Bought 3 T8300 CPU's off eBay, got BGA converted chips and they are all different SKUs!

[kfzhu1229]

I have a T61 14.1" widescreen and its competitor, Latitude D630 both containing a T7250 CPU. They are definitely held back by the CPU and the T9xxx CPU's are not quite worth what I need them to do plus there are plenty of fakes on eBay. So I bought 3 T8300 CPU's off eBay from the same seller, thinking a Core 2 Duo T8300 is simply too cheap for any fakes.
Well what I got instead is not quite what I expected.
As title says, I received the 3 CPU's and they are all different SKU's! Feeling a little suspicious, I looked on the sides of the CPU's and their thickness are all different!
The 3 SKU's are SLAYS, SLAPR and SLAYQ. Now the SLAYQ has a Lenovo FRU tag on it, so I believe it's definitely the real deal, which it is.
SLAYS and SLAPR turn out to be the BGA479 version of the T8300, and they have legs added to them to work as a standard Socket P T8300!
Turns out the PCB used on the BGA479 CPU's are thicker than on the Socket P, hence the different thickness from the SLAYQ.
What's even more interesting is the way the SLAYS and SLAPR CPU's have legs attached to them is also different!
The SLAYS is probably the more ghetto one where it looks like an interposer layer with legs preattached has been soldered on. You can visibly see that in the gallery below. I believe this interposer layer is similar to the LGA771 to LGA775 "adapter" that interchanges two pins. It also has the one extra pin from the BGA479 visibly there but has no legs there thankfully.
The SLAPR is definitely a lot sneakier than that. If you look at the bottom of that CPU, you really can't tell at all this CPU has been adapted from a BGA479. On this one the CPU legs are directly soldered onto the CPU with no interposer layer. For an even more convincing touch, they've sanded the extra pin and then painted it green so you can barely even make out that pin was even there!
The SLAYQ again is the real deal.
Now, do you consider these as fakes? They are all technically T8300 and they all work perfectly fine. But for the BGA chips I would be a lot more careful in executing the screwing heatsink screws diagonally part and also to not overtighten them as the die is taller. Also probably don't want that thing to overheat too much as the interposer might develop cold joints.
They all most definitely work just fine for my purposes, which is to upgrade those laptops and not to keep the processors as museum pieces. Buying these is probably like buying engineering samples where in terms of functionality they are more or less about the same.
Would I complain about this? Again no because it does the job perfectly.
I think this post might help in telling you what you might expect for buying CPU's on eBay. And I find this sort of reusing otherwise useless chips to be interesting and technically it helps reduce landfill I guess?
https://imgur.com/gallery/SDVI5Lq

[axur-delmeria]

Interesting. I've read about these CPU conversions, but having two of them, with side-by-side comparisons with a real PGA chip, is simply amazing.

To be honest though, the only BGA to PGA converted CPU I'd probably buy would be the L7700.

[kfzhu1229]

Interesting. I've read about these CPU conversions, but having two of them, with side-by-side comparisons with a real PGA chip, is simply amazing.

The more interesting thing for me though is the fact that the two T8300 that are BGA converted are using slightly different techniques too!
Technically if someone is interested in upgrading the CPU in their X61 then this is a great buy because it's an actual BGA479 chip!
But what chip you get is kinda a lottery. I got 3 different SKUs lol

[axur-delmeria]

Technically if someone is interested in upgrading the CPU in their X61 then this is a great buy

Is it a great buy though? You still have to remove all 470+ pins. :O

I have two dead X61 boards... with the dreaded T7500. I wonder if it's possible to remove those CPUs without wrecking them when all I have are:

1. flat iron with a broken thermostat (heating element still works, used it to remove some heatpipes from laptop heatsinks)

2. toaster oven with broken timer.

3. beginner-grade combo soldering station (iron + hot air).

[kfzhu1229]

Is it a great buy though? You still have to remove all 470+ pins. :O

I have two dead X61 boards... with the dreaded T7500. I wonder if it's possible to remove those CPUs without wrecking them when all I have are:

1. flat iron with a broken thermostat (heating element still works, used it to remove some heatpipes from laptop heatsinks)

2. toaster oven with broken timer.

