Lime design supports DRAM Memory upgrade from 512MB to 1GB

steveh · February 09, 2016, 08:31:04 AM

I noticed in the lime schematic A15 was present on the DRAM (Pin M7). It seems if I whip out the pre-heater and hot air gun, and replace the K4B4G1646D (MEM4G16D3EABG) with a H5TC8G63AMR (also sold by Olimex) - that I could increase my DRAM from 512MB to 1GB.

Has anyone tried this? Or would I be the first?

cheers,
Steve

soenke · February 09, 2016, 10:03:12 AM

whooaaah, you REALLY have to know what you are doing to start this and not damage any other component on this dense packed board...

BMK · February 11, 2016, 02:56:18 PM

You could just buy LIME2 instead?

steveh · February 12, 2016, 01:30:22 AM

Yes, True. Very true. This sort of thing can go bad very quickly if you get it wrong.

Quote from: soenke on February 09, 2016, 10:03:12 AM
whooaaah, you REALLY have to know what you are doing to start this and not damage any other component on this dense packed board...

steveh · February 12, 2016, 01:31:31 AM

I could, as it does have 1G, however I am interested in a single chip solution. Lime2 has 2 drams - so, no good.

Quote from: BMK on February 11, 2016, 02:56:18 PM
You could just buy LIME2 instead?

steveh · February 12, 2016, 01:38:17 AM

I made the change and it went well. I have been running memtest and all works great. The board has been running a movie for a day or so to confirm system stability - basically, it seems to love the 1G DRAM.

However, the OS only recognizes 512MB - so address A15 is not enabled yet.

I take it I will need to update the fex and uboot? Is there an easy way to write outside of the declared memory boundary? Or do I need to update uboot/fex? Any suggested easy solutions here would be appreciated, as I haven't got a setup to recompile this just at the moment.

http://users.tpg.com.au/srkh/20160212_102252.jpg

Gerrit · February 12, 2016, 02:58:41 AM

you could try a lime2 image to see if you get the 1G, and replace the fex with the one you are using now

steveh · February 12, 2016, 03:32:32 AM

I agree. I just tried that. I found that uboot reports DRAM as 0MiB ??.

After digging a little deeper, it appears that uboot configures the memory controller for two CS, and no A15. I need one CS and A15. So, nope - no dice with the LIME2 image.

Quote from: Gerrit on February 12, 2016, 02:58:41 AM
you could try a lime2 image to see if you get the 1G, and replace the fex with the one you are using now

JohnS · February 12, 2016, 10:00:38 AM

Details about such settings are on linux-sunxi and/or in the code.

If you're going to do such things as changing chips it's also going to be fun changing the code

I expect Olimex would produce the boards for you if you want a lot of them.

John

steveh · February 13, 2016, 02:36:58 PM

Changing chips is easy. Code.. well.. that's a little harder.

Quote from: JohnS on February 12, 2016, 10:00:38 AM
Details about such settings are on linux-sunxi and/or in the code.

If you're going to do such things as changing chips it's also going to be fun changing the code

I expect Olimex would produce the boards for you if you want a lot of them.

John