2.5 Gigs of RAM?

It may be worth looking at the 945 chip to see if bank/rank select lines can be manipulated.

 

I have the datasheet, haven't taken a look at it because of work..

Going on vacation next week, too, but maybe I'll have a chance to take a peek in CA

 

If by CA you mean Central America I personally spent a lot of time in El Salvador for relief work. If by CA you mean Cali, then at least I got to plug my relief work Either way, have fun, enjoy and safe travels. We are all anxiously awaiting your return

 

Hey there,

I meant CA as in california

I was able to take a peek at a EEE700 (2gb, surf) in our lab yesterday, it is using a 910gml chipset versus the 945gse, but it had a similar layout, and I dug a little bit into the trace runs, it looks like the two pairs of wires going directly to the center of the memory banks are SM_CK, which isn't going to be very helpful. I'm guessing the VDD to the mem chips is internal, and I don't want to remove my BGA memory before I can confirm it is doable w/o damage. I'll see if I can re-work the EEE as practice, but that'll depend on my manager

Anyone want to send me a completely spare AAO that they dont' mind killing in the name of science? The EEE is actually already torn down, but the memory chips are the same footprint I think... (haven't looked up a datasheet), so in the very least I can learn something about the VDD traces (whether or not they're internal, etc).

 

this ould work after all the ax is 2 gb apperently so if we make a .15gb stick then we can have 2 gbs so why dosent sumones here make some and sell them

 

because the onboard ram is filled, it would only support a 1gb stick. 1.5 gb is more then 1gb so it wouldnt work.

 

Didn't I say in the part where you quoted "without modding"? It should be able to support 1.5gb or even 2GB if you mod it.

 

Is anyone particularly interested in a BGA removal solution?

I just practiced on a dead board with me, and the process seems straight forward, the only problem is if I do this, i probably won't be able to contribute in the future towards other solutions, and not everyone has access to a hot air rework station...

Any input?

I'm pretty confident that if I just remove the RAM chips on board that I'll be able to stuff a 2GB stick in the other slot and I'll be good to go, but I don't think that it will really help anyone.

The only other thing I might be able to get out of this exercise is a traceable VDD line to the RAM bank.

Seriously, though, does anyone want to donate an AAO to the cause? I'll return it with the BGA memory removed, and it should (don't hold me to this) be able to use the 2GB ram modules. I'd like to keep my AAO in stock form in case we do want to do some trace cutting, as I personally think this will be a little more dangerous.

 

Dire, I have a hot air rework and would be happy to work on the AA1 for anybody. But first

I have not read any data sheets yet and I do not know what the BIOS will allow for ram/slot and I am assuming the BIOS on the AA1 will not allow more then 1gb/slot. I think the thing to do would be to get a 2gb stick and bring it down to 1.5gb if possible. If that works then 2gb should work with onboard removed. I would be happy to try the 1.5gb mod on a stick that only costs $20 shipped . But of course, I would need a little help figuring out how to get it to 1.5gb. I am excellent at rework but not so hot on circuits. If you look on newegg.com at the 2gb stick and find a data sheet for a particular one that we could mod, let me know and I will pick it up and try it out

Other then that, I have been looking on ebay for an AA1 with bad monitor but they go for too much (almost for new price).

 

I removed 4 RAM chips from A110 Motherboard, and now system is not wake up. Just removing chips is not enought. There is should be something that tells to chipset that this bank is not empty. It is could not see RAM inserted into slot. And SPD chip (U29) not exists on my board there is just place for it. So there should be something more, or need another way to allow 2GB inserted into slot.

 

Good point. He is correct (Obviously) that just removing the chips is not what needs to be done. The motherboard is still looking for the chips themselves and there is something else needed to be done (trace cut?) to let the MB think that memory does not exist.

I hope you did this one a computer that was for testing purpose. I would feel pretty bad if you did this on our account

 

Ok, I just looked over the data sheets for both the chips and the memory that the chips would be on. Below is the links for the data sheets.

With that, Can we just open the trace to CKE? or would we have to open VDD, VDDL, VDDQ and VTT as well? I am extremely tired and need to get some sleep but this has me excited. I would love to make a 2gb AA1

data sheets on ram sticks

data sheet on chips

Newegg has a kit of 1gb+2gb Kingston for $37 shipped. I may just get that to play with since I will at least have a good 1gb stick when done playing. There is also a Motherboard from an AA1 on ebay but the guy wants too much at this point.

Regardless, I need to hit the hay hey.

 

Oh, VBlack. The PCB of the motherboard is multi layer. I would be anxious to see how good you did at desoldering the chips. There is a possibility that you could have either damaged the PCB or leaked solder through the MB. Can you get some close up, hi-res pics of the PCB with chips removed?

Regardless, I would guess that the MB is looking for those chips and they are not there so the computer will not start. There is something on the MB that make the computer think that the MB is actually a ram stick. SPD? CKE? I do not know enough about this stuff to know the answer.

 

Drats, VBlack, we'll figure something out to get you back up and running, hopefully you can live without your AA1 for a little while

I'll see if I can't find someone to talk to at work about disabling the RAM banks. I was looking at another datasheet (not the Hynix, but the chipset), and it seems like disabling is easiest by hardware, but I think that option is out of our current group's skillset.

I really wish we had a board file to work with

 

Before we do anything else, lets try to elminate possible problem.
-examine if any solder has leaked into other pcb layers
-examine if there are any "bridged" connections
-reflash the bios

 

I used to fix Car computers for guys that screwed them up. I have seen traces melted off, pulled traces and also other components "blown" around the PCB by hot air re-work. VBlack needs to chime in and explain what he used to remove the chips and a picture of what it looks like now would be nice. If it is clean enough it would also help trace the traces

 

Sure this particular Acer was for testing purpose, I have another one not for testing
I did it with special infrared station for BGA chips this one http://www.ersa.com/art-ir-pl-550-346-1473.html, but I did such thing for first time, and it was extremly hard to get access to such tool. Hi-res picture is here: , I try to remove chips very jently. I was able to use "guy with POST card" (just after I removed chips, when I see that Acer is not starting) that guy is say "looks like no RAM". Now I am try to figure out it is possible to tell bios to disable onboard RAM (maybe some bios patch). If I succeded - I can just get out BIOS flash, reprogram it and put it back. But this all still under the question "is it possible" And of course I still looking for HW solution. I feel we just miss something.

 

Just wondering if you have ram module in the ram slot on the back of the motherboard and have connected keybaord, touchpad and all the essential things.

 

It look like you did a pretty good job for your first time. Kick butt rework station lol.

I would suggest checking to make sure that none of the solder is shorted out from spot to spot. Either check it with a magnifying glass or just retouch it with a pencil iron.

One thing that we need to keep in mind is the timing of the ram. If we can just replace with a 2gb module we are fine. If we somehow make a 2gb into a 1.5gb and get it to work it would be nice to match timings.

Regardless, I think the best bet is still to disable onboard and stick in a 2gb stick. Hopefully Dire will chime in after checking onto that. Once we know if it can be done we need to find which traces go where lol.

 

or if possible, we can take of the chips from a stick of ram, and solder it on there, that might be a possibility.