3. beginner-grade combo soldering station (iron + hot air).

Depends on if you want the CPU to survive or you want the motherboard to survive.
Removing pins on these CPU's shouldn't be too hard. You heat the whole bottom up and then you use a screwdriver to smear all the pins away.
However if you wanna use the CPU for BGA purposes, getting the balls ready is a bigger challenge and you need one of those masks and some really good patience to pull this off.
If you wanna see if the motherboard would work with another CPU, I guess finding a pre-balled BGA chip is a better idea with your equipments.
I would wanna say try a POST diagnostic card to see if the CPU is actually faulty if the motherboard doesn't beep, but then I realise X6x systems use PCI express in their dock instead of PCI so the POST card won't work...

[axur-delmeria]

Depends on if you want the CPU to survive or you want the motherboard to survive.
Removing pins on these CPU's shouldn't be too hard. You heat the whole bottom up and then you use a screwdriver to smear all the pins away.
However if you wanna use the CPU for BGA purposes, getting the balls ready is a bigger challenge and you need one of those masks and some really good patience to pull this off.
If you wanna see if the motherboard would work with another CPU, I guess finding a pre-balled BGA chip is a better idea with your equipments.
I would wanna say try a POST diagnostic card to see if the CPU is actually faulty if the motherboard doesn't beep, but then I realise X6x systems use PCI express in their dock instead of PCI so the POST card won't work...

The CPUs are the priority. The boards are defective (one has a weird error beep code that doesn't exist in the documents I've found), while the other shuts down immediately upon power-on. Though TBH I'm not sure what to do with them, as the only working X61 I have has a T8100, nor do I have other laptops have have a 35W Core 2 BGA inside (the others are X61T's and an X60s, and definitely won't support the T7500).

I do have a Dell Inspiron 1525, but it's Socket P and has a T5800 inside. It has a number of issues (broken LCD, dead battery), so I'm not too inclined to upgrade/refurbish it. Besides, the lack of Trackpoint annoys me.

Also, the X6 Ultrabase doesn't have any PCI/PCIe lanes at all.

[kfzhu1229]

The CPUs are the priority. The boards are defective (one has a weird error beep code that doesn't exist in the documents I've found), while the other shuts down immediately upon power-on. Though TBH I'm not sure what to do with them, as the only working X61 I have has a T8100, nor do I have other laptops have have a 35W Core 2 BGA inside (the others are X61T's and an X60s, and definitely won't support the T7500).

I do have a Dell Inspiron 1525, but it's Socket P and has a T5800 inside. It has a number of issues (broken LCD, dead battery), so I'm not too inclined to upgrade/refurbish it. Besides, the lack of Trackpoint annoys me.

Also, the X6 Ultrabase doesn't have any PCI/PCIe lanes at all.

I suppose you can try harvesting one of the boards of the T7500. Taking the CPU out of the motherboard without preserving the motherboard is easy enough, you can just bake the whole motherboard and then yank the cpu out, but putting pins back on can be a very tedious process if you are to hand solder 478 pins. With a fine tip soldering iron it's definitely possible as you can work your way from the top left to the right and then down so you always have space to put the legs in.
Though for the latter x61 board that you describe as shuts down immediately upon power on, there's a chance the CPU is actually the fault.
Taking the CPU out while preserving the motherboard but not the CPU is also not too difficult. You just blast 500C of hot air on the CPU and then rip it out.

As for the Inspiron 1525, from someone totally fluent with Dell laptops from the 2000s by now, it's a piece of junk... There is a huge difference between the Inspiron 1520 and the Inspiron 1525... You might think the latter is an upgrade to the former, but no. The 1525 is newer, but the Inspiron 1520 was a flagship device while by the time 1525 came out Dell shifted the flagship consumer line to the XPS so the 1525 is literally acer quality, while the 1520 has proper build quality with magnesium lid, magnesium bottom cover and steel hinges.