[HowTo] Upgrading RAM to 128 MB (WL-500gP, WL-500W and WL-700gE)

[Oyabun]

I have a WL-500GP v2 on my hand.
I have disassembled it and I have found the RAM. There are only one chip: the Hynix HY5DU561622ETP

So if you google for this chip, you can find, that it is a 16Mx16 chip, resulting in 32MB. As single. Theoretically it means, that this router (because of the one-chip design) could not be upgraded to 128, but 64MB.
As it should be the actual case, as on the reference pictures linked by Serge (thanks ) the chip on board is a Samsung K4H511638D what is used by many of us, giving 64MB/chip capacity.
So if you are interested in upgrading your router to 64MB the steps are the folowing:
- Check router board for missing resistors (if any), as on the previous boards A12 address line has not been implemented -it might be the case in the new version also.
- Cross check memory addressing parameters with Oleg, how to enable 64Mb on a single chip for v2 routers.
- Acquire a single Samsung K4H511638D or equivalent chip with 32Mx16 capacity (look above Inertial's post about compatible chips)
- Do the phisical upgrade (or better to ask someone with good soldering skills and a rework station to do is for you)
- Check it with Oleg's memtest
- Enable 64 MB
- Recheck
- Enjoy

Hope it helps.
BR.
Tamas

status report: A friend of mine just finished upgrading the router sucessfully to 128MB, and also added connectors for the two additional USB ports with neat routing and proper coupling. I have finished installation of an external diversity antenna (instead of the PCB one) and installed 2x 5dB antennaes. :-) No dropped connection since, 54 Mbit/s maintained everywhere, fastest Wlan as ever with this router. :-)

[Inertial]

ps3:Probably we should start a new one about HW hacking instead of hijacking this 128Mb upgrade topic.

Appologies for disappearing for so long, and especially to Oyabun. A software development project, with tight deadlines, tons of mathematical modeling and mobile platform optimization, landed on my head. I was on it day and night since nearly my last post. I mannaged, though, to succesfully upgrade to 128MB yet another wl500gP, while having a short break Well I will follow Oyabun's advice and start a new thread under the "WL-500gP Pics & Specs" section. This choice is justified, in the sense that hardware hacks actually affect the specs, and even improve them i would suggest

It will be entitled: "Exploring WL500gP hardware expansion / interfacing possibilities", hope it sounds promising...

See you there...

Inertial

[Garluk]

So if you google for this chip, you can find, that it is a 16Mx16 chip, resulting in 32MB. As single. Theoretically it means, that this router (because of the one-chip design) could not be upgraded to 128, but 64MB.
As it should be the actual case, as on the reference pictures linked by Serge (thanks ) the chip on board is a Samsung K4H511638D what is used by many of us, giving 64MB/chip capacity.
So if you are interested in upgrading your router to 64MB the steps are the folowing:
- Check router board for missing resistors (if any), as on the previous boards A12 address line has not been implemented -it might be the case in the new version also.
- Cross check memory addressing parameters with Oleg, how to enable 64Mb on a single chip for v2 routers.
- Acquire a single Samsung K4H511638D or equivalent chip with 32Mx16 capacity (look above Inertial's post about compatible chips)
- Do the phisical upgrade (or better to ask someone with good soldering skills and a rework station to do is for you)
- Check it with Oleg's memtest
- Enable 64 MB
- Recheck
- Enjoy

Hope it helps.
BR.
Tamas

status report: A friend of mine just finished upgrading the router sucessfully to 128MB, and also added connectors for the two additional USB ports with neat routing and proper coupling. I have finished installation of an external diversity antenna (instead of the PCB one) and installed 2x 5dB antennaes. :-) No dropped connection since, 54 Mbit/s maintained everywhere, fastest Wlan as ever with this router. :-)

Your's friend have upgraded a v1 o v2 WL-500gP router?

[Oyabun]

Your's friend have upgraded a v1 o v2 WL-500gP router?

Sorry. Of course v1.

