructions from here so i should be allright so long as my soldering hand stays steady and true.
I've just been reading more on the overclocking of the PPC and my board is a 210 as it has a 60 Mhz crystal running at 3.5x not the standard 66.67Mhz running at 3.0x yet it's never been overclocked. How strange. Still thats Phase 5/DCE for you. Never let a standard get in the way of a build.
Just replaced the crystal for my 040 it's gone from 18.95 Mips to 25 Mips and running smoothly. Now I've done that i'll look into Overclocking my PPC. Shame I can't get a 40 Mhz crystal though.
It's Alive!!!!!! Today i completed the upgrade by adding a 66.667 Mhz crystal to my PPC so that it now runs at 233 Mhz and everything works fine. The best thing is as i've installed them via 8-DIN sockets should i ever find a 80Mhz crystal i'll be able to up the speed again or if things start getting a little toasty i can downgrade until i get a new heatsink and fan for the PPC. Shiny!!
AmigaKit have an 80 Mhz crystal in stock. That'll boost my PPC to 280Mhz which is about as fast as a 603 can go and as I'm using the sockets it's easy to install a new crystal. In the words of a Mister F. Mercury and a Mister B. Blessed "Who wants to live forever?"
Will you need better cooling on the PPC chip?
Possibly another Heat Sink and fan but on the website the guy had a PPC at 270 Mhz without any problems. What I'll probably do is see if it works for about half hour first and then work out about a new heat sink and fan.
That reminds me I must upload the Sysspeed data files for both WB3.9 and OS4.0 of the normal and overclocked versions of my board.
Just in case I've managed to get my hands on a new 486 heat sink and fan which I'll Jury Rig to fit the BPPC. Cant wait now. If only the 040 could stand being overclocked to 40Mhz or even 50Mhz:greedy::nono:
80 Mhz crystal and Heat sink and fan fitted. No smoke however I forgot that by upping the crystal for the PPC you up the bus speed and it's too much for the memory. Whilst it does workish in 3.9 it's very unstable and OS4.0 doesn't work at all. Nothing ventured nothing gained. It's a good job I used the sockets. Still I'm trying the 040 at 40Mhz for a Sysspeed module for a bit. I may try altering the multipliers to at first goto x4 @266.67 Mhz at first and if i can do that try x4.5 with a 60 Mhz crystal for 270 and then with a 66.67 crystal for 300Mhz although I'm not sure if that would work. The web site that I use advised that it wouldn't but that may be because he was using a x5 multiplier.
We're up to 40Mhz 040 and 266.67Mhz PPC. Not too sure if I'm going to keep the 040 at 40Mhz though as things are beginning to get quite warm in my tower. I may just do some shotgun ventilation holes on the casing though to solve that one.;)
I've trying to drill some ventilation holes in my Power Tower casing and I swear the things made of Titanium or something, it's killed several drill bits. I'm going to go to a hire shop and see if they have any Carbon Lasers for hire as I think that's the only thing that's going to cut through that thing.;)
http://www.acube-systems.biz/eng/cpumodule.php
Looks like you may have saved yourself a few quid by doing the work yourself.
Well done young Jedi.
:obiwan:
All I need to do now is sort out the Ventilation issue and things should be working fine. From what I've read on other sites the 300Mhz solution will be by changing the multiplier to x5 which doesn't always work with PPC software although it may work with OS4. If anyone out there does try what I've done Then you need to be brave/foolhardy/stupid, have a low wattage soldering iron and a steady hand as one slip can bugger the board completely. Oh and another issue that is not talked about on the site i got the instructions is if you use double sided SIMMS in the memory socket that lies flat to the board your memory could develop problems due to the extra heat. Solution is better ventilation or use the angled slot (I'm down to 128MB RAM till I get the ventilation sorted).
All attempts at making Ventilation Holes in the Power Tower case have failed (My room is littered with dead and dying drill bits). However I've spent the afternoon modifying the 486 heatsink I bought. Before I had the new heatsink over the black lump that came with it. I now have the 486 heatsink clipped onto the board and PPC chip and all overheating problems seem to be solved for now. I'll se ehow it runs over the next couple of weeks before I think about boosting again.