Memory upgrade on Mk2 Empeg

Is there a way to upgrade current memory of 12Mb to something more than that ?

If so, which memory chips can be used as replacement ?

Darko Dojin
mk2, 12Gb, amber&green, s/n 080000317

The chips are directly soldered to the motherboard, they are not socketed. Also, the software is directly compiled to a specific memory size, so even if you did add RAM, there would be no benefit to doing so. I wouldn't recommend it.

Why would you want to increase the RAM? It won't give you any better storage or performance. The only possible reason would be if you wanted to write third-party software that required more RAM. What exactly did you have in mind?

Now, increasing the hard disk size, that's a different story. Check the FAQ section of this BBS for details on how to do this.

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Tony Fabris

My searches turned up too many stray matches, so maybe there's a better thread than this one...

In reply to:

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Why would you want to increase the RAM? It won't give you any better storage or performance. The only possible reason would be if you wanted to write third-party software that required more RAM. What exactly did you have in mind?

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Since I'm quoting stuff that's over a year old, I'm guessing that "why?" is no longer the question as much as "how?" is.

With all the extra apps now available (GPSapp, TTSd, emptriv, and I use IrOBEX), if I don't quit the player, even a "ps" command is painfully slow. It doesn't bother me that the player software won't recognize more than 12MB as long as the kernel does so other apps don't have to fight with the player for RAM.

But even if it is possible to put more RAM in there, I'm quite a novice with a soldering iron. Even if someone posted specs on how to replace the RAM, I'd rather pay someone else to do it. Anyone venture into this yet?

I don't think you don't actually have to replace the existing RAM. You could stack new RAM chips on top of the existing leads. You would get the sum of the RAM already there plus what you added. Haven't tried it because there's no need.

Stu

There's a post by Patrick somewhere on the BBS which I can't quite find at the moment which tells you what you'd need to do. From what I remember you can stack them ontop but you'll need to wire up the extra address lines yourself which wouldn't be fun because if you did it wrong you could blow the SA.

- Trevor

IIRC, there's empty IC locations on the board, but I'd have to check this. You could solder on extra chips on the footprints.

To make use of it though, you'd have to get the kernel source each time there was a software update, check you could build it (with an installed toolset) and then modify it to account for your extra memory. There's more issues than this, though.

I've found the post by Patrick now. There aren't any extra pads for the RAM chips and you'd need to change the bootloader which is in the protected portion of the flash.
It's probably not a good idea to even attempt it anyway, the chances of blowing the crap out of the SA is high and if you do then it's trouble

- Trevor

Well, that answered my question... it's way over my skill level

I was hoping for something along the lines of TiVo.

I thought the Tivo hack to add RAM was really adding a RAMDisk to the IDE channel? It's not really adding system RAM, is it?
Jason

I don't think Jafa has finished the IDE RAM disk yet.

What most people have done is upgrade the 16MB on the mobo to 32MB. You can buy the chips from 9th tee.

Oh. ok. Somewhere I saw a picture of a memory DIMM sticking out above the drive and I thought that was what you were talking about.
Cool, there's more yellow than white in the above post!

Also, the software is directly compiled to a specific memory size

Uhm, if the software is compiled for a specific memory size, then we have a problem.. (At least, as far as I can tell.)
Any MK2 software revision works with the Mk2 and the Mk2a, yes?
But the Mk2 had 12Mb, the Mk2a had 16Mb.
So, that means than all Mk2a owners aren't using 4Mb of ram.

(I actually know a way around this, but I was curious if anyone else has an answer..)

Me. The devil's advocate.

For me, the player software is not where I want extra ram allocated. I've got a ReserveCache setting of 45 so the player is using just uner 9M. My Mk2a is still pressed for RAM as the TTSd wants 7, emphatic wants 2 and irattach, bash and empire add up to a couple more meg.

I'm squeezing by right now with 16, but I do have other future plans. Eventually, I'd like to have a terminal server with multiple serial ports (would need a small driver) so I can hook up both a GPS (how much RAM does GPSapp need?) and an OBD-II connection (which would mean more software).

An upgrade to 32M would be cool, but from the obstacles described in other posts, I'm not holding my breath.

I'd find it hard to believe that the 4mb is sitting idle.

We are talking about unix after all. The player app may (or may not) use the extra memory by detecting the player model but linux will.

Until someone is actually able to work out how to upgrade the h/w we can leave the s/w side alone.

The extra 4mb on the Mk2a is used automatically as cache.

Speaking of which.. why can I not find "ReserveCache" in the Empeg FAQ?? I've forgotten the meaning of those numbers (are they 4K per, or 64K per?) and wanted to look it up in the FAQ.

Cheers

why can I not find "ReserveCache" in the Empeg FAQ??

Because it's in the Developer Info section, not in the FAQ.



Edit: The "config.ini" section of the FAQ originally stated: "Complete documentation for all config.ini options can be found in the Developer Info section of this site." I will now update that with an actual LINK to that section instead of just saying it.