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| Upgrading Powerbook 190 to 68040 with FPU? |
Forums > Vintage Apple > PowerBooks & iBooks > PowerBook (68k-based)
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 12, 2025 - #1
Can it be done?
I tried installing MC68040FE33V but no chime. CPU gets warm so it does something? Soldered LC back, works again. Does the ROM care about it? They are pin compatible and the only difference should be FPU? |
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Kai Robinson TinkerDifferent Board President 2023 Worthing, UK -------- Joined: Sep 2, 2021 Posts: 1,322 Likes: 1,313 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #2
IIRC @This Does Not Compute tried this with a 540c and....no luck.
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Fizzbinn Active Tinkerer Charlottesville, VA -------- Joined: Nov 29, 2021 Posts: 256 Likes: 262 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #3
I recall reading somewhere about someone else doing this successfully, ...and something about only specific CPU part numbers working in Macs. Was it a 5V vs 3.3V thing?
PowerBook 500 Series full 040 CPU swapYou definitely should! I'm guessing this mod could be applied to the 190 and the Duo 280c. I was thinking that too.. actually I'm thinking if you took a 190 and replaced its screen with an active one from a 5300 (maybe even a CE?) and gave it a full 68040 you'd pretty much have the best...
[Image: 68kmla.org]
68kmla.org
I think these are saying you need one of these: MC68040FE25A MC68040FE33A MC68040FE40A and that the ends in V version actually doesn't have an FPU and is 3.3V not 5V.
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jmacz Tinkerer -------- Joined: Mar 21, 2025 Posts: 86 Likes: 95 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #4
I have successfully done it on a PowerBook 540c and a PowerBook Duo 280c. @croissantking is the first I saw do it successfully (the above link is to his thread) on his 540c which is what inspired me.
Never tried on a 190. |
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #5
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #6
Ah crap. It looks like V is 3.3V part. So I probably fried it a bit ;-)
I guess I need to find 5V part and try again. |
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Melkhior Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jan 9, 2022 Posts: 101 Likes: 52 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #7
However V part don't have FPU - even if they are not labelled LC. Quoting appendix C of the '040 UM:
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croissantking Tinkerer -------- Joined: Feb 7, 2023 Posts: 108 Likes: 51 |
Sep 13, 2025 - #8
Yes, those are the correct part numbers for the K63H and L88M masks. E42K is MC68040FExx (no suffix) E31F is XC68040FExxM Genuine chips also have their speed rating printed under the part number eg '66/33 MHz'. Here are some examples:
Yes, this is correct - no FPU. A valiant effort OP - I don't think anyone has done the FPU upgrade on a 190 yet.
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 14, 2025 - #9
Lessons of today.
1. somehow my trackpad stopped working. tried another one and still nothing. 2. replaced PMIC with another one desoldered from another PB190 board, one was SC428002 the other SC428006. Learned they are no direct replacements. The trackpad still didnt work but with replacement PMIC there was screen corruption related to mouse cursor. Therefore it seems the cursor is managed and rendered in VRAM by PMIC. One both PMICs use 32KB SRAM, but one uses 55ns and the other 70ns. Maybe that matters. Anyway, replacing PMIC didnt solve my trackpad problem, but going back to original fixed the corruption. The good news is SRAM for PMIC matches what atari portfolio uses so i can harvest the chips from dead boards for spares for portfolio ;-) 3. I think the trackpad connector works fine, i beeped most connections to trackpad PCB. so why doesnt it work? i have inspected the board few times i dont see any shorts/bridges etc. 4. how the hell do i get external zuluscsi slim working on this thing, or any external scsi thing? i tried hdi30->db25 adapter, hdi30->hd50 adapter with scsi/dock switch and hdi30-db25 cable,. if give zuluscsi external usb power. but it doesnt even start or write anything to log file with debug enabled. tried plextor scsi cdrom drive and neither of my 2 pb190s sees it either. so what is the secret how do i get external scsi going? |
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 18, 2025 - #10
And the lesson is pb 5300 and 190 touchpads are not interchangeable
Liked by ClassicHasClass |
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Trash80toG4 Active Tinkerer Bermuda Triangle, NC USA -------- Joined: Apr 1, 2022 Posts: 1,131 Likes: 329 |
Sep 18, 2025 - #11
Wayyyback in the day, some compatible chips became available. Folks at the MLA snapped them up, keen on doing something silly with them like installing AUx or some such. Try searching there. Might even be as old as the Snitz Archive?
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Trash80toG4 Active Tinkerer Bermuda Triangle, NC USA -------- Joined: Apr 1, 2022 Posts: 1,131 Likes: 329 |
Sep 18, 2025 - #12
One of these days I'll have to get around to modeling the button surround for it to complete that hack now that printing technology has caught up with my stalled project. I'll have to pull it out for a photo session? |
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DominBear New Tinkerer -------- Joined: Jul 18, 2025 Posts: 8 Likes: 4 |
Sep 25, 2025 - #13
I kind of like the trackpad.
Well round 2. My Amazon 68040 purchase from China has arrived. Soldered the CPU, it booted couple times. Ran Tattletech and Speedometer. Neither reported FPU present. Then after Speedometer benchmark wchich returned the same results as before, the machine froze and didnt boot again anymore. So I guess I got a rebadged LC and 25MHz one that probably fried itself. |
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cc333 New Tinkerer California, USA -------- Joined: Dec 22, 2021 Posts: 32 Likes: 19 |
Oct 21, 2025 - #14
Finding a genuine 68040 is quite difficult, from what I've read, and many so-called 66/33 '040s with FPUs are actually fraudulently remarked 25/50 68LC040s. Many of those were probably cooked almost to death when they were reclaimed and remarked, too, so if one tried to use one, it either would work for a short time and then fail (as yours did) or be DOA and not work at all. There are one or two reputable sources that I'm aware of (new reliable sources get discovered from time to time, but they usually go out of stock fairly quickly because their inventories are usually fairly small). The costs are often higher, sometimes significantly, but you do get what you pay for, because they're usually either genuine NOS, or carefully salvaged REAL chips that have been tested to ensure that they operate as advertised. c |
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phunguss Active Tinkerer Stillwater, MN -------- Joined: Dec 24, 2023 Posts: 511 Likes: 439 |
Oct 21, 2025 - #15
I thought this guy was mentioned previously as a reputable seller on these forums.
Eric Woo's Rare Chips on eBay. Liked by cc333andjmacz |
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jmacz Tinkerer -------- Joined: Mar 21, 2025 Posts: 86 Likes: 95 |
Oct 21, 2025 - #16
Yup, Eric Woo is legit. Liked by cc333 |
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cc333 New Tinkerer California, USA -------- Joined: Dec 22, 2021 Posts: 32 Likes: 19 |
Oct 21, 2025 - #17
@jmacz Nice to see you over here! I'm expanding my territory a bit, as you can see.
After the last outage interrupted an important conversation, I decided it might be a good idea to diversify. So you'll start seeing more of me here hopefully :) c EDIT: Hey! I can do this here!! Come back and edit a post from like a day ago! I just wanted to add that I did sign up relatively early on (December 2021), but I wasn't particularly active. I'm not a new member, exactly. Just not a frequent visitor. This probably goes without saying, but I wanted to clarify. Liked by jmacz,Kai RobinsonandClassicHasClass |
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