[SPARCbook] Upgrading GS to GX?

[Sunder]

Yeah, you shouldn't have any problems unless you have commercial software
that registers itself to your hostid.  In which case, you would have to
move the NVRAM. :)

The reason for this is that my old 3GS has a working mouse pointer, which
I've repaired by replacing the mouse pointer from an IBM keyboard and
splicing the wires in.  The 3GX which is my main machine, had a dead
pointer and was swapping the two.

Out of curiosity, since I'm using the 3GS for parts, I popped up the CPU
board.  I've noticed that some of the chips on the motherboard were
labeled 3XP - as in the 640x480 85Mhz, version of the Sparcbook 3 series.

So apparently all the parts from the 3XP, 3GS, 3GX are interchangeable
(except of course for the 640x480 display on the 3XP's, and possible Open
Boot PROM version differences.)

Also the keyboard in the 3GX said "S3XP/US" as well.  I did get something
interesting out of the 3GX keyboard.  There's a second sticker that says
"Product Converted to 600515-US by Keytronic 1996"

So for those of us in search of replacement keyboards that 600515-US might
be useful.  (I recall someone here tracking down the last store of
replacement keyboards and finding out that they too were out of
stock.  Maybe with this info, we can find another source?)

Meanwhile, since I did take the old 3GS CPU out, I'm considering
attempting to clock chip it up to at least 100MHz.  The crystal on these
is half the CPU speed.  So the 3GS has a 42.500MHz crystal, and the 3GX
has a 55MHz crystal.  I wasn't able to find a 55Mhz crystal, but I was
able to find a 50MHz one at www.jdr.com.  If I have the time and
inclination, I might just try it.  I don't expect it to work as these
aren't PC's, but it's worth a shot at least.

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--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------

On Mon, 5 Jun 2000, Rainer Canavan wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I just recieved a (broken) SPARCbook 3GX to replace the display of my
> 3GS, and I was wondering if I could replace the CPU, once I have that thing
> open - which is a lot easier than I thought, as one really only has to 
> remove the screws and unplug a few wires. 
> 
> The quarz is on the board with CPU+memory, so this is not a problem, but
> I wonder if I have to change the hostid, like one has to do when upgrading
> a SPARCClassic X to something that really talks to SCSI devices.
> 
> I'd guess that the bus multiplier is fixed by the CPU board, so I'm not
> expecting problems in that direction. What\s the bus clock anyway for the
> SPARCBooks?