68LC040 -> 68040 upgrade

My guess is it's either the System version you're running (if older, it may need a different System Enabler to make use of the full '040) or your version of Norton is too old to recognize the 040 FPU.

Wow - Norton Utilities 1.1 is pretty darned old. I wonder if the '040 family of CPUs even existed when 1.1 was released. If not, then that's probably your problem, because prior to the '040, FPUs were separate chips. So Norton 1.1 might not "know" how to find an FPU that's integrated into the CPU, and may just be telling you that there's no separate FPU chip installed.

So anyway, my first suspicion would be that. Get a more recent version, or better yet just download and install TattleTech - it will give you detailed hardware info.

Other than that, there are a few other possibilities, but I think they're all pretty remote:

- Defective 68040 CPU - though I tend to doubt that, as it probably just wouldn't boot at all.

- If it's got a heatsink and you haven't removed it to look underneath, it could be that it's a 68LC040. People sometimes accidentally (or intentionally!) sell 'LC040s as full '040s. But again I doubt that. (And forgive me if you're already certain it's a full '040 - no offense to your Mac knowledge intended!)

- It could be that the CPU isn't pushed down all the way - this happened to me the first time I did such a swap. Again, though, I doubt that, as the machine might not even boot if that were the case.

- Finally, there could be a System Software problem that has been revealed by the new '040 CPU, but again I find this doubtful.

At any rate, good luck and let us know what happens.

Best,
Matt

Thanks for all thre replies and sorry for taking so long to get back to this.

I had no idea that this version of Norton's was so old. I did try downloading TattleTech, and that does detect the full '040 and reports the presence of the FPU.
I don't know if any of my 'regular' software other than Norton's sees or utilises the FPU. I've been thinking of hacking the gestalt ID of this Mac with something like "Wish I Were" to fool the MacOS into believing it's on a Quadra or something (i.e. something that came with the full '040 originally) and seeing what difference it makes. I might also look into messing around with the System Enablers.

As for the CPU being properly seated I think it's all right. There is a slight gap between the CPU and socket, through which I can catch a glimpse of all the gold pins, but it won't push down any further - at least not with the amount of force I feel comfortable using.

On a different note, my 68040 processor did not come with a fan or heatsink, though there were some smears of heat-conducting paste on it that show one was once present. Should I look into fitting a heatsink and/or fan (power might be tricky, though) onto it, or will it be fine as-is?

The real test for this '040 will, however, be when I break out my Debian Linux CDs.

Thanks.

All your software is indeed making use of the FPU - it's just that Norton 1.1 isn't reporting it. If Tattletech sees it, you're definitely good to go.

As far as Gestalt ID hacking, no need - I (and many other folks on these forums) have done the same '040 swap numerous times and we can assure you there's no need to report a different Gestalt ID to the OS in order for the FPU to be detected by the OS.

As for the heatsink, there's a diversity of opinion on that. The general consensus is that an '040 running at 25MHz (or less) doesn't need one, and that an '040 running at 33MHz (or more) needs one, or at least could benefit from one. This consensus is, I believe, drawn roughly from what Apple itself did - i.e. most machines with 33MHz or faster full '040 CPUs came with heatsinks, while most with 20 or 25MHz '040s didn't. There were exceptions, of course (the Quadra 700 comes to mind), but that seems to have been Apple's rule of thumb.

Personally, I've run 33MHz '040s in a number of Mystic Color Classics, some with heatsinks and some without, and have noticed no differences in performance or reliability.

Best,
Matt

Hi guys,

I wanted to get my Quadra 605 back on the business with a linux port for the 68K, like Debian. But I needed a Motorola 68040 with FPU to replace my old 68LC040. So I need to know is:

1) Is there any problem on swapping a LC processor that ran on 25 MHz with a full '040 running on 40 MHz?

2) Is this the fastest a '040 will go on a Macintosh?

3) Where would I find this processor to buy?

- I recently ran a search on eBay and Google, and found practically no one selling it. The only one I found was a 68040 running at 33 MHz. Since these chips are supposed to be cheap nowadays, I wanted to buy a 40 MHz or even possibly a 50 MHz (is does exists).

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys,

I wanted to get my Quadra 605 back on the business with a linux port for the 68K, like Debian. But I needed a Motorola 68040 with FPU to replace my old 68LC040. So I need to know is:

1) Is there any problem on swapping a LC processor that ran on 25 MHz with a full '040 running on 40 MHz?

2) Is this the fastest a '040 will go on a Macintosh?

3) Where would I find this processor to buy?

- I recently ran a search on eBay and Google, and found practically no one selling it. The only one I found was a 68040 running at 33 MHz. Since these chips are supposed to be cheap nowadays, I wanted to buy a 40 MHz or even possibly a 50 MHz (is does exists).

