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 :-)

[guylhem]

I tried everything. If you can find them, I'm ready to give it a try. I'll practice on a 5500.

[adf]

The downside of being in AK. other than big whover-they-are-USA (like toshiba) stuff, and ebusinesses.. there isn't much here