OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => General Support and Discussion => Zaurus General Forums => Archived Forums => Hardware Mods => Topic started by: guylhem on April 19, 2005, 11:18:11 am
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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/7220607_3ed74e94a9_b.jpg)
http://photos6.flickr.com/7220663_87696a44e5_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 (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 (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/ (http://www.toshiba.com/taec/) I'm in France :-) I'm ready to get a Cxxxx just for the hacking purpose :-)
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will give it a shot this week.
One of my disks (the one mounteed at /home) is having fits. have to do a lot of partimage and ddrescue stuff to get back in working order. --kinda time consuming.
did you say one of those chips was a 512MB?
at any rate a 128 (or better) 6k would be very nice.
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512 MB means 64 Mb - that's what's used by default on the 6000.
Tried to look for nand chips - no luck. My local shop doesn't have 128 Mb usb keys anymore. Looked for transparent memory sticks (easier than cutting it open) - Samsung 128 Mb, but with a different memory organisation :-/ Borrowed a friend USB key - Samsung 128 Mb, but with a different memory organisation :-/
No luck in finding a K9K1 so far, or a toshiba. So please keep me informed of your toshiba contact..
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have you looked at pricewatch.com? they have links to a huge number of vendors...
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I tried everything. If you can find them, I'm ready to give it a try. I'll practice on a 5500.
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The downside of being in AK. other than big whover-they-are-USA (like toshiba) stuff, and ebusinesses.. there isn't much here
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The downside of being in AK. other than big whover-they-are-USA (like toshiba) stuff, and ebusinesses.. there isn't much here
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I never noticed you were up here too! Or maby I did and forgot...
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I tried everything. If you can find them, I'm ready to give it a try. I'll practice on a 5500.
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Are you talking anout the rectangular memory chips or the square Sharp chips?? I tried doing the memory upgrade thing on my old iPaq, didn't go so well. My wife walked in the room and I didn't hear her. Anyway when she said someting I jumped and ripped all the traces off the board.
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Sorry for your ipaq :-(
Yes I'm talking about rectangular nand chips. Here's a PM reply I sent about how to proceed and other possible upgrades.
IIRC, there're 4 slots for RAM with only 2 being used, and 2 for flash with only 1 being used.
Possible safe defaults is 128 Mb of RAM using the same chips and 256 Mb of flash using different chips. A maximum is 256 Mb of RAM and 128 Mb of flash. I'm much more interested in flash and I'd rather have one upgrade working than 2 pendings, but RAM could be done too later on.
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The diagnostic menu is not there but on a separate chip so it should work fine. However you don't need a TH58100FT but a Toshiba TC58DVG02AFT or a Samsung K9K1G08U0M. Other chips might work but I'm far from sure. These 2 chips are mentionned in the bootloader and diagnostic so I'm quite sure they should work well, and I'd prefer being on the safe side.
How much do a TC58DVG02AFT cost ? (could I pay you to get one for me ? I'm really interested in the upgrade too.)
Would you like to perform the upgrade yourself ? You only need good soldering abilities to remove the old chip and make the new one work.
I can guide you though the software part.
Theorically you could use 2x 128 chips at once (not sure about 1x128 1x64), but that may require additional hardware and software modifications. I'm ok on the software side, but I'm not sure for the hardware. I'll have to ask some friends.
If the chips are cheap (they should cost around $20 each) it's worth soldering 2x 128 anyway. In the worst case, one will not work, without causing any damage. In the best case, 256 Mb of flash will work immediately. Inbetween, it will require soldering 1 single wire to activate the 2nd bank.
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i see TH58100FT is the same of TC58DVG02A1FT... so is there a way to hack bootloader and using this chip ???
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hacking the bootloader is no easy game, especially if you don't know arm asm :-)
It may require some days of work. Trying the TH58100FT chip first and see whether nand restore works in what should be done. If it doesn't work, end of the game. If it does, I'll see the bootloader.
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Just a suggestion as I was contemplating a RAM upgrade for my 5500 a year or so ago. Go to your local community college or university as many of them have SMT labs, and ppl knowledgeable enough to help you out, or even do it for you. I talked to a EE that was working on CompSci too and said he would do it for me just for the chance to play with it. Unfortunately my limited knowledge of memory chips and manufacturers prevented me from obtaining the chips I needed to perform the upgrade.
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If you're in the us toshiba sometimes offers samples - contact them.
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Erm guys...... As an electronics engineer I have to say I wouldnt even think of this without a full micro electronics lab to hand. Surface mount components are not only soldered they are glued to the pcb. This means when you desolder the chip the flux and glue usualy keeps it stuck to the board. The danger is then that you habe to apply more heat to unstick it and this usualy results in damaging the pcb and surounding components. I gave up on out of lab pcb repairs on PCs about 1995 for this reason as the sucess rate was getting lower and lower as the componant density increased.
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any news on this it sounds exciting. the only chip suppliers, after a quick google search, i found wanted you to buy at least 200 dollars of chips.
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that's the #1 issue - getting the chips. Soldering them could actually be done at my university - there're many hardware labs working on all kind of things.
Guylhem
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and how many chips does $200 get you?
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WARNING!! slightly off-topic
Doesn anyone have or know the 6000 expansion connector pinouts? I'd really like to make use of it...
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Like I said on the other thread where you posted the same question, I do have a spare Samsung 128MB nand flash chip.
-albertr
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er.... were you talking to me albert.r ? My question wasn't about the chips, hence the offtopic warning.
