128 Mb Memory Upgrade Options

[guylhem]

Hello

[crossposted to the C3000 forum]

Now I have a better understanding on hardware memory upgrades - good & bad news.

The bad news: the memory stick I opened was a 8 Mb TSOP40 (bad luck - it must be TSOP48 to be hardware compatible. Anyone feel likes opening his 128Mb memory stick and count memory chip pins to check if he/she's more lucky?)

The good news: with the chineese forum pics I could validate my ideas. See the following pics: the samsung chip is k9f2808u0c - google for that and you'll see the size matches the flash, and it is tsop48

http://photos6.flickr.com/7220607_3ed74e94a9_b.jpg
http://photos6.flickr.com/7220663_87696a44e5_b.jpg

Even better- noticed the empty spot below? You can solder a second tsop48 chip. However this may require additional hardware hacks + kernel changes to activate the 2nd bank.

My suggestion to anyone with good soldering skills and a C3000 : purchase a 128 Mb memory stick and (hopefully) find a 128 Mb nand chip inside. Transplant it to your Zaurus. It will be empty, so you will have to go to the diagnostic menu. Then restore a 128 Mb dump from a C1000 - voila, you know have a super 3000. The same should apply to any zaurus also using TSOP 48 chips.

The big question is - will it work (boot, etc.) ? Good question, so I investigated the boot loader from my 6000.

http://externe.net/zaurus/flash/nand/parts/6000L/boot.bin

The bad news: I may or may not do with a tc58100 - the bootloader just doesn't know it. Ie - it may work, but I don't want to take risk (my soldering skills are not that good to risk my zaurus life twice)

The good news: A Toshiba TC58DVG02AFT or a Samsung K9K1G08U0M are recognised by the bootloader (the default chip is TC58512FT or K9F1208U0M on a 6000, ie a 64 Mb/512MB chip)

For a Sl6000, this would require 1) flashing the rescue kernel with a special kernel that will know the flash is a 128 Mb 2) doing a nandbackup, exploding the nandbackup, increasing its size to 128 Mb 3) doing the above mentionned hack, only with a Toshiba TC58DVG02AFT or a Samsung K9K1G08U0M 4) restoring the hacked nandbackup 5) booting in the rescue kernel to reformat the 2nd partition and install an identical 1st kernel

See http://www.externe.net/zaurus/flash/nandmap.jpg for kernel informations.

All this sounds like a cool hack. Now someone please find me the chips (call toshiba USA - http://www.toshiba.com/taec/ I'm in France :-) I'm ready to get a Cxxxx just for the hacking purpose :-)

[speculatrix]

I saw that someone actually attempted replacing the flash on a 6000L here.
Anyone know how to contact this guy ? (no email on the site)

you must have found my site via google, not via my sig then

I have a C760 on which I can try on ...
I have a few questions then:
I have a 256 lexar CF card with a K9K2GO8UOM chip can this be used ?
the CF card has a few problems (I cannot write to it any more) .... is this dew to dammage on the nand2CF pridge inside or is it the nand that's broken ?
pdaXrom now uses u-boot .... will this work around the sharp boot loader problem only working with limited chips ?
If this is true can any other compatible chip be used ... I have two 1Gb CF I rarely use now that I could open up ... what other chips would be compatibe ?

I would strongly suggest that if you're going to risk damaging your Z, you really want to use the newest chip possible! However, it's useful to know where this device has been used, so far it's been a bit elusive.

I really don't know enough about the way the Z boots; however, I believe that Guylhem has analysed the device tables in the Z's boot code so he was able to identify compatible devices.

That was Speculatrix and he bricked his first 6000L doing it. He made a FrakenZaurus out it by combining it with a 6000L that fell off a roof.

"frankenzaurus" - ROFL!