Thinkpads Forum

Has anyone successfully upgraded a mmc board with a faster processor? I have an extra mmc board and would like to try putting a faster cpu onto one. I found a thread here where someone sent out a cpu to a shop and it had to be "reballed". I really don't know what that is.

If you search google it seems the first gen xbox had a soldered in cpu, and people were using a heatgun to extract and install a new cpu. While using tinfoil to protect the surrounding components. Could this work?

The other issue I know of is there are different reversions of the mmc2 boards. I know of at least three.... Non speedstep, speedstep lower speed boards, and speedstep higher speed boards.

Is this worth a try, or will I just waste time and money?

these are BGA (ball grid array) chips, they don't have pins, just contact points where balls of solder connect the 2 surfaces. If you are a VERY skilled solderer, small chips can be done without the special equipment normally designed for reballing work.

On the xbox 1, yea, needs extreme soldering skills and prolly has a small success rate, people also bake xbox 360's in the oven to reball the chips from rrod errors. Think someone might have even tried it here for the thinkpad model that has the bad vga chip problem (mighta just been asking about it).

You can still find the higher speed mms boards on ebay, cheapest solution would prolly be to buy a faster/sell the slower.

check out this guy replacing a SMALL bga chip on what looks to be a cell phone...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB1InDsWCjQ

his comment:

IMPORTANT: Because I was asked several times: DO NOT try this, unless you have LOTS of experience in soldering! It might look easy, but it isn't. If unsure, get an old mainboard/phone/... and try, before working on your broken device! Invest the time - it will be worth it.

And by LOTS, he means LOTS, I cant even imagine the time it would take to solder balls on TWO 240? pin surfaces without cooking something. Then the amount of heat it would require (both preheat then main heat... odds are someone without a shop set up to do bga work would cook it.

I managed to transfer a 1GHz PIII to an MMC-2 board about a year ago. I've been meaning to post pictures and details about it. I don't have reballing equipment, but I was able to get it to work by carefully tinning all the pads on the CPU and soldering it to the board with hot air. I wouldn't recommend this approach, although it proves that a 1GHz MMC-2 module is possible. It does work in my speedstep 600X.

I recall seeing examples of a 1GHz MMC-2 board before, but I think it was taken out of a Panasonic Toughbook or something, and due to the height of the CPU, the cooling system needed to be moved or modified or something...

But you are talking about replacing just the CPU part, is that right?

Phil.

I'm using a modified mmc2 1ghz cpu
For a description of this please refer to the addresses below

http://www.51nb.com/forum/viewthread.ph ... highlight=

http://tpholic.com/xe/?mid=ibmreport&pa ... rl=6063125

701C (2630-AT5) 80486 DX-50, 4+4 RAM, Xircom Realport 10/100+Modem 56
570 (2644-BAK) Cel-A 400MHz, 128+256 RAM, Ultrabase, Atheros 5001X+ BG 54M
600X (2645-5FU) P3 800Mhz 64+256+256 RAM, UltraBay 2000 160GB SATA, AKE USB 2.0 + Bluetooth, AR5414 ABG 108M
S30 (2639-42J) P3 600Mhz, PATA SSD(KingSpec) 32GB, 8+8GB CF Dual, 3Com XJack BG 54M, CF 2GB
770Z (9549-8AU) P3 700Mhz, (mod MMC2 996Mhz), 128+128+256 RAM, 4GB CF, WD 160GB, 13.7" (1280x1024), Linksys RangePlus BGN 300M (AR5008), AKE USB 2Port, BT Dongle USB,
A31p (2653-R3K) P4-M 2.4GHz, 120GB HDD, 15.0" UXGA(1600x1200) IPS, AR5006X ABG 108M, IBM M-13
T43 (2668-4HK) P4-M 1.86Ghz, 14" (1400x1050), AR5006 BG 108M, AKE USB 2Port
T60 (2613-CTO) P4 T7200 2GHz, 2048+1024 RAM, 64GB SSD, 2nd 500GB, 14" (1400x1050), AR9281 BGN 300M, e-SATA Raid, MOGO Mouse

Welcome to the Forum, renkuo!

Congrats on getting a 1GB CPU installed in there. Looks like you actually replaced the CPU, just like the original poster was asking about.

Nice work.

Phil.