p2b voltage reg replacement

[Paul R. Hunt]

I have a p2b-ls rev. 1.02 (minus the Lan...).

To facilitate a CPU upgrade, I am planning on replacing the voltage
reg. chip. The board has the HIP6004A, and I have obtained the
replacement HIP6004BCB. From what I've seen in the data sheets the
chips are identical except that the BCB regulates to 1.3V where the
ACB only goes to 1.8V.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done this mod. Aside from
the details of desoldering and resoldering the chip, are there any
other considerations? eg are there any other components (eg power
mosfets, caps) that need replacing. Any other tips?

Thanks!

Regards, Paul.

 

[FrankG]

Hey Paul,
Other than being careful about desoldering and resoldering I don't think you
need to replace anything else. I had considered doing the same thing on
my P2B-S rev 1.02. But I decided that 1.8 volts is good enough of a voltage
to run my celeron 600 @ 900 considering it uses 1.7 volts.
I did a mod to a Slotket adapter to allow me to run the celeron.
I just shorted pins A119 to A120. It tells the slotket to use 1.8 volts
instead of 1.7 volts. Here is the info in case your curious.
http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_procupgrade_faq.html

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

Frank

 

[P2B]

I have a p2b-ls rev. 1.02 (minus the Lan...).

To facilitate a CPU upgrade, I am planning on replacing the voltage
reg. chip. The board has the HIP6004A, and I have obtained the
replacement HIP6004BCB. From what I've seen in the data sheets the
chips are identical except that the BCB regulates to 1.3V where the
ACB only goes to 1.8V.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done this mod. Aside from
the details of desoldering and resoldering the chip, are there any
other considerations? eg are there any other components (eg power
mosfets, caps) that need replacing. Any other tips?

Thanks!

Regards, Paul.

I've upgraded many P2B-xx regulators, and the HIP6004BCB is indeed
completely pin compatible so no other component changes are required.
Asus made no other changes to the VRM circuitry when they started using
BCB regulators on the later P2B revisions as far as I've been able to
determine. Note that this modification would only be required if you
plan on upgrading to a Tualatin processor - all Coppermine processors
will safely run on the 1.8v provided by the existing regulator.

I usually change the clock generator as well when upgrading older P2Bs
with onboard SCSI as the existing chip is limited to 112Mhz FSB, whereas
an ICS9250-08 is pin-compatible and capable of up to 150Mhz FSB. The
early-stepping BX chipsets are rarely stable at 150Mhz, but stability at
133Mhz is virtually guaranteed and 140Mhz is probable.

You may find my P2B modification site interesting:

http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod

HTH

P2B

 

[Paul]

Hey Paul,
Other than being careful about desoldering and resoldering I don't think you
need to replace anything else. I had considered doing the same thing on
my P2B-S rev 1.02. But I decided that 1.8 volts is good enough of a voltage
to run my celeron 600 @ 900 considering it uses 1.7 volts.
I did a mod to a Slotket adapter to allow me to run the celeron.
I just shorted pins A119 to A120. It tells the slotket to use 1.8 volts
instead of 1.7 volts. Here is the info in case your curious.
http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_procupgrade_faq.html

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

Frank

Considering the general availability of Tualatins, a Powerleap
gets you an adapter and a processor at the same time. All you need
is to update the BIOS, before installing the Powerleap.

http://powerleap.com/PL-iP3T.html
PL-iP3/T 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron $99.95

With the 1.1/100/256KB processor, you can take a shot at overclocking
to 1.46/133, but as the AGP is 2/3rds of 133, you'll need an AGP
card that can hack 89MHz. Just avoid any of the current generation
ATI9800/5900 style cards, as some of them only go to 75MHz, or
so I've read. ( Look up Celeron Tualatin 1100 FCPGA2 on this site:
http://www.cpudatabase.com/CPUdb/ - the majority of overclocking
efforts succeed and give you better memory bandwidth, which is the
main benefit.)

I've done the mod on my P2B-S, and had trouble with only one
pin. There is a pad on the board, with no track running to it,
and that one is all too easy to tear off the board. No harm is
done, other than the cosmetic issue, as the pin isn't used.
I used a cheaper upgradeware slocket, but the cost of parts
and tools for the mod was more than the cost of the Powerleap
above - fun, but a bad deal.

You could get some chipquik, a low temp soldering alloy, and
if you melt some of that on each pin, it reduces the melting
point of the metal puddle that forms. That can make removal
a bit easier, by pulling a piece of dental floss between the
pin and the pad, while the modified solder is molten.

Paul

 

[P2B]

Considering the general availability of Tualatins, a Powerleap
gets you an adapter and a processor at the same time. All you need
is to update the BIOS, before installing the Powerleap.

http://powerleap.com/PL-iP3T.html
PL-iP3/T 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron $99.95

With the 1.1/100/256KB processor, you can take a shot at overclocking
to 1.46/133,

Not on a P2B-LS 1.02 - unless he changes the clock generator, FSB is
limited to 112Mhz.

but as the AGP is 2/3rds of 133, you'll need an AGP
card that can hack 89MHz. Just avoid any of the current generation
ATI9800/5900 style cards, as some of them only go to 75MHz, or
so I've read. ( Look up Celeron Tualatin 1100 FCPGA2 on this site:
http://www.cpudatabase.com/CPUdb/ - the majority of overclocking
efforts succeed and give you better memory bandwidth, which is the
main benefit.)

I've done the mod on my P2B-S, and had trouble with only one
pin. There is a pad on the board, with no track running to it,
and that one is all too easy to tear off the board. No harm is
done, other than the cosmetic issue, as the pin isn't used.
I used a cheaper upgradeware slocket, but the cost of parts
and tools for the mod was more than the cost of the Powerleap
above - fun, but a bad deal.

