Hi all,

Because I'm slightly insane, I have decided to attempt modding my incoming Xeon without buying one of the stickers that make this mod easy. Two reasons I guess, one I didn't plan ahead and order stickers, two supplies show signs of dying out, delidded dot com has gone down a few months back, small sticker quantities no longer seem to be stocked by more local sources. You can buy them 100 at a time from China real cheap, finding some reasonable medium, like a 5 pack for cheap/fast seems more difficult. The stocks might last decades, or they might not. Third reason is, I really like solving odd problems, and see value in doing one thing the hard way sometimes, even if there's a specific easy way for that one time, because the hard way is the only way with a similar class of problems. Meaning that if I can do this, then other pin swap mods might open up, that there are no custom stickers for. i.e. BSEL or VID settings that you can't get just by insulating pins as a for instance.

Proposed materials.

i) tape... the name's tape, scotch tape.. the generic stuff... it's supposed to be good to about 90C... some cores might be rated to 105 but that's the core, I doubt it gets as hot on the substrate... and typically you've got real problems if it goes much over 75 anyway, so I think it'll survive as much as it needs to survive, but might "bake on" in long term use and need acetone or isopropyl to remove.

ii) metal... aluminum foil of the thicker type, though copper foil would be good if you can get your hands on any.

iii) Punch... not rum punch... or fist punch... a tiny punch I propose to make out of discarded ballpen parts to make holes in the tape.... also to be investigated.. whether it will just shrivel back nice if you touch it with a red hot pin or something.

iv) General tools... scalpel or Xacto knife, fresh pointy pointy pointy blades, several of may be required if you're clumsy and break the tips a lot. fine tweezers, I mean you can try this with the fireplace tongs but I dunno if you'll have much luck. Magnification, that shiz is small yo. Maybe a fly tying rig would be helpful if you have one, I don't.

Basic Idea

Flop the tape across the area. Make an incision either side of the two pins to swap. Cut narrow strips out of foil, as wide as the pads on CPU. Fold end of strip at 90 degrees, so it makes a 45 degree angle at the fold. Now the folded bit just has to be long enough to reach under the incision and sit on the pad... then you bring the other end over the other pad.. and snip cut to size (I think it's probably gonna be easier to do it like that than cut to size and tweezer it in place, but we'll see.) So you've got one end under the tape touching pad, and other end over the tape over other pin... Nowww... we do the same but reverse oriented, foil under the opposite incision, other pad underneath, other pad over the top..... now you've made the AMD logo on it and the chip is perfect 🤣 no it's just kinda that box with chopped corners pattern you should have with the foil. So now we press all this well down... the foil contacts on top are flapping , so I suggest the mere-est dot of woodglue under them applied with a pointy toothpick. Now we can use a tiny tiny punch (or possibly hot needle) to re-expose all the pins covered we don't need covered. Possibly one may want to cut away portions of the tape and only have it a couple of rows wide.

Alternate... if foil is found in packaging where one side is coated in plastic, it mayyyyy be possible to only use strips of that tagged down with glue, if you keep the conductive sides right way out, and the cut edges don't contact where they're not supposed to.

So I think I can make this work... I have a volunteer (YOU! STEP FORWARD!) celeron socket 775 CPU to practice on. Gonna cut foil out of a pie dish... though I can't confirm it will work with a celly, but it will bear the brunt of mechanical experimentation.