[tonton]

http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/~fwid88...4/ClockUP.html

Check this out! They've overclocked a PBG4 500 to 550 MHz. Cool.

But look again! They've also overclocked a PBG4 400 to 540 MHz on a 120MHz system bus!!! This is freaking incredible! Are these G4 400 chips actually higher spec, but Apple just used them at a slower speed for marketing purposes? I wouldn't expect a 400MHz chip to be clockable to 540MHz. I'm starting to feel lucky I didn't spend the extra $800 for the 500! What do you suppose is the dependability of this procedure?

[cjno]

An english version of this site will be cool :-(
But if I understood, bus upgraded is made by strapping the mother board, and CPU overclocking by removing or adding some resistors.

[dawaves]

Oh MY F****n god!!!!

This is Great news!!!

Now I just need to learn Japanese :-0....

Any Japanese people in Japan, please translate!!!!

THX

[This message has been edited by dawaves (edited 03-26-2001).]

[ddiokno]

As always, a disclaimer must be added to those new to Apple and the Mac (all of the veterans know this already, but should still heed the warning)... THIS VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY, SO BE CAREFUL... and sometimes the speed that is yielded isn't worth the stability issues, heat, and other intangibles...
That being said, it is exciting... let us know how it goes, I know this is definitely not for the faint of heart...
dave

[This message has been edited by ddiokno (edited 03-26-2001).]

[Milio]

Overclocking creates more heat. Aren't these things hot enough for you already?

[mycatsnameis]

Are these G4 400 chips actually
higher spec, but Apple just used them at a slower speed for marketing purposes?

This is exactly what I speculated when I posted a Ti overclocking thread bakc in Jan or Feb.

I figured that Apple would be in such a hurry to get the Ti's out the door that, combined with the higher demand for 400 models, they were bound to have to underclock a few 500's in that batch.

I figured that just about everyone would be able to get an extra 50mHz out of their processors (whether or not that is worthwhile is debatable) but that there would likely be a significant number of 400 owners who'd be able to get it up to 550. I'm still not convinced that I'd do it (not that I can speak Japanese either) but I'm glad that the info is out there.

Tonton, are you sure that they've OC'd the 400 up to 540? Why the increased bus speed I wonder?

Again, any translation would be much appreciated.

catman

[tonton]

I figured that Apple would be in such a hurry to get the Ti's out the door that, combined with the higher demand for 400 models, they were bound to have to underclock a few 500's in that batch.

The 400's and 500's are completely different iterations of the PPC 7410, probably from different fabs. Call the 400's 7410 "lite" if you like. Besides being clocked lower, the 400's do not have a built-in temperature gauge. That's how I know the 540MHz chip shown is a 400, because Gauge Pro can't read the temperature. This is the telltale sign of the 400. Also note Gauge Pro lists the processor as "unknown" while the 500's are fully identifiable as 7410's.

I just had an idea. Overclock a bunch of 400's, throw in a 20 MB HD and 128MB more RAM, and you can try to pass it off as an Apple stock 500, at a tidy profit.

I figured that just about everyone would be able to get an extra 50mHz out of their processors (whether or not that is worthwhile is debatable) but that there would likely be a significant number of 400 owners who'd be able to get it up to 550.

And I don't expect current fabs to be putting out many 400MHz PPC chips these days. They're far enough along with fabbing the 500's that there are very, very few that don't pass that spec.

Tonton, are you sure that they've OC'd the 400 up to 540? Why the increased bus speed I wonder?

Who wouldn't want a faster bus speed? Slap PC 133 RAM in there and you'll have a pretty quick little system. Of course, the fan will be on all the time and the battery will last a full hour less, but there are certain things one would expect to have to sacrifice after all... besides their warranty. You never get something for nothing.

The only machine I ever overclocked was my pizza box LCIII (I still love that design) which I bumped from 25MHz '030 to a blazing fast 33. Worked like a charm! Of course at the time I asked someone to do the soldering for me, as I'm not very experienced in that field.