[hggomes]

It is possible to test all the 128MB RAM, cause doing ./memtest 128MB only tests 64-67MB. I've tryed "free" and i've got 124MB free without any services running, it should test at least 124MB. This way i will never know if the other module of 64MB it's OK or not. Any ideas?

[shinji257]

Just curious but is there anyone here that can do this upgrade for me? I have no experience on SMD chips. I will probably get another unit for this upgrade so that my current one isn't affected and I will continue to have 2 "stock" units.

[vuk]

I wonder if there is anyway to solder some TSOP slot first in place of U3 and U4 the sort of those seen on many OLD 4Mb PCI video cards, just to allow easily exchange the RAM on WL500. Anyone tried ?

[Inertial]

Dear Vuk,

I am planning to use some Meritec TSOP-48 sockets for the flash chip, not sure if i'll do so *on* the board of the router, there are clearence issues. Meritec doesn't do TSOP-66, (since they are not used for flash chips, i think)

Thought of hacking some piece of something to do what you describe, but this would be difficult, in reality. Anyway, that's what came to my mind:

-> Either to make a fixture to press the chip pins directly on solder-wicked, cleaned, and kinda, DIY, atmospheric-pressure "hot-air-kind-of-leveled" pads

-> Or use these very nice elastic 1D-conductive strips, the ones employed to transfer the current to glass substrate LCD dot-matrix screens (grey conductive something, sandwiched in pink elastic). I have some of this somewhere, have to test resistance and most of all, the pitch of these conductors, to avoid shorting everything. Then a way to hold and press everything in place will have to be devised.

Proceeding in these ways ofcourse would make it very hard to tell if the problem comes from the chip under test OR the fixture

The sockets you mention are a great idea, i will give it a try for sure if i manage to find any and report the results back here.

The second best thing that comes to my mind is to use 3M's z-plane conductive tape, but i can't afford it - far too expensive.

Looking through quite some of the boxes that comprise my old hardware collection (others call it junk ), nothing like 66-tsop sockets was found...

So please, could you direct us to some photos of the video cards in question. Or at least to some model names/numbers and manufacturer's names.


Inertial

[vuk]

Well, actualy i remembered and old ATI pci 4Mb card i had once (1998 perhaps), but I never counted the pins in the TSOP socket. Anyway, i am sure there are 66 pin versions for that.
Another ideea came to me was the same as yours, to replace the EEPROM with a larger one, say... 128Mb from a flash disk and put it in a TSOP socket. Because I found a similar HYNIX chip inside a flash disk of mine.
Still don`t know how to copy the entire code inside to make it boot again.
Whatever, that would allow to store a richer operating system inside on a larger storage space and to use external usb laptop hdd just for user space, accounts and downloads, etc.
QUESTION: wl500 is a multilayer or plain dual layer PCB ?

[Freelancer]

Hi, guys

I have tears in my eye, I was able to upgrade to 128Mb.
First of all I could not get the correct Samsung chips.
For this I bought two chips from Trucki.
Secondly I did not had the "hand skill" for soldering.
For this I turned for everybody. My neighbor worked in a place where they had professional soldering gear, but there I as a stranger could not enter, so initially I asked around everywhere who can do it, I wanted to see and to be able to try it and if wrong re solder it. Could not find nobody. Oyabun volunteered, but he was busy in private life. So finally I gave my router to my neighbor to do it in a blind way and if turns out good than turns out good.
And it turned out good. :-)
It is so good. :-):-):-)
Next thing I will be asking around how to set up the development environment and trying to port the DC++ client. :-)

[oleo]

Install amule instead of porting dc+. Quick description for optware is at http://trac.nslu2-linux.org/optware/wiki

[pop k]

Is that possible to upgrade ram of ASUS 520gU to 128MB?
It has the same cpu but is different frequency.

pop k.

[vuk]

Is there anyone of u who has an extra pair of chips for sale, or knows a reliable source tu buy those ? I mean the chips described by Oleg in http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12962

Thank you!

[moszinet]

I've managed to buy one of these laptop memory modules on ebay.co.uk ...

[vuk]

I doubt someone will ship to Romania