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[run088]

I found I can successfully remove the cpu on the xbox with no damage to the board.I also know what mods I have to perform on the tualatin 1.4 to get it to run on the xbox.
What hurdle I have left is to figure out how to get from bga to pga2.The xboxes cpu is said to be a 370pin bga which has the pin lay out of a normal pga although I dont know who figured this part out because there are alot more than 370 pins on the processor but it has to be true cause it has been proven it can work.

I thought about soldering directly to the board but figured I would not be able to cut the pins down even enough on the tualatin so they all made contact.

I need to find or create a bga to pga or bga to pga2 adapter.Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas.

And before someone says something about it.I do understand by using the 1.1 processor games will still run close to normal but wont in the 1.4 upgrade.The point of this mod is to make the xbox powerful enough to run XBMC linux.I also know the ram is holding me back and I am looking at some bigger ram chips as well.

Some will say why?What is wrong with xbmc for xbox?
The answer is that the xbox bios have limitations on using the extra resources.XBMC does not use the ram or the processor upgrade from what I have read.I can confirm that it does not use the ram upgrade because if the ram left falls under 64mgs the video crashes.I have read articles about the processor upgrade that make me believe it has similar issues as the ram.And from what I have read in the xbmc forum about how the xbox bios work I now believe that most emulators cant use that ram either.The only way to use it is linux.And the linux version of xbmc does not have this limitation.
So some will say buy a cheap pc.I say you might want to be tacky and have pc's strung out threw your house beside your tv's but I dont.I would rather have xboxes on tv's instead of pc's.
Besides if this is as easy as it seems to be to me this would be a cheaper route to go.These processors are less than 20 dollars on the market now.

[xboxmods2977]

If ya don't mind me askin, I have two questions:

How did you get the CPU off without damage to the board?

And

Does the process damage the original CPU?

[run088]

I dont know the condition of the cpu for sure I have just tried the process this far on scrap mobos I have laying around.The installation with my method may not be so easy unless I can make an adapter and swap processors which is the goal.I will most likely have to reverse my process on the installation without an adapter which might cause cpu damage.If I can find an adapter to work then I will eliminate the chance of killing the new processor.But then again it did come off rather easy and should be ok  all the other parts I have removed in this way have been alright and Ive removed more than my fair share.
I removed it the same way I remove ram.I did it with my heatgun but it is the same temp or close to as most smd equipment not to mention I have a good feel for its heat. I by no means think any noob can do it.I built a crane with 30 gauge bare wire by running it along the corners diagonally  and left room to hold so I could lift freely upward once the solder got hot.I was just suprized that the wire would slid enough around the corners to be able to make the crane.With ram I do the same thing but I run the wire underneath the chips legs for support by removing them this way you never damage the legs for the chips. I have never damaged one chip with this method and Ive removed ram on atleast a dozen mobos.Not to mention all the pic16 chips and eeprom chips and video encoder chips all with the above method.I have always soldered back in by hand never installed with the heatgun but it should work.













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[xboxmods2977]

Cool, Thanks for the info. I will probably try this with a few scrap boards as I do have a heat gun and have used it in the past to remove ram.




                                            -Long Live The Xbox-

[run088]

Its all about the crane.

What you think about the adapter?

Do you know how the socket is connected?

Is it soldered down some way on a pc mobo?

Maybe I could strip one off a bad mobo and use it if I could remove and reinstall.Maybe use one of the slot processor cards that has the 370 socket.Ive just never really seen a 370 socket outside the xbox socket or whatever you want to call it.

Any ideas I am coming up short on how to get it done outside soldering it directly.

A socket would be the best choice for its flexibilty and the ability to switch around processors to find the best setup.

This is something that can most likely be done by modding a few old parts I just dont know which ones would work. Any ideas?

[ldotsfan]

Have you come across this? http://xbox.fuzzymuz.../cpuupgrade.htm

Good luck!

[run088]

QUOTE(ldotsfan @ Aug 22 2008, 08:59 AM)

Have you come across this? http://xbox.fuzzymuz.../cpuupgrade.htm

Good luck!

Yes and I have read all the followups to the article as well.I just found a way to remove the cpu without problems or special equipment where as they seem to have had a difficult time with it.

But the adapter is still a snag you have to have a business to get the parts from the company steveo linked to.

[Perplexer]

I would be VERY interested in doing this mod if we are able to source the sockets.

I owned three DreamX-1480s over the last few years and poked around at the time but don't have the electronics knowledge like RDC and some of the other guys here.  Plus, I no longer own one; they were sold to fund other interests and expenses.

You say you know exactly which components need to be added/swapped to get a 1.4GHz Tualatin working on board?

[run088]

QUOTE(Perplexer @ Aug 22 2008, 03:30 PM)

I would be VERY interested in doing this mod if we are able to source the sockets.

I owned three DreamX-1480s over the last few years and poked around at the time but don't have the electronics knowledge like RDC and some of the other guys here.  Plus, I no longer own one; they were sold to fund other interests and expenses.

You say you know exactly which components need to be added/swapped to get a 1.4GHz Tualatin working on board?

