Yes, but that's probably fixable with some lines in config.ini, for example, to increase the amount of memory the player thinks it has - sort of a negative cache reserve line, as you might want space kept aside for other tasks running on the player.

I can confirm that a correctly modded kernel lets my MkII be 16MB with no problems.

Stacking multiple chips will run into the drive cradle, which is a bit of an issue. One thing that currently worries me is the select line, which goes to the StrongARM and the two stacked chips, and it looks pretty fragile and susceptible to being whacked by the drive cradle. Needs some sort of protection from this (above the couple of bits of insulation tape I'm using!)

Hugo

/me grabs pencil and starts taking notes... Thanks!

MM.. a few drops of hot melt glue might be a low-tech solution to securing the chip select wire.

Got a kernel patch for me?

Cheers

I HMG'ed it already, the tape helps the tray not to catch on the glue!

No kernel patch, no, it needs doing properly, and I've not done it properly. Fancy doing it properly for me? (I'm not likely to get round to doing it for a few weeks, seeing as my player was dead and out of the car for almost 2 weeks until I got round to looking into why the 4MB upgrade wasn't working!)

It just needs to determine bank size (either by hwrev or by test writes) and then check if each bank is present before telling the kernel (a) the phys/virt mapping and (b) the total RAM size.

You also need a new e000.rom, as the RAM banks need to be enabled before the CPU is running out of RAM. This is attached, if it seems ok for people (./download e000.rom e000) I'll make sure it gets into in future releases.

I don't believe there are any problems with enabling banks that aren't there. It'll try to refresh them, but I doubt this will hurt anything. The attachment turns on all banks for mk2's and the bottom 2 banks (64MB) for mk2a's.

Hugo

Any chance of an e000.rom that doesn't ignore the serial port on DC power?

That way people could do serial upgrades while in a home dock.

Cheers

I just now installed the updated e000.rom file onto one of my MK2A players here, and it does not seem to have had any ill effects.

Here's a really easy way to install this on a Hijacked player:

ftp your.player.ip.addr
put e000.rom /proc/flash_0e000
site sync
quit

Note that the version number is still 1.04, even though the contents have changed. I verified correct programming by reading it back (from /proc/flash_0e000) and comparing with the original and uploaded ROM contents.

Cheers

Sorry, that part isn't in e000, that part is in 0000 (ie, the protected bootblock). You can upgrade this if you fit the link, but if you mess this up then the player is toast without desoldering the flash...

Hugo

So... To upgrade my mk2a to 32MB, I'll need to get two of these chips:
http://www.micron.com/products/dram/edofpm/part.aspx?part=MT4LC4M16R6TG-5
from here:
http://www.9thtee.com/tivomemory.htm
or from Hugo.
Pin 14 on the RAM goes to pin 123 on the ARM. Easy.

Now... to upgrade my mk1 to 16MB, I'd just need to solder on 4 additional chips in the existing spots, but since there's less than 400 mk1's in existence and mine will be pretty unique, the chance of it actually being useful (like v3/kanji support and not just caching and a massive db) is extremely slim.
Regardless, I'll volunteer my mk1 to test this out. I'm not into software hacking though, so I'll need a bit of help with that. Mark, you stated something about a hijack hack?

Hugo, how much will 8 mk1 chips be w/shipping to denmark? How would I go about testing for duds?

I'm thinking it should be possible to upgrade a mk1 (and a mk2(a)) to 64MB or more, if I replaced all of the RAM chips... I can't exactly say I know anything about this, but shouldn't it be possible to replace 2x 16bit wide chips with 4x 8bit wide chips?

Please note:

I ordered a bunch of sets from 9th Tee - enough for my own players and for both Stu and Mark to play with. Other than the automated reply, I have not heard any confirmation or email back, even with multiple email attempts to contact them. I would wait on ordering from them until I can confirm if they are still around.

EDIT: Reviewing the site and link again, I see that they are now listed as out of stock until April 1st. It could be that my order wiped him out and more, and that he is waiting for a new shipment. An email letting me know would have been nice, but I feel a bit better now.

Interesting. I ordered 3 sets on 2/23 and they shipped the next day. UPS confirms them as delivered but I haven't had a chance to pick them up. When did you place your order?

Interesting. I ordered 3 sets on 2/23 and they shipped the next day. UPS confirms them as delivered but I haven't had a chance to pick them up. When did you place your order?

February 17th. But there is a slight difference...

...I ordered twenty sets...

<running for cover>
<diving>
<shouting from behind barricade>

I told you I ordered a bunch for all my players, some for some folks I know on the board, plus some for Mark and Stu to play with... Why do people keep insisting on dealing with me as if I was a normal, sane individual???

Oh to have been in 9th tees office when they received that order. I'm guessing from the numbers that you're planning on maxing out to 64 MB if possible?

As to normal and sane, how's the 8 ball undertaking progressing?

...to have been in 9th tees office when they received that order...

Indeed! That must have been pretty funny. Especially when it was a PayPal prepaid! I can imagine jaws hitting the floor - where would we get the chips?!?!? What is he *doing* with these? I did explain in the message field of the order that the memory would (likely) work to expand the empeg, with a very brief description of what the empeg is.

...planning on maxing out to 64 MB...

Well, I was leaving the option open, but I think it will be physically difficult to do with the install, and mostly unnecessary. This is based on the previous discussion of how much memory is possible / practical. Doubling the RAM should really help life without making it impossible to install.