I could easily have the TiBook done here in Hong Kong with proper instructions. There's a whole street full of electonics component shops and plenty of street corner engineers with TV and electronics repair stands. These guys are "solder soldiers", having lost their factory jobs when the factories all moved up north to China. Maybe when my warranty is out there's a decent future for my TiBook. Of course, by then we'll have "Lightning quick" 850 MHz G4's.

[mycatsnameis]

"Lightning quick", LOL. You've been over at MOSR too often. Don't forget that they'll be DP Ti's by then too .

I hadn't heard that distinction re: the 400 vs. the 500 before. From all the initial reports I had read, it seemed that none of the machines were showing a temp regardless of the processor speed. Have you got any links where I can learn more about this?

catman

[fobside]

i can have my roomate translate this for me...but where did the pictures go? ill post once i ask him what all this means...DOH! i just remembered im on spring break and i wont get to talk to him til hes back...oh well. i will post as soon as i can about this.

------------------
I used to use a PC.

[tullamore]

Originally posted by mycatsnameis:
From all the initial reports I had read, it seemed that none of the machines were showing a temp regardless of the processor speed. Have you got any links where I can learn more about this?

catman[/B]

I have a Ti 500 and I do get temperature reading from new programs. I still wonder about the acuracy sometimes but here is a topic I started to discuss the temperatures.
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/001966.html

[mycatsnameis]

I figure all you guys will have seen this over at MOSR by now but I thought I'd post it here for teh sake of completeness.

http://www.voelker.com/service/void/powerbook/

These guys have provided the hack (in very tempting detail) to OC a 400 to 500.

It's so friggin' simple it makes me want to barf. What the hell is Apple doing, are all teh machines shipping with the same processor? All you have to do is "unsolder" one resistor and stick back right next door and boom ... there's your 500 machine with no obvious change in stability or temp.

This makes me think about that class action suit against Bausch & Laum (sp?) where they were selling the same contact lens for 3 radically different prices and pretending that they were all different products. Someone please tell me that Apple is not actually doing this.

catman

[This message has been edited by mycatsnameis (edited 03-30-2001).]

Hmm... the Voelker guys seem to have made an error in their description. They're pointing to a different row of resistors (which were obviously the ones that were modified) in the pictures than they're mentioning in the text...

[tonton]

Originally posted by sniesen:
Hmm... the Voelker guys seem to have made an error in their description. They're pointing to a different row of resistors (which were obviously the ones that were modified) in the pictures than they're mentioning in the text...

You're right.

[This message has been edited by tonton (edited 03-30-2001).]

[mycatsnameis]

Well I'm no hardware-head but I believe that they made a comment in there that the resistor labels are "offset" somewhat. Perhaps this explains the apparent discrepency.

Someone should email them at the convenient address they provide and ask them for a clarification .

catman

[tonton]

I did email them, as I thought this was a serious issue. The pen in the photo is clearly pointing at resistor No. 217, when it should be pointing at 218. Notice the line pointing the printed number R226 pointing to the right? The labels are all to the left of the solder points, not to the right as they appear.

[tonton]

Hah! Just noticed this:

"There will be a group of resistors - R217, R221, R225 - located near the bottom case screw stud post.
Don't confuse the silk screen labeling with the resistor set indicated by R218, R222, R226. Follow the white line from R217, R221 and R225 as illustrated by the red circle in the image below. "

and

"3/30/01 - 9:00am MST
Added image to clarify/correct the resistor labeling."

Kudos to sneisen for pointing this out. I even briefly posted that I thought he was wrong until I looked more closely. Notice the "edited" notice on my post?

[Titanium Man]

If you can't understand simple instructions, you're not a good candidate for this mod. It's quite simple. See that line under the pen tip? That connects the silkscreen labels to the resistor locations. It's not a matter of misalignment, there's just not enough room next to the resistors.