From what I have been reading it seems that the xbox cpu is just a 370 socket bga.with the coppermine core if that is the one that cuts off at about 1ghz.The pattern on the pins  used  is suppose to be the same I cant verify until my new processors arrive.From looking at the board if this is true then there are a lot of other pins on the board that are decoy pins to throw us off.All that it seems they really did was was give a 370pin socket a bga design with a pga pin layout.Then dreamx company figured this out and fit a standard pga to pga2 adapter to the unit.The extra stuff was all stuff to get the thing to half clock to 740 in an attempt to get as close as they could to 733.So to get the 1.4 to hook up without this ability should be no different than trustys mod.I think that he chose the 1.1 model because he could get the games to run decent at that speed and would not have to worry about making the adapter to half clock it.So if I am right you could use any coppermine processor without modification if it was pga.But to get the tualatin to work you will have to mod the board from pga to pga2 which is documented and seems easy enough to do.The link idotsfan posted breaks this down somewhat.

[run088]

Here is our chips pin layout on its mainstream counter part.

http://cgi.ebay.com/...id=p3286.c0.m14


This ebay link is of a processor with the exact pin lay out of our processor but a 900mhz version.
I need to explain that this is the common 370 socket processor but in a 495pin setup micropga2.
This type of processor will bolt right in and on all coppermine core based processors it should not have to be modified to get it done but I now need to know how to convert the pin placement from the 370socket to the 495pin setup so I know which points to bridge as explained in the link idotsfan posted to be able to hook up the tualatin core which goes to 1.4

[run088]

Well it seems there maybe be a way to work what we have to get this done and get 1.33 ghz.
If we use the 1.0ghz processor it has a 100bus and the xbox has 133bus by doing this we are overclocking the processor on the install to start.
We may be able to tweak the voltage as well to get a little more but that is another topic for another time if this is successful.The 1ghz celeron will also give us a 256 cache opposed to our 128 but this may not be so good as I have read the 128 is more efficent and that is why it was most likely used.If the 256 cache is an issue there is a 900mhz 100bus 128 cache processor which might fair better results for our purpose but that again is another topic.
The main objective is the successful swap.
Which any mobile celeron or mobile pentium III with the micro-pga2 495pin processor should work.Sorting threw the info of these processors I found that the 1.0ghz was the biggest produced in this socket there was said to be a 1.1ghz that was made that was recalled . I could not find much info on this chip other than that.This means with no adapter "which I couldn't find anyway"The only option we have with limited hassle is overclocking a 1ghz processor for everything it is worth.We should be running close to the dream-x anyway with it running at  1.4ghz if the overclocked 1.0ghz will run at 1.33ghz on the 133 bus mobo
To make our installation easier it would most likely be best to find old mobos with these processors and strip the sockets off them so we could limit damage to the chip on install and we could have the ability to swap chips and configurations on the fly.

Ive searched threw the list of processors that should work with an easy swap as I have described and have all the info on model #'s if anyone wants them let me know and I will make them available.

I will try the install once I am able to find the laptop socket and processor.If anyone else is bold enough besides me to try it feel free I dont care this is a project for the community.I am in no race for anything but knowledge.If not I will keep posting with my results and knowledge of what Ive learned.
I was threw for a loop for a while because I got so excited about the cpu removal I did not bother to examine the chip and do a little research of pin designs.I just went off info I already found which was incorrect or very misleading anyway.As of what I have written in this post this is the correct info on the direction that is best to take.To get the 1.4 370socket to work on the xbox it would take a special and I mean special because I could not find anything close to one adapter that was micro-pga2 to socket370 which is a difference not only in pin placement but pin # the difference is 370 to 495.I could not find any adapter for a micro-pga2 to anything for that matter.
Another thought I have not so much looked into was overclocking a 66bus processor to the 133bus xbox this would be serious overclocking depending to how big they made the  the 66mhz processor up to.And I dont even know if it is possible I have not read about how far you can clock the 66mhz processor up to.I have read about people overclocking the 1.0ghz to 1.33ghz successfully using the 100bus processor on a 133bus board and from what I have read that is some pretty serious overclocking as it is.This will be easy tested if the socket swap is successful.

[run088]

I think I found out maybe how dreamx got the concept for the 1.4 upgrade and made it possible.The xbox cpu was used on slot 1 processors.Which hooked up with the powerleap adapter which made the pentium III 1.4 upgrade avalible for the pc.They most likely took the trace lay out of the xbox cpu on the slot 1 card.And matched the pins on the xbox mobo.Then took the power leap connector layout and pin layout and convert the layout of the 370 socket to the 495 pin socket.Then built the adapter from there.It would be easy to trace out if that is the case but the adapter is still a problem it would most likely have to be designed and made.There would be a possibility of installing a slot card adapter on the xbox mobo if we can find the slot 1 cards like I have in this link we could trace out the pins and connect them but we are talking about a trillion wires to solder.

It still seems that the micro-pga2 socket and processor is the way to go but this is not outside the realm of possibility since the cpu was on the slot 1 that used the powerleap adapter.

Almost forgot the link


http://www.chipdb.or...-board-4457.htm