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Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

X60/X61 and X60t/X61t Series
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Libre_ME
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Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#1 Post by Libre_ME » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:40 pm

I'm wanting to know if anybody has successfully swapped out a soldered to the board cpu. I have an X60 board with L7400 that I'd like to replace with slightly higher spec. L7500 cpu. I have an X61 board with L7500, but it's incompatible to Libreboot, therefore I want to swap the L7400 cpu on the Librebooted X60 board for an L7500. I can find no information about this proceedure anywhere. If you can offer any useful info on the requirements to do this, then by all means please reply.

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#2 Post by Cigarguy » Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:11 pm

It's a lot of work, technical work with specialized equipment to replace a soldered in CPU. Going from a L7400 to L7500 will only gain you 100 MHZ which is marginal at best. Also the bus speed is 667 Mhz for the L7400 and 800 Mhz for the L7500 which is problematic.

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#3 Post by dr_st » Sat Aug 04, 2018 12:45 am

Cigarguy wrote:
Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:11 pm
It's a lot of work, technical work with specialized equipment to replace a soldered in CPU. Going from a L7400 to L7500 will only gain you 100 MHZ which is marginal at best.
Indeed.
Cigarguy wrote:
Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:11 pm
Also the bus speed is 667 Mhz for the L7400 and 800 Mhz for the L7500 which is problematic.
Which means that even if one gets it to run and be recognized by the board, it would probably run the bus at 667 MHz so it would be actually lower-clocked and slower than the L7400.

Besides, I think the sockets are incompatible.

So, the answer is a definite 'no'.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#4 Post by axur-delmeria » Sat Aug 04, 2018 3:24 am

dr_st wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 12:45 am
Besides, I think the sockets are incompatible.
Indeed. L7400 is Socket M, while L7500 is Socket P.
So, the answer is a definite 'no'.
Agreed.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#5 Post by Screamer » Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:17 am

Libre_ME wrote:
Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:40 pm
I'm wanting to know if anybody has successfully swapped out a soldered to the board cpu. I have an X60 board with L7400 that I'd like to replace with slightly higher spec. L7500 cpu. I have an X61 board with L7500, but it's incompatible to Libreboot, therefore I want to swap the L7400 cpu on the Librebooted X60 board for an L7500.
That is not possible. The L7400 uses the older Socket M BGA479 layout instead of the newer Socket P BGA479 layout, which means it is incompatible and will not accept the L7500. Even if you had managed to swap it by utilizing an interposer to reconfigure the layout to match Socket P's layout, the BIOS and the chipset will not start with it installed.

This is because of how the 945GME chipset does not support the 200MHz or 800MT/s front-side bus speed, and added with the fact that the BIOS lacks the microcodes required for the L7500 to work.

Therefore, the direct answer to your question is no. Nobody did this and ever will because of the reasons stated above, sadly.
Libre_ME wrote:
Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:40 pm
I can find no information about this procedure anywhere. If you can offer any useful info on the requirements to do this, then by all means please reply.
You will need a good BGA rework station, 479 0.76mm solder balls, and optionally a device that can detect whether if the solder balls made proper contact with the motherboard.

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#6 Post by RealBlackStuff » Sat Aug 04, 2018 5:20 am

Just look for an X61 motherboard with L7500 CPU ( FRU: 42W7766 ).
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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#7 Post by axur-delmeria » Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:16 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 5:20 am
Just look for an X61 motherboard with L7500 CPU ( FRU: 42W7766 ).
OP wants Libreboot (that's why he sticks with X60s) but wants a CPU upgrade. Unfortunately, L7400 appears to be the fastest LV CPU for the Socket M platform.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#8 Post by RealBlackStuff » Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:26 am

Oops, OP already has an X61 with L7500. :oops:
But the fastest X60 actually has a T7200 CPU (42W7697 or 42W7698) if low-voltage is not a must-have.

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#9 Post by Libre_ME » Sun Aug 05, 2018 3:21 pm

Well, that dream ended far too quickly. Yes, I wanted the 800mhz bus speed as it's noticebly faster, but obviously that won't be happening with a low voltage cpu for me, because Libreboot does not work past Merom. If it could use the Penryn cpus that would be just heaven for my low voltage cpu obsession, but it doesn't.
I have box of X60 and X61 system boards. I've used the T7200 X60 board, but it ran too hot and the fan ran both continuously and noisily. All 3x of my X6X machines have low-voltage X60-tablet boards in them and they are incredibly quiet! The 2x drawbacks to this are no Thinklight and no setting up the machine to shut down when I close the lid. Thanks to all for your great input!

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#10 Post by axur-delmeria » Sun Aug 05, 2018 3:35 pm

I hope I could swap the CPU in my X60s board as well, since it has the slow-as-molasses Core Solo U1300 with a whopping 1.06GHz clock speed. I'm pretty sure it's slower than an X41 :lol:
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#11 Post by FryPpy » Sun Aug 05, 2018 3:44 pm

dr_st wrote:
Sat Aug 04, 2018 12:45 am
So, the answer is a definite 'no'.
+1.
I haven't do BGA CPU swap. But after did FSB mod on T61 (to accept 1066MHz FSB Penryns), i did such mod on T60... and it didn't worked (fan spins, but black screen). I have checked pinout for Socket M and socket P and didn't find any showstopper differences. So i think the problem was in BIOS.

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Re: Has anyone succeeded at swapping cpus on X6x boards?

#12 Post by jaspen-meyer » Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:02 pm

The L2500 is faster than the L7400 and works with libreboot. It requires a 32-bit OS.

Another option is to use a faster machine. I have some modified quad core T400 with open source Coreboot for sale -- you could easily put libreboot on them.

Or, you could try an x200s, or x200. They're both much faster than an L7400. But the screen isn't 4:3. And, you need to flash it with an external flasher, or buy one with Libreboot already installed.

The T60 runs Libreboot and is 4:3 and it too is much faster than the L7400.
T420 i7 3612QM seabios; T420 i7 3630QM; T400 Q9100 seabios; T61 P9600; T60 libreboot; x62; x60s libreboot, led; x24 xiphmont led

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