8 ball / insanity

The final proofs have been approved and submitted. The bill has been paid. I expect them to be completed by late March, with shipping of the bulk of them taking an additional four weeks to arrive in late April. I am having a small batch (say, 25) of them shipped express, so I can show them around.

Many thanks to everyone who submitted ideas for the artwork. While many of the ideas were good, and the best submitted idea being this one by Erlend (Archeon), I wanted something that was much simpler graphically, more basic and plain. I went with my original idea, "binary" and all. They did a slightly blurry mock up for me.

I hesitate to post the answer sheet on here. It is not that everyone has not seen it a few times, but I don't want anyone to find a typo at this point. It is too late to change, I reviewed it many times and had others review it as well. Anything found now means significant problems and expense to correct. So, you will have to wait until they ship!

More will be posted in the For Sale forum when they are ready.

Cool! They look good. I'll keep a watch on the For Sale forum.

sounds like maybe Stu can get a hold of some of these chip, and offer an upgrade service? I would be interested in upgrading my mk2a from 16mb to 32mb since my database is growing quite large, i have 120 gig, but only filled about 55 gig

How neccessary is it to upgrade to 32 meg? The only reason i see to upgrade would be to cash more of the tunes, so the hard drives wont have to spin up as often, and to hold a larger database (sounds like there is a limit to the size you can have). I guess the main reason would be that after running custom apps, you might run out of space.... I'm basically asking, at what point do you NEED an upgrade from 16mb to 32, or 64 on a mk2a?? My guess is only if you're running some kind of application that uses a lot of memory (relative to how much is left).

Greetings!

I think 32MB will be enough. I ordered the big batch mainly a) to have enough for my players, b) to have enough for a few other people I ordered for, c) to give Stu and Mark some samples to experiment with. I doubt I will push beyond 32MB.

As to why, I can always answer "because it can be done", but that is too easy. Basically, I am pushing the envelope on memory. I think I can safely say that I am running one of the largest databases in production today: highest FID 762D (30,253 FIDs decimal) with a database file size of just over 4MB. I think the hard published limit was somewhere around 28,000 FIDs decimal.

I would recommend trying for more memory:

a) if you are running multiple third party applications on the player
b) if you find you need to tweak the ReserveCache option in config.ini
c) you cannot sync or fsck your drives without turning swap on
d) you are building an 80GB drive in a Mark2
e) your hard drives do not spin down because the player application does not have enough cache space

That would be my rough recommendations. Of course, this upgrade is still not proven yet. It is still experimental. And even my player still functions fine with 16MB. But I am looking forward to a day of 100GB+ drives, and I really prefer not having to think about memory use all the time.

Damn.

My order was just cancelled / refunded. Apparently, 9th Tee can no longer get the chips because the manufacturer discontinued them.

Ah. That's the problem with EDO DRAM chips. You really don't want to steal chips from (eg) a SIMM because the mounting is hard enough with brand new chips - with pulls it'd be even more frustrating.

Hitachi parts are ok too (the same type as are already on there) if that helps.

Edit: just found these guys:

http://www.memphis-electronic.com/datasheets.htm

...who appear to be making EDO DRAM... ie, a current product. Looking at their datasheet, it would also appear to be *the Micron part* (ie, the datasheet has Micron crossed out and Memphis written on it in crayon).

The part number is 4X16E43VTW-5 I guess. You need the 4k refresh model. Might be worth telling the Tivo guys about this stuff too, it'd work there...

Hugo

can we start a list of people interested in this hack, so someone can order a bunch of chips for everyone. I'm willing to prepay someone if they can get the chips. Then hopefully the software will be updated to support the new memory, and stu can do the install.

I'm interested!

I've got an RFQ in at usbid.com for the Micron part number.

I would certainly be interested in a good batch of them, if you get any offers.

Likewise, both for my empegs and my tuxscreens/shannons

We can get them too if needed. We'd have to submit an RFQ to find out the terms, but they are available.

Stu

Okay, we're ready to do the memory upgrade on an MK2 but we're not quite clear on how to proceed. We've got the memory from Hugo. It sounds like we need to solder 4 additional chips to the player as they are supposed to be 1 MB each (as I understand it). Reading back from Hugo's posts, the MK2 has 3 banks comprised of 6 chips (apparently 2 MB units). He says "you could piggyback on one of the banks and get 16MB, adding bank 4." Meaning to me that we need to stack 2 chips on top of 2 of the stock chips. Is this correct? If so, which 2 stock chips can the stacks go on? Any 2, any adjacent 2 or what? It also sounds to me like a special modified kernel is needed. Will the player work normally without this kernel?

Thanks,
Stu

The Mk2 (not Mk2a) chips are 2MBytes/chip, as per Hugo's posting way earlier in this thread.

Cheers

The Mk1/Mk2 chips are 1M x 16. Doesn't that make them 1MB?

Stu

No! 1M * 16 is 2 megabytes.

Adrian

1MB = 1 megaByte = 8-bits times one million (1024*1024). These chips have 16-bits times one million, so therefore two megabytes.

Cheers

For some reason I was thinking 16 bits. Alright so only two chips are needed. Do they stack one layer high on two different OEM chips on the MK2? Which two? any adjacent two. Any kernel needed?

Thanks,
Stu