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Topic: WRT54GL and 64MB RAM upgrade: [partial] success.

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interristing.... but his RAM work with 10bit column adressing wink
without that, only 16MB will be shown...
the probleme his A12 on row adressing, or find a RAM chip with 11bit column adressing (maybe 32Mbx16x4bank or 64Mbx16x4bank if that exists)

I can't try it yet - no JTAG to recover...

from this site http://www.linuxelectrons.com/features/ … page=0%2C0

He was said pin42 (A12) appears to be connected to the BCM95352E SoC.
All that is left to do is to solder down the ram (HY5DU561622CT) and modify the source to tell the SDRAM controller what type of SDRAM is connected.

(Picture)http://www.linuxelectrons.com/images/ar … _pcb_2.jpg

So. that A12 appears to be connected to the BCM95352E SoC Aready Right ?.

And i knew from google searching that BCM95352E can replace ram to 128MB.   well, why 64MB not yet ??


sorry for my bad english agian.. ^^!

(Last edited by Oishikawa on 28 May 2007, 22:02)

In fact the of booBot is on GL v1.0 (One Ram Chip), he thinks thath A12 is linked to chipset, but not really sure.

On my GSV1.1 (1 RAM chip), there something under pin 42, so A12 seems to be plug to the chipset !?!, so 64MB maybe possible...
That is made trought a 0 Ohm (RA7, next to pin 37), and the 0 Ohm is mounted !, strange...

And my test is on GS V1.0 (2 RAM chips, old pcb), and I am sure A12 is NOT wired wink

That is maybe different following which PCB you have...

Edit :
In your link the author just has 32Mb, not 64 !?! or i am missing something ??

In my point of view, the Flash hack to have 16MB is not possible, A23 seems not wired...

(Last edited by $@m on 29 May 2007, 10:45)

Yes, he has only 32MB

but that site for refer he said pinA12 to be connected to the BCM5352E Processor. for WRT54GL V1.1 board

Now i,m do not replace a new ram to my WRT54GL,
Cause i don,t have a tool to replace it. but Soon i will try to do it


i think , All necessary of UC10 pin it to wire to BCM5352E Processor from Linksys engineering.
for more Application to pick a ram use with WRT54GL router. And only BCM5352E memory controler
to config for 16MB original ram compatible

i,m not sure may be we need to config " sdram_init " for compatible with new replace ram, i think..

So. I wanna try to test that but i don,t have a tool rigth now  T.T ..

(Last edited by Oishikawa on 29 May 2007, 11:05)

I have my GS1.1 under my eyes, so I add a notice, i think A12 is connected wink

MAKE THE JTAG CABLE !!!! big_smile

Look, you've managed to solder dozens of tiny tiny connections with tinytiny spaces in between directly to the board.
Im SURE you can manage to make a crappy home-made JTAG cable wink

Follow this guide http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1265089

I made one while watching a tv show. It's horrible, it's flimsy, but it works. I bricked my router when I overclocked it beyond 275mhz and had to flash it with jtag.
Cost me 4$ of material.

alkizmo wrote:

MAKE THE JTAG CABLE !!!

Don't cry so loud.

I need to take the box out first, this is not always possible.

As soon as I manage the replacement box in - I'll do the tests with the sdram_init values. don't worry.

sorry, didnt mean to sound like i was shouting wink Just imagine me screaming at you like Dr. Strangelove

I didnt realize your box was for more than personal use.

Well anyhow, im gonna do the mod myself, unfortunately all I got is a 32mb chip sad 

But since I dont run asterisk on it anymore, I will barely use over 16mb already.

So ? whats up ?

Still the same - not a chance yet to hack it more...

I'll resume as soon as some more people go on vacation in my office.

Ah, doing the work... at work? wink

quick question, as I said in my last post I was going to try to do the mod.

I stopped after trying to remove a single memory chip from the ram stick I got.  It was already hard enough and I felt like i was damaging the PCB itself.

I couldnt unsolder individually each pin. I got a pen-point soldering iron, but I never ever saw a NEEDLE point soldering iron!

Also I read I could buy some liquid flux. Aside from this single vendor on eBay, I cant find anything else about liquid flux.

Are you some sort of professional with professional equipment?

hay ,  i was try sdram_init change.. from 0x010b

when i input new 0x0113 to NVRAM (sdram_init) and reboot..  after that it take a few time more to boot.
but it still 32MB and sdram_init return to 0x010b automaticly (i,m sure with nvram commit)

after that i input 0x0013 new value to NVRAM (sdram_init) . the resault is same.