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i just searched google for the chip number. there are a couple of retailers u have to ask them for quote. its like entry how many and the price willing to pay but u cant get less than $200
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albertr, sorry I dind't notice that. I'm interested. Do you have the chip reference? (I may need to get a special model for the bootloader to find it) How much would you sell it?
Guylhem
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any news on this?
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I had a 128MB flash disk with a chip that would have worked, unfortunatly it went missing
couple of things to note, the 2GB flash chips from sharp are pin compatible, i am thinking of buying an ipod nano to rip apart.
i have a c3k that i am willing to use to test the hack, however it would be better to keep the 16MB chip in and use it to bootload the c3k and use the kernel mtd drivers to detect and itilise the chip, this means the max using flash chips is 2GB + 16MB instead of 4GB unless you want to hack the rom, lukily i have no problems with doing that ethier
i dont see why larger chips wouldnt work for any other zaurus unless there is somthing i havent read about on this fourm.
so put me down for the ram chips and flash, if the flash works i will upgrade it to 4GB later. if you do get the RAM chips could you make sure we get the highest speed ones avalible, i want to see how fast i can make my ram bus go
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I saw that someone actually attempted replacing the flash on a 6000L here (http://www.zaurus.org.uk/6000-flash.html).
Anyone know how to contact this guy ? (no email on the site)
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 ?
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I saw that someone actually attempted replacing the flash on a 6000L here (http://www.zaurus.org.uk/6000-flash.html).
Anyone know how to contact this guy ? (no email on the site)
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 ?
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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.
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I saw that someone actually attempted replacing the flash on a 6000L here (http://www.zaurus.org.uk/6000-flash.html).
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!
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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.
Breast pocket not good place for a 6000 when bent down to pick something up on the roof...Rather than dive after it and go off the roof, I opted to sadly watch it slide away. Display was hosed, but seemed otherwise 'thumbs up', was close to 2 meters give or take, on to concrete I was too impressed to be all that upset.
Lesson learned, I have a secured solution for my next Zaurus when I'm carrying it.
I would love to mod one in to my car.
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Breast pocket not good place for a 6000 when bent down to pick something up on the roof...Rather than dive after it and go off the roof, I opted to sadly watch it slide away
Hey, how's it going? The thing I never understood was: what were you doing on the roof with a zaurus in your pocket? Running kismet and snooping your neighbour's porn download?
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FYI, I was just looking at a C3000 p2rom:
The table of supported NAND chips starts at offset 0x1c4a0.
Supported are:
Toshiba TC58512FT (Maker 0x98, Device 0x76, 64MByte)
Toshiba TC58DVG02AFT (Maker 0x98, Device 0x79, 128MByte)
Samsung K9F1208U0M (Maker 0xec, Device 0x76, 64MByte)
Samsung K9K1G08U0M (Maker 0xec, Device 0x79, 128MByte)
Samsung K9F2808U0C (Maker 0xec, Device 0x73, 16MByte)
Samsung K9F5608U0C (Maker 0xec, Device 0x75, 32MByte)
Erase size 0x4000, block size 0x200, oob size 0x10 for all of them.
Another value (bank size?) is 0x4000000 for all of them except the Maker 0xec Device 0x76, where it is 0x8000000.
In theory any chip that has the right Maker/Device and matching parameters and is command set compatible should work.
I'd try looking at 128MB or 256MB usb sticks or 256MB/512MB CF cards for matching parts (My old 64MB usb stick uses a TC58512FT compatible TC58DVM92A1FT 64MByte TSOP48, but the sticks PCB has room for two chips).
HTH
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FYI, I was just looking at a C3000 p2rom:
The table of supported NAND chips starts at offset 0x1c4a0.
Supported are:
Toshiba TC58512FT (Maker 0x98, Device 0x76, 64MByte)
Toshiba TC58DVG02AFT (Maker 0x98, Device 0x79, 128MByte)
Samsung K9F1208U0M (Maker 0xec, Device 0x76, 64MByte)
Samsung K9K1G08U0M (Maker 0xec, Device 0x79, 128MByte)
Samsung K9F2808U0C (Maker 0xec, Device 0x73, 16MByte)
Samsung K9F5608U0C (Maker 0xec, Device 0x75, 32MByte)
Erase size 0x4000, block size 0x200, oob size 0x10 for all of them.
Another value (bank size?) is 0x4000000 for all of them except the Maker 0xec Device 0x76, where it is 0x8000000.
In theory any chip that has the right Maker/Device and matching parameters and is command set compatible should work.
I'd try looking at 128MB or 256MB usb sticks or 256MB/512MB CF cards for matching parts (My old 64MB usb stick uses a TC58512FT compatible TC58DVM92A1FT 64MByte TSOP48, but the sticks PCB has room for two chips).
HTH
I managed to find mention that an old Sony 128M memory stick - quite an old variant - should contain one, so I ask on the local Freecycle mailing list and someone let me have one. I recently bought a black-and-decker version of the dremel, so I will grind off the broken RAM chip I have in my Tosa in the hope I can clean up the board to make room for a new ram chip, and also try soldering on more flash.
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Dremel idea sounds feasible. Hope it works!
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What's happened Spec? Did this work? Is your 6000 working again?
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I've not had time to try, and anyway, I've not got a DRAM chip to solder on even if I remove the busted one. I was kind of hoping I could use a patched bootloader to tell the kernel to use only the remaining memory, but I only just now figured out that since it won't even run the POST it means the startup code in the NOR flash probably needs some working RAM. sigh.