What detection issues do you mean?

I have a specific issue with an old 5V 486 board that POSTs with some Cyrix 5x86 CPUs but not with others. Can your tweaker help?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-03-31, 07:59:

What detection issues do you mean?

I have a specific issue with an old 5V 486 board that POSTs with some Cyrix 5x86 CPUs but not with others. Can your tweaker help?

Apparently there is a issue getting 133mhz socket 1 amd cpus working on a austin socket 3 laptop. (Retropcuser will have to chime in and tell us about it)

So is this supposed to be an interposer? And if so, how do you intend to solder in the pins?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-03-31, 13:10:

So is this supposed to be an interposer? And if so, how do you intend to solder in the pins?

Right now, this is kinda at the fact finding stage, I was as hoping to get some reports on various issues with the socket/processors and what causes them with diagrams and proposed fixes. Later, with that in hand I was going to try and help organize a project if there are motivated participants and a plan comes into shape.

If there is no actual need, or problems able to be solved, then we just let the thread die. 😀

Socket 3 already is quite the jumper hell. I'm curious to see how you can make this even better! 😜
Anyway, I'm gonna be following this 😀

But if you ever manage to design an interposer that will make any s7 Pentium work, you're gonna be king for sure! 😋

Maybe a 5V -> 3.3V mod is be possible for boards that would support a DX4 but require a separate voltage regulator (that is often implemented as daughterboard that can be pinned on the motherboard like on a FIC 486-GIO-VP).
So this could be some kind of a "486 overdrive" replacement.

1541 wrote on 2022-04-01, 10:01:

Maybe a 5V -> 3.3V mod is be possible for boards that would support a DX4 but require a separate voltage regulator (that is often implemented as daughterboard that can be pinned on the motherboard like on a FIC 486-GIO-VP).
So this could be some kind of a "486 overdrive" replacement.

It’s possible to tap the back of the socket to get at the power pins, but in this case the motherboard is already supplying the wrong voltage.

So you would probably have to disconnect the 5v from the cpu somehow. (Didn’t these old cpus pull power straight from the psu?)

This I assume will lower the chipset voltage as well, can it work with that?

Anyway, that seems like the wrong approach, If voltage is the focus of this theoretical device we may have to make it in the form of a interposer. (Kinda obvious) With a interposer lowering the cpu voltage I believe would be possible just like on socket 5.

Okay so,

-5v to 3.3v conversion is desired.
-adding detection for socket 1 cpus? (Is that even possible)
-anything else?

Keep the ideas flowing, we get a nice list going and investigate the issues and we may be able to come up with a device. 😀

I’m kinda wrapping up with the first prototype design of the socket 5/7/SS7 tweaker. That may turn into a interposer project its self, if I find the knowledge and time to pull it off. If I get that done, transferring that knowledge to a socket 3 interposer might be a easy transition.

If you're going to do voltage regulation, a think a trimpot for variable voltage settings is the best option. 3.3-4.0V.
I think it would also be kind of cool to have a way to alter the register settings on Cyrix CPUs so that you can just set it once and not worry about it again.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-04-03, 10:54:

If you're going to do voltage regulation, a think a trimpot for variable voltage settings is the best option. 3.3-4.0V.
I think it would also be kind of cool to have a way to alter the register settings on Cyrix CPUs so that you can just set it once and not worry about it again.

Usually you would set them by jumper or dip because the controller works with binary input if we are to use a nice vrm style power supply

should the lower socket be socket 3, and the upper socket be socket 3 as well I assume? It'll probably be LIF sockets like we came up with in the socket 5/7 voltage interposer thread

info on registers for reference
Register settings for various CPUs

Any socket 3 wizards willing to kinda take lead on this project? I'll definitely help! But someone with more intimate knowledge of socket 3 should take lead. If it looks like we may be onto something here.

Desired features:
-socket 1 amd 133 cpu auto detection
-voltage 5v->3.3v
-register programming

Feipoa has already come up with a method for installing trimpots on existing VRM interposers for variable voltage support. It's quite useful for overclocking.

If you wanted to get really fancy you could design your interposer with PGA168 on the bottom, and a PGA237 on top so that you can install POD5V83 on systems that don't have socket 3.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-04-03, 15:09:

If you wanted to get really fancy you could design your interposer with PGA168 on the bottom, and a PGA237 on top so that you can install POD5V83 on systems that don't have socket 3.