And last i input 0x0109 for 32bit ram config (2 chip ram) . my router WRT54GL was bricked

who has any idia..  ??

PS. Sorry for my bad english ^^!

alkizmo wrote:

Are you some sort of professional with professional equipment?

No, I'm not the professional solderer...
smile

However, I do have access to a professional grade soldering station (hot air gun, pin-point iron, microscope, etc).

As a "plan B" - search for the video2_tsop48.wmv - it shows how one may desolder a chip with just a relatively powerfull iron.

Just got 64MB to work on my WRT54GL v1.1. I used the same 46V32M16 micron chip and the following settings:

nvram set sdram_init=0x0113
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0x000000
nvram commit

Then after unplugging and plugging back the power, I get 64MB smile

root@OpenWrt:~$ free
              total         used         free       shared      buffers
  Mem:        62932        10324        52608            0         1112
Swap:            0            0            0
Total:        62932        10324        52608
root@OpenWrt:~$ dmesg
CPU revision is: 00029008
Primary instruction cache 16kB, physically tagged, 2-way, linesize 16 bytes.
Primary data cache 8kB, 2-way, linesize 16 bytes.
Linux version 2.4.30 (db90h@idoru) (gcc version 3.4.4 (OpenWrt-1.0)) #1 Thu Feb 22 13:58:48 EST 2007
Setting the PFC value as 0x15
Determined physical RAM map:
memory: 04000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
On node 0 totalpages: 16384
zone(0): 16384 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: root=/dev/mtdblock2 rootfstype=squashfs,jffs2 init=/etc/preinit noinitrd console=ttyS0,115200
CPU: BCM5352 rev 0 at 200 MHz
Using 100.000 MHz high precision timer.
Calibrating delay loop... 199.47 BogoMIPS
Memory: 62852k/65536k available (1455k kernel code, 2684k reserved, 104k data, 80k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
......

I've been following this thread closely and am quite eager to do it too on my WRT54GL routers.
I guess the title of the thread can be changed from [partial] success to success!

I've been wondering about these parameters:
nvram set sdram_init=0x0113
nvram set sdram_ncdl=0x000000

Aren't they specific for the ram chip used?
Is it possible they won't be suitable in all cases where this mod is attempted?

I've seen these values modified on another thread to prevent router reboots.
http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=9700&p=4

I guess the values should be ok. The post you refer to uses only the sdram_ncdl value which we change to 0 to cause recomputation of memory timings. It can be anything the chip can handle. The other setting (sdram_init) is to use 10-bit column addressing (10 pins on the chip), as others have pointed out in this thread before.

I'll do more tests but it seems stable. Right now I'm also trying to overclock to 275MHz but the usual method always bricks it. The modified CFE works fine but when I change clkfreq to 275 it won't boot again. I'm not sure if I have some flash mapping issues. I also have installed a 16MB Intel flash chip, and for some reason everytime it is bricked, I need to do a full erase (custom specifying the whole flash window, start, and length (0x1c000000, 0x1c000000, 0x01000000 respectively)) to unbrick it. Otherwise it won't work by simply overwriting the CFE after a standard erase.

Hey!
Good to know it works indeed!!!

I wonder why do people buy those v5|v6 boxes? Are they that much cheaper than the WRT54GL?

(Tomorrow I'll try the sdram_init = 0x0113 myself)

Yes !!.. sdram_init = 0x0113 It,s WROKKK !!

i test for 3 Gen Firmwire . It, work 2 of them for 64MB

1 OpenWRT  64 MB
2 DD-WRT 64 MB
3 Tomato still 32 MB

Cause tomato after i config NVRAM and then reboot it .
NVRAM sdram_init Value will be return to 0x010b autoamtic.  T.T

Ok. Now what's next? 128MB or 256MB? smile

oouhouh ! 128.... 256.... you dream...

Soft hack is a thing.... Hard hack, an other...
to have more RAM you must have a correct hardware....  here, a big adress bus wired... after theet you can mod by software...
128Mb is maybe possible, but 256.... I doubt..

The Broadcomm bcm53xx chip (the cpu on wrt54gl v1.1.) is supposed to support up to 256MB according to Broadcom's own flyer. I don't know about the wiring though -- I need to check what the memory pinouts are for 128 and 256 ram.

Hooray!

Now I have all 64MB of RAM available!!!

Fantastic!

In the words of someone I know:

Post it on the Wiki.  wink

I,m Now Avariable 64MB  !! with Tomato v.1.07 Frimwire big_smile big_smile lol lol

http://pao.nunet.co.th/files/untitled64.jpg

(Last edited by Oishikawa on 18 Jun 2007, 20:30)

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