You could get some chipquik, a low temp soldering alloy, and
if you melt some of that on each pin, it reduces the melting
point of the metal puddle that forms. That can make removal
a bit easier, by pulling a piece of dental floss between the
pin and the pad, while the modified solder is molten.

Chipquik is great stuff, makes surface mount rework easy without special
tools. Using copious amounts of paste flux and chipquik, you can get the
chip to float in the resulting puddle at only 300F. Chipquik can be
reused several times before the added solder raises it's melting point
to higher a than desirable temperature.

Dental floss works well but tends to bend the pins - not a problem if
the chip will be discarded, but due to limited availability of these
parts, it's often necessary to transplant chips. I use stainless steel
matrix bands (ask your dentist) or automotive feeler gauges. Solder
won't stick to stainless steel, and a strip .020" or thinner will slide
under the chip body and allow it to be lifted off the board without
bending pins.

P2B

 

[P2B]

I have a p2b-ls rev. 1.02 (minus the Lan...).

To facilitate a CPU upgrade, I am planning on replacing the voltage
reg. chip. The board has the HIP6004A, and I have obtained the
replacement HIP6004BCB. From what I've seen in the data sheets the
chips are identical except that the BCB regulates to 1.3V where the
ACB only goes to 1.8V.

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done this mod. Aside from
the details of desoldering and resoldering the chip, are there any
other considerations? eg are there any other components (eg power
mosfets, caps) that need replacing. Any other tips?

Thanks!

Regards, Paul.

Paul,

I wrote a detailed reply to your private email, but your ISP rejected it
because my (dynamic) IP address is on your ISP's anti-spam blacklist.

My ISP is the biggest in Canada, so inevitably has a large number of
clients infected with spammer's trojans at any given time - nothing I
can do about it apart from running desktop firewalls and spyware
scanners etc. to ensure my systems are not contributing to the problem.

Aggressive blacklisting certainly reduces the volume of spam delivered
to end users, but it becomes counterproductive when it results in large
ISPs blocking each other.

We may be forced to continue the discussion here.

P2B

 

[Paul Hunt]

I have a p2b-ls rev. 1.02 (minus the Lan...).

To facilitate a CPU upgrade, I am planning on replacing the voltage
reg. chip. The board has the HIP6004A, and I have obtained the
replacement HIP6004BCB. From what I've seen in the data sheets the
chips are identical except that the BCB regulates to 1.3V where the
ACB only goes to 1.8V.

OK, I've performed the transplant. Not the most fun I've had with a
soldering iron, but all seems to work OK. I've got a Slot-T and am
waiting on delivery of a Tualatin Celeron 1.3GHz (possibly 1.4Ghz).

Thanks to the info on P2B's web site, I'm going to patch the BIOS with
the current microcode. The clock generator on my board only goes to
112MHz, but I'm not going to attempt an upgrade.

There are FSB jumpers on the Slot-T. Why?

Will let you know how it all works out. Thanks for responses so far!

Regards, Paul.

 

[P2B]

OK, I've performed the transplant. Not the most fun I've had with a
soldering iron, but all seems to work OK. I've got a Slot-T and am
waiting on delivery of a Tualatin Celeron 1.3GHz (possibly 1.4Ghz).

Thanks to the info on P2B's web site, I'm going to patch the BIOS with
the current microcode. The clock generator on my board only goes to
112MHz, but I'm not going to attempt an upgrade.

There are FSB jumpers on the Slot-T. Why?

They can be used to override the FSB request from the processor to the
motherboard, in the same way the voltage jumpers override the
processor's VID request. These jumpers will have no effect on your board
since the P2B series uses motherboard jumpers to set the FSB and ignores
the processor's FSB request.

 

[( aka iCefoX )]

I am amazed to see there is still a lot of meaningful discussion on this borad in the age of 2004.

I haven't done a lot of research, I am still using a P2BF with an overclocked Celeron 300 running at 450Mhz... for
basic stuff, it's fine.

Given the fact that there is a lot of Celeron at beyond 1G Hz speed at dirt cheap price, I always want to buy one an
enjoy the speed bump.

May I know what is the easiest route for me to get some extra speed out of the P2B-F?

 

[kmchow]

The simplest is to get an Abit slotket if you have an older version of the
P2B-F. The highest cpu is the 1ghz Celeron (forget powerleap for Tualatin
support-too expensive!!!). If you're lucky, if you have good AGP card, PC133
ram and 1Ghz cpu, you can overclock to 1.3Ghz!! If you manage that, that's
incredible for a '98 era mb!!

I am amazed to see there is still a lot of meaningful discussion on this borad in the age of 2004.

I haven't done a lot of research, I am still using a P2BF with an

overclocked Celeron 300 running at 450Mhz... for

basic stuff, it's fine.

Given the fact that there is a lot of Celeron at beyond 1G Hz speed at

dirt cheap price, I always want to buy one an

 

[P2B]

I am amazed to see there is still a lot of meaningful discussion on this borad in the age of 2004.

I haven't done a lot of research, I am still using a P2BF with an overclocked Celeron 300 running at 450Mhz... for
basic stuff, it's fine.

Given the fact that there is a lot of Celeron at beyond 1G Hz speed at dirt cheap price, I always want to buy one an
enjoy the speed bump.

May I know what is the easiest route for me to get some extra speed out of the P2B-F?

Your upgrade options depend on the revision level of your board. All the
details are in Roland's FAQ:

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_procupgrade_faq.html