RAM upgrade for wl-500gx

[CountZero]

Too expensive for me But digikey was cheaper.. if it weren't for shipping and import duties... well well 64MB is enough for now

No, and I don't plan to, 128MB would be helpful for debian I think..

I am quite happy with Olegs firmware for the moment. I have tested transmission without any swap and it seems to run fine. Still have to do some more testing with more active torrents(max 2 so far) but I don't have a suitable HDD(i.e a silent one).

[Ivan]

on my WL500G Deluxe I have Olegs firmware + debian and... AMULE
It work correctly but if I put more 6 files to download, swap wake up to 30Mb and cpu usage is too expansive.
swap file on HDD is too late...

I've 80Gb HDD 2.5" attacked to USB port.

perhaps with 64Mb it work perfectly.

[CountZero]

I have a 3.5" HDD, but keep it switched off for most of the time... next time I get one with automatic spindown

Next thing on my list is a quiet 2.5" hdd (but one of the 1.8" would be nice )

Main motivation for doing the mod was to see if it was possible and perhaps download torrents while away(possible anyway)... I'm not realy a software guy.. more interested in hardware

If you do upgrade, practice on something cheaper first until you feel you can do the soldering without damage to the router.. like an old motherboard, find a suitable chip, remove it and put it back... hopefully it will work as before (but do check that it worked in the first place )

[Ivan]

Thanks
However, you have buy and mount MT48LC16M16A2P-75: D from micron, confirm?

[CountZero]

MT48LC16M16A2P-75

Yes, that is what I have. Don't forget about the two jumpers also.. they are on the other side of the board.

I will try to post pictures by thursday.

Edit The P/TG is only for Rohs so unless you are worried about that it does'nt matter.

[Ivan]

well, thanks

[CountZero]

As promised, pictures!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

[MMCM]

Fine work :-)

You could try to clean off the residue of the soldering with alcohol.

Merry christmas from me too!

[CountZero]

Thanks,

Its a no-clean flux and quite hard to get rid off! I did the soldering twice since I was a bit sloppy the first time, in the end it turned out to be one of the bridges, so I used a bit more flux then necessary. Not my finest work I can tell you

I am a bit tempted to try and fit 128MB, now that I have a source for the chips.. still a bit pricey though.

[Ivan]

eheh nice work Countzero!!
I am still finding the Chips

Merry Christmas, everyone

[anto]

First of all, thanks a lot to CountZero for sharing his experience in upgrading the RAM of WL500GD.

I managed to get and install 128MB RAM into my WL500GD router. But unfortunately CFE is only reporting 64MB usable RAM. The detail is on this thread.

Since all the row addresses (A0-A12) are there, so I thought it is only a matter of changing the column addressing from 9 bits to 10 bits, i.e. change sdram_init from 0x2008 to 0x2010. But it looks like that we have to change something on the CFE. Unfortunately I don't know anything about CFE codes.

Does any of you (Oleg?) have any suggestions as to which part on the CFE codes should I change?

[Oleg]

nvram set sdram_init=0x2010
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0
nvram commit

I've 128 MB of ram enabled on the WL500g Premium. It's detected just fine.

[oleo]

The following image is from WL500gx FCC schematics page 138:


I am thinking about piggy-back upgrade to 64MB with 64Mbit SDRAM 1Meg x 16 x 4 SDRAM.


I think that removing R38 and then connecting backed CS# to SD_A12 is a way to go. Connecting R38-pin2 to R68|R69-pin1 will alternate selection of original and backed SDRAMs.

But where can I find inverted SD_A12 for lower chips? Maybe simple transistor/resistor could do the job.

This way seems to me the safest way to upgrade to 64MB as one can also check both banks with alternating CS# to high/low before changing sdram_init.

Any progress on 128MB upgrade for wl500g deluxe?

Winbond 64Mbit SDRAM

[oleo]

I 've upgraded two Deluxe routers to 64MB with chips from 128MB PC 133 SDRAM module.


What surprised me is that no NVRAM variables were needed to recognize additional RAM.

I've also wrote mini howto upgrade for this occasion.

[mistraller]

Wow! Sounds great, as soon as I find another Deluxe I will try this mod too. (I can't miss my running deluxe in case the upgrade fails...)