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

1) No problem doing that swap - but the 40MHz full '040 CPU will run at 25MHz. The speed of the '040 is determined by the motherboard of the host computer. The 40MHz designation of the CPU chip itself is just its rated capacity/official max speed.

2) Aside from a manual overclocking, and some rare and expensive upgrade boards, 40MHz is the top speed for an '040 CPU. But again, yours will run at 25MHz if that's the clock speed set by the recipient machine's system bus.

3) Keep checking eBay. Normally I would say you should join the Low End Mac swap list and post at WTB request there, but LEM Swap has been closed to new subscribers for a while. You can, however, access the most recent LEM Swap postings on lowendmac.com's web site. So you can monitor those for awhile to see if anyone's selling a full '040.

Or you can just go on eBay and buy a Centris 650, or a Quadra 650 or 700. All three are very inexpensive and contain removable full '040 CPUs.

Best,
Matt

Hi,

Since there is no easy way for me to run a Quadra 605 at 40MHz, is there a way to wap the motherboard with another computer in order to run at 40Mhz?

I was thinkinh of swapping the motherboard of the 605 with something like a 840av that I know runs at 40Mhz.

Does anyone know if this is possible or even plain stupidity?

TIA,
Ivan

The 840av mobo won't fit in the 605 case,and the 605 powersupply probably won't be big enough to power it. The 605/475 is the top of the line for the pizzabox LCs. They also have some of the smallest mobos for their speed of most any 68k Mac but a PowerBook. You can O/C the 605/475 mobo some, but all-in-all you gain little. It's still slow compared to anything made within the last 10 years. Pushing it harder will only make it have a shorter lifespan.

Thank you Jon,
So I guess I will just stick with the 25MHz motherboard of my 605 and just find a way to swap the LC chip with a full '040 processor.

I must be crazy, but I just love this Mac from the old days.
I am very much interested in pushing a Linux on it to give it a try and maybe resurrect a believed-to-be-junk and put it to some good use. I am thinking of a word processing machine or an e-mail client for my mother. I've put a Ethernet PDS card on it to be able to gain access to a broadband internet access service.

OT: Do you think that with a linux I will be able to access the internet with the 605 or the results are gonna be much better with the old Apple System OS? Or is it just dumb to go on that road nowadays?

Thanks again for the info on that!

Best Regards,
Ivan

Internet access will be slow no matter what OS you use. Mac OS will be the most lean and fastest GUI for the 605, but you are severly limited on what software you can run. Linux or BetBSD or OpenBSD will let you use X Windows and modern software, but it'll be a RAM hog and slower than Mac OS. If you just want to do light web surfing and general email and wp tasks, the 605 running 7.6 or 8.1 should be fine. Any web work that does animation or much Java/JavaScript or Flash is out of the question. THat includes many of web-based email services. Yahoo! Mail might and Google Gmail would certainly choke the machine, no matter what you ran. There are several older mail clients like Eudora that are well liked.

To run Linus you're gonna need the full 68040 chip. THere is a custom version of NetBSD that will run on the 68LC040 machines, but it's not official and supported (well, it's just a recompile of the regular NetBSD, but...) and the 605 has that nice socketed CPU so the swap is really easy.

EDIT: I just tried Gmail w/ the JavaScript capable text webbrowser Links2, which is available for Linux and the BSDs, and Gmail worked. This is on a P-90 laptop. I guess a 605 running Links in textmode should be useable, but reading and using it w/ ll the links Gmail sticks on a page sucks. A real Mac mail client under Mac OS, that goes through POP to Gmail would be much much better.

If you want colorful and graphical and user friendly and all that rot, (*)nix on a machine that weak just isn't somewhere you want to go. The one application it could handle *reasonably* well is being a thin-client/X Terminal networked to a more powerful machine. That would let you "run", or at least display, reasonable modern applications on it. However, with only a 256 color display, basically unusable sound (under Linux or xBSD), and a one-button mouse it's still going to have some irksome limitations.

--Peace

Sorry to resurrect a late model thread, but I've come accross some very interesting information:

The 605s will accept a single-banked 64mb or 128mb SIMM.

Want a 33MHz 68040 box?
1. Swap the processor with a 68040
2: remove the SMT resistor from R21, and solder it onto R24
3: remove the SMT resistor from R25, and solder it onto R22

Want 40Mhz? This is a little trickier, and looks like the original link is broken, but I think all the info is there...

Web archive of Gabezing Room with info from http://www.applefritter.com/node/5508.

totally...

Try this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040723063623/http://gabezing.sytes.net/lc575-40mhz-e.html

Stuart

驚くばかり!
ありがとう
本当にありがとう

____
edit

Japanese is a hilarious language... almost as funny as Spanish.
Thanks for the updated page!

NetBSD will now do the FPU functions in software, so you don't need the full 040 if you can't find one.