Disclaimer

I have not yet had a chance to try this out. I believe the reports I've heard, and will be doing this as soon as my PC110 warranty runs out.

Advice given on this page involves alterations to components mounted on the system board. You follow this advice entirely at your own risk.

At least one PC110 died during this upgrade, because one of the pins broke off the clock generator chip. Be very careful...
 

PC110 overclokcing for $40 New!

Executive Decisions are advertising that they will overclock a supplied PC110 to 40MHz for the princely sum of $40.

Introduction

Below is given instructions I received from a PC110 owner in Japan. The text comes from his recollection of performing the upgrade, and the photos are of his machine. Details of this upgrade were printed in a Japanese magazine called Mobil PC; this is not an attempt to infringe copyright, just an attempt to spread information further.

The upgrade process is simple: remove the lower casing and the memory expansion module, then rewire some of the connectors on the clock generator chip.

The upgrade works by increasing the clock speed for most of the components, including the processor, by 25% from 33MHz to 40MHz. This, of course, will invalidate any warranty you have left on the machine, and you will be running it beyond the original design specification.
 

Tools required

• A small cross-head screwdriver
• Soldering iron and solder
• A short length (2cm) of thin insulated jumper wire.
   

Step-by-step instructions

Step 0 - Back up your data.

Please back up your data and remove all battery and PCMCIA card from your PT110.  Otherwise you will lose everything!!

 

Step 1 - Remove the bottom cover To do this, you have to remove 7 screws shown with read circle on the pictures to the right. There is one screw that is longer than the others - that should be just beside the WingJack (modem connector). Two screws are black while others are silver. Just remember which goes where.  After removing the screws you should be able to remove bottom cover. To remove the bottom cover, the easiest way is to lift it a little bit on the main battery side, then slide it towards the main switch side.  The microphone cover will come off, but you can put it back later.

 
 

Step 2 - Remove the memory expansion board (if fitted) Now, you should be looking at something like this picture. Remove the memory board very carefully. It is very thin and easily broken.

 
 

Step 3 - Lift two legs of the clock generator chip Underneath the memory board, your should see the clock generator chip, which is marked with "ICSAV9154A-27". Lift legs 15 and 16, which are first and second from the right when you are looking at the PC110 from the speaker & microphone side.  (The photo shows these legs lifted, with the blue wires soldered in place as the following step indicates. These pictures were taken after the upgrade had been performed.)

 

Step 4 - Solder wire to two legs of the clock generator chip This is a bit difficult.  Solder leg 16 to point 15 (where leg 15 was connected before lifting) using jumper wire.  Solder leg 10 and leg 15 together using jumper wire (without lifting leg 10). You should be careful that the height of the jumper wire does not exceed the height of the clock generator, otherwise the memory board cannot go back in its place.

 

Step 5 - Replace memory board

Check it is not touching the jumper wire. If it is OK, you can plug power supply in and boot the machine up. If the machine boots up OK, (you should see some errors at first, but it is because the timer has lost its memory) you will be in the BIOS setup menu (EasySetup), adjusting the time & date.
 

Step 6 - Replace bottom cover

Should be easy. Just be careful about the switches.
 

Acknowledgements

This information was passed to me by Sakamoto Yoshinori, who also provided the photographs. Thankyou!

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Written by Daniel Basterfield. Images found on the internet. Enjoy!