Upgrading the Blizzard 1240 to Blizzard 1260

In my Series of upgrading to 060 cpu. It is time for the Blizzard 1240.

I got this to have in my “Demo-party” Amiga.

 

BL-A1240

One Blizzard 1240. .(YES it has the 1260 print on the back.  all 040 have that)

So first, we need to remove the CPU. and this is the hard part. you need to have a Desolderingstation, like my ZD-915

Desolderingstation

 

So remove the CPU gently.

BL-NocpuBL-Nocpu2BL-Nocpu3

ALL pins needs to be open, the 040 uses less pins then the 060.

Now solder in the 060. there was 4 small distances on the 040. I move them to the 060 aswell so we have the same spacing between board and cpu. I would recomend you to try to get hold of a Rev6 060 (marked 71E41J)  and no LC or EC model, try to use the RC one with full FPU etc. (don’t know if EC or LC even work on the Blizzard)

Now with the 060 in place, we must change voltage to the cpu. as the 040 uses 5V and the 060 uses 3.3V.

Look at the part close to the battery:

BL-Power040Setting

(bad picture.. my phone as bad at closeups)

At the small circle you see a small wire soldered between pin 1 and 2. This must be moved to 2-3 instead:

BL-Power060Setting

And you also need to solder in a Voltageregulator (LT1085CM-3.3 voltage regulator 3.3Volts)

csmk2vregulator

and solder it to the 3 pads close the the wire-jumper. You also need to change the oscillator to one that fits your needs, above 60MHz and you might have issues with SCSI-Addon.  72-75 is kind of maximum,  I put in a 66MHz one.

Now you have an Blizzard A1260:

BL-A1260

 

Now we need to move a small resistor from its 040 postition:

BL-040Setting

and instead put it in the 060 position:

BL-060Setting

 

But that SIMM socket is annoying as you cannot close the trapdoor.

So we remove it:

BL-NoSIMM

And solder in a socket like the 1260 instead.  I actually let the SIMM be in the socket while doing it, knowing it will fit.

BL-A1260Done

So just stick in the SIMM and we are ready to go:

BL-A126064MB

 

And well. it also boots:

BL-Result

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10 thoughts on “Upgrading the Blizzard 1240 to Blizzard 1260

  1. Great job Chucky!

    How easy is it nowadays to get hold of a 71E41J? I have a 1260 with the XC on and I am too afraid to overclock it to 60MHz (I have the SCSI Kit, too, you see).

    …another solution of course would be to add active cooling, I guess…

    1. I got mine from Amibay, they are somewhat hard to get by and often they are remarked so you need to test with whichamiga or so.
      you can use any version actually but they runs hotter and cannot be clocked as much. (rev2/5 runs usually at 66 anyway but need active cooling)

    2. Get 50ns RAM and you can overclock yours to 66Mhz easy! I got my 128MB 50ns RAM on ebay for $45

        1. Yes that is correct. Running too hot. Have a heatsinc on it but still runs very hot. Need to find a way to cool it better.

  2. Hej! Jag har ett Blizzard 1260 kort med rev.1 på.
    Hur ser möjligheterna ut för överklockning på det?
    Jag tänker mig 60 eller 66mhz som mest och med fläktkylning.
    Vad händer om det går för varmt, bränner man cpu :n
    Är det smidigast att löda dit en sockel så man lättare kan skifta kristallen vid för hög överklockning.
    Vad kostar det om du vill göra detta?

    Med vänlig hälsning,/chrille

  3. Does the “press 2 during reset to downgrade” feature work after the upgrade, or do you need to replace the firmware PROM as well?
    A Blizzard 1240 user told me that this does not work in the card’s original state.

    Thanks in advance for reply.

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