TF1260-got a Rev.5 68060 let's see if it can overclock and run stable with the latest Alpha firmware & compare it to my Cyberstorm MKIII in my Amiga 4000 !!!

Was lucky to find a full Rev5. 68060 (FPU & MMU) recently without having to sell my kidney lol I was originally thinking to put into my Amiga 4000 BUT then I realized the headache of taking it apart to get to my Cyberstorm MKIII by Phase5 (the  CPU connector isn't fun to take off...) and thought my Rev.1 has been rocking for decades in my A4k so better to try overclocking it in my Amiga 1200 Tower via my TF1260!

First to carefully take off my Rev.1 68060:

-I used to use a small flat head screwdriver and s-l-o-w-l-y lift up each edge until eventually it would come off without bending any pins but luckily I found a removal tool on AmiBay that makes the operation so much quicker and most importantly it has alot more support on each edge of the CPU which drastically improves the chance of damaging pins.

 

Here's the Rev.5 securely on the socket:

- CPU in great shape. Bought it as tested and confirmed FPU and MMU as there's alot of rebadged Chinese knockoffs online nowadays unfortunately.

Now to put the heatsink on the Rev.5:

- first some double sided thermal tape...careful it's sticky stuff! I used wax paper and an exacto knife to peel & place on the 060

 - one side on

 

 

 - wax paper off

 heatsink & fan on:

- won't connect the fan on now as I want to see how hot the 060 gets after overclocking & testing fist

and finally the moment of truth!..always worried about the magic smoke showing up still :-):
 

- phew great news no magic smoke & we boot right up into the newly released AmigaOS3.2-Update 2

- after making sure all is good at the stock 50Mhz and checking if it actually is a Rev5 with FPU & MMU it's time to start overclocking!

- using the new Alpha version of the cpuspeed command from the shell I try 70Mhz and it locks into 67 Mhz. All seems fine until I try to load up a program then the HD light stays on all the time and although I can still move my mouse and move windows around in Workbench I can't do anything else so time to reboot the 1200 Tower and try again

- after reboot I try at 63 Mhz and sadly same thing SO reboot again and try for 60 Mhz and cpuspeed locks in at 58.33Mhz...all looks good as I can load up programs and some games but just as I load up SysSpeed to do some benchmarks the system freezes up..dammit! I try again after a full power down (no reset) and same thing :-(

- disappointed as I know some friends with full Rev.5's with the Alpha firmware run very stable at 67Mhz but I also know that some don't like to be overclocked and it's just a flip of the coin which ones do or don't ! After the initial disappointment I felt grateful that at least my new CPU was humming along very stable for over a few hours running 060 specific demos and it was barely hot to the touch (quite a bit cooler than my Rev.1) so I decided not to connect the fan at all. Also my full Rev.1 can be easily sold for close to the cost I paid for the Rev.5 so it was definitely worth the upgrade.

 SysSpeed results at 50 MHz with OS3.2.2:

 Comparing with my Phase 5-Cyberstorm MKIII at 50 MHz with OS3.2.2:

WoW..very impressive stuff from the TF1260!

-The ROM & Fast memory tests are over 3x faster than the CSMKIII

- The Fast Ram speeds are on average approximately 4% faster (though I would have expected more since the modern chips on the TF1260 are much faster than the old DRAM chips on the MKIII

- The Fast Ram to Chip Ram speeds are only approximately 0.5% quicker on the MKIII.

- The CPU MIPS are 0.7% quicker on the TF1260

- The MFLOPS (FPU) are 0.25% on the TF1260

Overall bravo Terrible Fire developers!!! Looking forward to more firmware updates in the future

And of course the obligatory picture of what the mancave looks like at the time of writing this post (east end anyhow..notice the latest addition?)

 

SOLVED !!!Screechy noise and very low sound in my Amiga 4000

First off Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to everyone ! Let's hope that 2022 will finally be the end of  this covid virus.

I'm happy to say after a good 3 month period of not being able to sit down in a 'regular chair' (or basically do anything else!) without pain after surgery in early August to repair a fully torn quadricep tendon in my right leg that my Amiga 4000 sound issues have been solved!!!

Thanks to Frank at www.retrorewind.ca the sound issue was an easy fix and YES it was the recently replaced capacitors afterall lol

The issue was the type of capacitors used for the audio caps. Although they worked fine for almost 2 years the ceramic caps used ultimately failed...whether it had something to with polarization etc. who knows but after they were replaced with new electrolytic caps the mods have been flowing beautifully in the man cave once again!

SO take note and make sure you don't see caps like these below on your Amiga when you eventually get them recapped...most of us are just happy to get the work done by a trusted (hopefully) source and don't even pay attention to what was used or perhaps you did them yourself and didn't know any better like me...well now ya know 😉

 
 

 Screechy noise and very low sound in my Amiga 4000

And of course I know I know .......'it's the caps..replace THE CAPS!' ..how many times have we heard/ read that in the Amiga forums over the past 10 or more years since our original Amiga hardware is reaching the age where the original capacitors are failing and that unsightly acid spews all over our precious motherboards damaging traces and other components....BUT this time it might not be the caps or maybe it is....let me explain. 

I replaced all the caps on my MB and original power supply 2 years ago and all was fine until one day last year I decided to try one of the ATX PSU's out on my A4000...don't ask me why because I had replaced the original noisy fan in the PSU and it was running as silent as ever but such is the way my head goes many times in my man cave!? I purchased the ATX adapter tried the 1st ATX PSU and nothing happened so tried another older PSU and pfft bang boom a loud noise and the magic smoke came out of the PSU!%^#@?! Turned off the power to my A4000 and my adrenaline was through the roof with worry about destroying a perfectly great system for the sake of trying out this darn ATX adapter !!! Then the real hysteria came in .....what if my beloved Cyberstorm MKIII was fried too !#@#!@#$%! oh Lord I had a migraine just thinking about it so started immediately taking out my CS-MKIII to inspect it for any obvious damage and it passed the visual, touch, and more importantly smell testing so next step was to plug my original PSU in and try to boot her up without my CS-MKIII and voila thank God and all that is good that she booted up just fine !!!! ALELULIA !!! Plug my CS-MKIII back in again and all good except I got to look at some of my fav demos to celebrate and when I turn on my amp all I hear is a loud high pitched screeching noise and when the demo starts I could barely hear it in the background of the screeching. Unplug the amp, check the cables, have a quick look inside the case and all ok so this is where I'm at and here's a few pics before I take her all apart and have a good luck at the MB

 

 

 

 ..more to follow on this issue hopefully sometime soon but ya never know what goes on inside & more importantly outside the mancave but more importantly I hope everyone is managing ok with this Covid-19 virus pandemic still going on and supposedly stronger this fall then it first was discovered last February so please stay safe !