I was wondering if you were going to say something like that

Feipoa has already come up with a method for installing trimpots on existing VRM interposers for variable voltage support. It's quite useful for overclocking.

link me 😀

Desired features:
-socket 1 amd 133 cpu auto detection
-voltage 5v->3.3v
-register programming
-PGA168 on the bottom, and a PGA237 on top

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVpmTlndEco

some mods are described here

Cache mode, and blend pin.

so it certainly seems like there are some mods that a tweaker could address here.

is a shim the best approach? or somethign that solders to the back of the mobo? or a full on interposer?

I'm thinking a interposer?

thoughts?

Seems like voltage taps may be handy for powering the cpu separately should user wish?

Desired features:
-socket 1 amd 133 cpu auto detection (need more info)
-voltage 5v->3.3v (voltage taps)
-register programming (i don't think this is gonna happen, I assume these are usually through software)
-PGA168 on the bottom, and a PGA237 on top (interposer)
-cache mode
-blend pin

Just wondering... when will you get yourself a dual or more 486 board ?

weedeewee wrote on 2022-06-06, 15:34:

Just wondering... when will you get yourself a dual or more 486 board ?

Yeah a dual 486 would be pretty fun

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-06, 15:40:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-06-06, 15:34:

Just wondering... when will you get yourself a dual or more 486 board ?

Yeah a dual 486 would be pretty fun

Yeah, I once had one, a compaq systempro, dual 486 with a 4 disk raid. I'll always be annoyed for having gotten rid of it.

Anyone able to confirm this pin spacing with a caliper?

Here is a socket 3 footprint I threw together based on the pentium overdrive datasheet.

I need beta testers btw.
Need active feedback and engagement. or this probably won't get past alpha/beta

footprint alpha 1

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-03-31, 07:30:

I don’t have any socket 3 hardware to test this on, and am kinda new to pcb design but I’m willing to try and help if I can.

Can you guys describe in detail tweaks and mods that can be done to this socket and make some diagrams and schematics of what is needed?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-07, 08:27:

Anyone able to confirm this pin spacing with a caliper? […]
Show full quote

Anyone able to confirm this pin spacing with a caliper?

Here is a socket 3 footprint I threw together based on the Pentium overdrive datasheet.

I need beta testers btw.
Need active feedback and engagement. or this probably won't get past alpha/beta

Maybe just prefix this with the fact that you are an absolute beginner and have no idea yet what you are doing, nor have any of the parts available?
How about being honest with yourself?

I've looked over your various projects, the Socket 5/7 tweaker, this tweaker and the "Socket 5/7/SS7 (Voltage Interposer)" (What I can only call an absolute nightmare)
And throughout this it is becoming abundantly obvious to me that you are going about this without having the faintest idea of how to even go about building the most basic circuit design elements in an EDA software.
Why do I bring this up?
Because throughout this you've been active on TheRetroWeb Discord (formerly Ultimate Retro) asking for help and suggestions, then receiving said input and ignoring it, telling us that you know better. While just generally being impossibly stubborn and dismissively insinuating that we're just trying to stop you rather than help you.

So let's do this once again. With the latest creation that gives me nightmares.

Tweaker 3

- The pin spacing is 5.08mm instead it should be 2.54mm
- The pad hole sizing is wrong, you want the mid point of 0.43-0.51 mm which is the pin thickness margin on Socket 2,3,4,5 and 7. ( 0.47mm pin diameter with a +/- 0.04 machining tolerance)
- The pad numbering is completely horrifying, no sane designer would make every pad the same Reference ID. Use the X,Y array creation feature to build the pads with the right spacing and numbering.
Which tells me you do not even know how to use the KiCad array functions.
Having everything be the same Pin will violate all Design Rule Checker (DRC) and Electrical Rule Checker (ERC) rules and allow connecting any track to any pad or absolutely anything else.
- All of the physical dimensions to create a CPU/Socket footprint, the pins to create a symbol is clearly documented in the datasheet that you have actually attached as part of the ZIP upload attachment.

