Dreambox DM500-c Overclocking / RAM and CPU Upgrade

Its been 4 months since I started my project on upgrading the standard 250Mhz Processor and 32Mb of RAM in a Dreambox DM-500-c.
This is where I have got to so far
Please be aware that do not try this with your own box, I have already bricked 2 boxes doing this, and I will not be responsible for what you do to your box

OK, first off, I opened my first box and done a quick upgrade on the CPU on it
So I contacted IBM and had a special advanced PowerPC Controller CPU made just for my box, that looked a bit like this:


HEY!, It didn't work, I spent £120 on my first box, £40 on the Processor, and £12 on the adhesive dissolver I used to take the first CPU off
My box was bricked

Total cost so far: £172

Right, onto my second box now
Same thing, but before I inserted the CPU, I changed everything in the image relating to 250Mhz, to 500Mhz
And I increased the total cache size on the Image
And messed around with the Image Information section too
After installing it, Presto! It worked

I bought my second box as an original, (just in case overclocking doesn't work with a clone), and it cost me £110

Total cost so far: £282

After using the box for 6 months, it got bricked, the CPU was getting too hot and it just caused problems inside the box, and overheated

Onto my third box now, and final one, bought this one for £90 (bargain), but it IS a clone
Repeated the previous steps, and now its time to sort something out on the cooling

I followed THIS GUIDE
Even though its for the S model :Smokin:

And now I have an improved cooled box
I spent £18 on the fan

Total cost so far: £300

Now, its time for the RAM
I broke the Video output on the box, but resoldered it and fixed it
Then, I had to de-solder the Crystal Capacitators that give it a RAM boost and bought new ones
I placed in an extra two, and my total RAM went from about 32Mb to about 48Mb
Thats good enough for me

Total cost so far: £305

Now, the DM500-c doesn't have any way of connecting up an Internal Hard Drive, so I connected up an External one (NAS / Network Hard Drive)
It was a 500GB one and it cost me £210 (including postage) from eBay
I connected it up VIA crossover cable to my box and now I can record channels and play them back

Total cost so far: £515

And now (hopefully) I can watch HD channels on my box with any image that has a Component output VIA the scart lead
I'm waiting for the new Digital Worldz Neutrino Dream image to come out of beta stage to test it and I will post the results here

Results:
Channel Change: Less than half a second
Quality Loss: None
HDTV Output: Still waiting for the Digitalworldz Dream Neutrino Image to be released out of beta stage
Value for Money: £515, not worth it!

Thanks for the update. It's nice to have guys like you on here experimenting with the hardware as well as those that do software.

I guess the moral of your story is don't by a 500 and try to upgarde it, but by a 600 with an internal drive. It's faster, cheaper and more stable.

Well done for trying though.

Wow, that's a pretty heroic effort. It would be interesting to know if this has in any way improved its recording performance.

Great effort though,love reading and seeing things like this :Clap:

Hi ,
I'm interesting what you did on dm500-c. i want to do same thing on my 500s what did you do, i'm electronic engineer, i also understand these systems, Can you please tell me , which cpu did you use , and what parts did you change for ram boost.

If you give little information , i will be appreciated.

Thank You