Aside from that, it's not a simple mod. The photos are very enlarged. This SMT resistor is actually about the size of a pinhead. I may give it a shot after my warranty ends, but only because I have experience doing some SMT reworking on some of my older systems.

gentlemen...I am sorry to point that to you but if you need translation from japanese please go to
babelfish.altavista.com and choose japanese to english and type the URL
doens t everybody knows that?

'Go with Mac my son, be safe from Evil'
Fox-one�, Knight of the Holy Church of Macintosh...part of the new Apple Evangelists

[fobside]

my roomate said it doesnt say anything about how to overclock and that its just a description of each picture...since i dont know japanese...ill refrain from commenting.

------------------
I used to use a PC.

Hmm... I'm about to try this on my Ti after all. There's just one more question: All the Ti 400s Voelker has done this to have a PPC 7410 rev 1.3, mine has a PPC 7410 rev 1.2 as most 400s I know of have.

My Ti was built on Feb., 26th.

What are your CPU revisions and did anyone with a rev 1.2 Ti try the procedure yet?

Sebastian

[tooki]

Ergh... I didn't catch this topic earlier... this squarely belongs in the Mac Modification forum.... moving it there.

tooki

[tonton]

Well it was a PowerBook specific thread wasn't it? And no one visits this forum.

Believe it or not it's possible that some threads fit multiple categories...

Here's a couple of updates on our Speed Bump project, hopefully not too long winded;

*Successful OC to 550Mhz
Our original test unit(400Mhz, Rev1.3, 7410, 100Mhz bus, firmware updated) is now working great at 550Mhz. No Bus speed change applied, just the CPU. Details at the Voelker Research website in the next day or so. (As soon as I have some time I'll double check the PLL_CFG[0-3] multipliers for all the speed possibilities and post my findings. Maybe a bus multiplier map as well...)

*7410 Processor info/differences
Some of you have commented on or asked about the differences between the 400 and 500 processors. The Hardware Specification Doc from Motorola makes no distinction between the feature sets at the various speeds - - they're all MPC7410's out of the current product line. All have a Thermal Assist Units as well(based on what I read). Here's the links to the spec pages so you can read for yourselves;
http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps...=M950644686128
From this information, it appears that up to 600Mhz processors are in the works for the Motorola product line and perhaps forthcoming from Apple.

*Processor ID and Temp readings from Guage Pro
- Guage Pro v1.1 properly identifies the processor type and rev on our test unit at stock, 500 and 550Mhz. All report "PowerPC 7410 (G4)"
- Temperatures are still goofy as with all MPC74XX processors I've seen. See the Errata regarding erroneous TAU unit readings on our site.
- Our test unit reports CPU temp of appx 78-86 deg F.

*Translation for the Japanese site listed above
- Go to http://world.altavista.com/ and have babel fish translate it for you!(not much better than the japanese, but sorta helpful)

*Ongoing
Would still love to get to the bottom of the processor Rev's in different machines sold around the world/original speeds/original configs, whacky temperature readings, bus speed tweaks, and heat sink variances if anyone has more info.

Hope this helps
Rich Voelker
[email protected]

I just did this procedure to my G4/400 Ti Book. Works like a charm, though I still want to do some more heavy load testing.

My CPU is a rev 1.2 7410.


The whole procedure took about 5 minutes.

Another thing, as someone was having trouble with an overclocked rev. 1.2 and MacOS X: On my machine OSX works as flawlessly as it did before. No kernel panics upon startup.

[neutermonk]

So will the Voelker guys be updating their page to give more details on getting up to 550mHz? Or possibly any bus speed changes and maybe some results from Macbench or Norton? I'm definitely going to do the mod, just not sure how far or which way to go yet...

Is you got the 400 MHz Version, and are curious, just bump it to 500 MHz as it is easily done, if you have halfway steady hands and a fine soldering iron.

The speed increase is definitely noticeable. Since MacBench is not made for G4s it doesn't give away too much information speedwise.

Just try some "real life" applications, like creating an MP3 from a CD in iTunes, and you'll probably gasp at the speed gain.