Socket 5/7/SS7 (Voltage Interposer) Tweaker. (Alpha)

All those little arrows are faults, due to no reference schematic or annotation of unique reference ID's for parts.

- You've built that whole thing without even a schematic!!! Frankly I don't know wether to be impressed, horrified, or everything at once.

- There are no net-rules, no schematic, just the stuff of nightmares

- DRC checking results in a Krakatoa explosion of errors

- Components have schematic values as reference designators (ref designators should be unique)

- The whole board is completely un-manufacturable without starting from scratch.

I get that you're a complete novice beginner, though what hurts me the most is to see that all of the advice, the tutorials, the countless resources several of us on the UR/TRW discord have sent and linked you have just gone ignored/unused.
It's been months now, I've taught students at high-school level to use KiCAD more proficiently in just a few short weeks. But you keep pressing on without familiarizing yourself with the basics.
I'm not angry at you, I'm incredibly confused, disappointed and concerned, and It was time that I make some more aware than just technical staff on the UltimateRetro/TRW discord.

At this point I no longer can distinguish if you're just incredibly stubborn to a fault and hit the ceiling of the Dunning Kruger curve or have converted to just being a con-artist?
Pitching things to users here who don't know better to see that what you are making is really really awfully flawed and giving them false hopes and ideas about your abilities with the hype you build only for them to ultimately be let down.

Please take a step back, acknowledge the limits of your abilities and improve your understanding of the fundamentals and tooling before you press on.

I can again as before recommend joining this free course so as to get acquainted with the concepts:
https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-kicad-prin … t-board-design/

Or one of these if you later wish to learn about advanced topics
https://academy.fedevel.com/courses

And lastly here's a Socket 2,3,5,7, everything footprint that I have created, just use this if you absolutely must.

https://github.com/rigred/kicad-retro/tree/ma … ket%202%2C3%2C6
This is for motherboard use, so the hole sizing would just have to be closed down from 0.762mm to 0.52mm.
Edit one pad, then right click copy it to defaults and select to push defaults to all pads.

Sorry for this, but I felt it was necessary and more than overdue.

Wow, this blew up.

Maybe, just maybe, he's just riding the K6+2+17x3 modding hype, been spamming these projects for some kind of profit.

Catsay touts himself as a infallible force and him and a few others continually discourage me from even trying all the time on discord.

Yet on several instances I have had to correct him and the others. I am in no way infallible. And am learning and being corrected myself often. And welcome it! I welcome improvements to my projects. But this is not the way to help.

The literally only thing I was asking was pin spacing. I referenced the pentium overdrive spec sheet which seemed to indicate .2” pin spacing. As for the pad hole size I set that to .016” on purpose. My latest shim tweaker is prototyping that change to attempt to make press fir work, which was a success on the processor interposer tweaker at a different size. (Something you said would never work), it does.

I’m just wanting to confirm spacing,
This is why I asked. In case there was a issue, so I can fix it early on. Thanks for confirming that the spacing needs adjusted. I appreciate that and will make a new one and confirm it before moving forward. See I was unable to find a footprint to use so am having to make my own.

Despite catsay’s, computer guy’s and debs, criticisms early on, today several of my designs are existing and fully functional in physical form. And work perfectly I might add.

Can I do better? Sure I would love to. I love learning.

Should you make posts saying I am stupid, your work is trash and you shouldn’t try? You guys are mean. And I don’t deserve the way you treat me.

I make nothing off these, I am literally pouring days and weeks of my time into bringing these to the community and this is what I get for my trouble.

Early on facing this I nearly quit before any of them had been realized in physical working form.

Had I listened to you they never would have been.

Also, had I listened to people like you, fritz and I never would have found the k6-2+ To 3+ mod or the ability of the overdrive to work in smp in the primary socket. You have said the mods don’t work on my devices without realizing that there were threads literally about those mods which I had to show you because you were unfamiliar and I explained how they work. No thank you, no apology, just more of this. You showed no understanding of how the bf pull ups and downs work and again there called me stupid as well.

I kindly ask that you just be nice and stop berating me this isn’t the first time you have done this you literally rushed your voltage interposer project to announcement and used that announcement thread to smear my projects.

I have never done this to you or anyone else here for that matter. And I don’t deserve this.

Please stop.