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Thread: RAM upgrade for wl-500gx

  1. #1

    RAM upgrade for wl-500gx

    Hi!
    I want to try to add more memory for my wl-500gx by de-soldering original K4S281632F-TC75(8Mx16) SDRAM chips and adding K4S561632E-TC75 (16Mx16). Such action will (theoretically) give me 64MB of RAM, allowing me to run more programs. Anybody had such experience with this router?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    377
    Seems not.

    This may invoke an extra needed adress line which is maybe unavaliable on the board, and sure a rework of the bootloader. Good luck afterall, it shouldn´t be impossible .

    Greets
    My Stuff: WL-500g, Mapower H31x 10GB HD, Philips Webcam Vesta PRO, TerraTec Webcam PRO, USB Hub

  3. #3
    Have you (or anyone else) done this yet? If not, do you know if the A12 line is in fact routed to the processor? Seems easy enough to replace the chips but adding the A12 line might be a bit tricky I think...

    Thanks in advance
    /Daniel

  4. #4
    Hi again!

    I checked the schematic and layout and the needed address line is present, with a series resistor to each memory chip. So by simply soldering two 0OHM jumpers (or put a solderblob..) and you have the needed hardware to support 64MB memory...

    ..actually using the memory is something else, can this perhaps be as easy as in the 16MB->32MB with nvram settings? any thoughts?

    /Daniel

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Netherlands
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    1,308
    Interesting topic. Not that I can add anything useful here, but still....

  6. #6

    any update ?

    any update about memory upgrade in deluxe ?

    thanks

  7. #7
    Hi!

    I have some(partially) good news. I have replaced the memory chips and the router boots up and reports the 64MBs of memory.

    now to the partial part

    Router is very unstable and reboots if trying to ftp large files etc..

    I do belive this is caused by bad solder joints and will go through them again, I did the soldering in a hurry last friday while getting ready for a party. Needless to say the router did not boot up after that, no power led and working as a switch no output on the serial console. After fixing a few shorst today the router booted up and reported all the memory, but I suspect that a few pins might have intermittent faults leading to the unstable behaviour so I will redo the soldering then time permits.

    conclusion:

    This has a high potential to work, but take your time replacing the chips and don't forget R68&R69...

    will get back with an update and pictures then I have had time to redo the sloppy soldering.

  8. #8
    Finally, It's working. Pictures will have to wait till I get my digital camera back.. The memory chips I use are 48LC16M16A2-75 from micron. The following output is after large ftp transfers.

    Code:
    (none) login: admin
    Password:
    [admin@(none) root]$ free
                  total         used         free       shared      buffers
      Mem:        62556        61380         1176            0         1756
     Swap:            0            0            0
    Total:        62556        61380         1176
    [admin@(none) root]$

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Vienna, Austria
    Posts
    191
    CountZero, where did you get those memory chips, and how much are they?
    Which type of packaging are your chips of? There are several, and I'm sure FBGA won't work ;-)
    I'd like to upgrade my WL-500gx too :-)
    If have squid and tor running on the router, and they consume a lot of memory...
    Last edited by MMCM; 06-12-2006 at 09:46.

  10. #10
    I gave up on finding suitable PC133 SDRAM, so I bought it from farnell (http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search2/br...tt=sdram&Ntx=).
    A bit on the expesive side but I bought it through a company with volume discount.

    I'm sure the BGA would work if you mount it upside-down and solder small wires to the correct places but I don't like fiddleing around with that many small wires so I got the TSOP instead Just open up the router and compare, its the two 54 pin ic's.

    Just be sure of what you are doing and feel comfortable dealing with fine-pitch SMD. The jumpers needed are in size 0402 so they are quite small as well(I cut small pieces of brass shim-stock since I didn't want to buy a full reel of 10000 pcs).

  11. #11
    Hi all,

    CountZero, why didn't you use the Samsung's IC K4S561632E-TC75 (16MX16 166MHz)?

    which values you have set in nvram to view 62556 byte?
    Last edited by Ivan; 16-12-2006 at 17:41.

  12. #12
    @Ivan

    I used what I could get, and 166MHz is for the -60 version

    I could have used the CL2 verison(-7E) but it didn't occur to me...

    As I said, no change of nvram variables necessary(but ncdl should be cleared, se posts #33-35 in this thread: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=3892&p=2 ) the memory size is autodetected by CFE during bootup.

    refer to this page for sdram variables: http://wl500g.dyndns.org/sdram.html

    as you can see, 128MB would be possbile with 512Mbit chips. These are hower not very easy to obtain(in small quantities at least)

    Edit: Since 32Mx16 DDR chips seems common you could possibly get 128MB if you are adventurous.....
    Last edited by CountZero; 16-12-2006 at 18:34.

  13. #13
    well
    If I find IC K4S561632E-TC75, I can try it.

    I hope...

    512Mbit chips have 66 pins. It's difficult.
    Last edited by Ivan; 16-12-2006 at 22:38.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Ivan View Post
    512Mbit chips have 66 pins. It's difficult.
    Not the ones I had in mind....

    http://download.micron.com/pdf/datas...512MbSDRAM.pdf

    Edit: digikey has them in stock: http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksea...MICRON&site=us
    Last edited by CountZero; 16-12-2006 at 22:55.

  15. #15
    eh eh do you have try debian with 64Mb?

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