RAM upgrade?

[frank-zappa]

Is it ever possible to upgrade the RAM on a PineBook?

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Is it ever possible to upgrade the RAM on a PineBook?

Yes, and no.

TL Lim has said that the original goal of the Pinebook design was to allow for board(s) upgrade;  maybe after next year.  The ram ( LPDDR3 ) is soldered in place;  however, if the entire main board were replaced then ram upgrade is definitely possible.   At the moment only one main board is available, and because the ram is soldered in place the ram is not upgradeable now.

[aproximation]

The last message in this thread was just over 6 months ago. But it was very helpful, and it mentioned that the intent of the Pinebook was to allow users to upgrade the RAM at some point in the future.

To that end I have two questions:

1. Has anything changed in that 7 months or so to allow me to open the Pinebook and upgrade to 4 or 8 GB or more of RAM?
   
2. The previous post mentioned that the RAM was soldered onto the board. It's probably folly, but might it be possible for an amateur like myself to un-solder that RAM chip and solder on a socket to allow me to pop in a larger RAM chip?
   

I know Linux tends to not devour RAM like some other OS's can, but the popular browsers definitely can eat RAM. So I'd like to be able to give myself some breathing room RAM-wise where I to buy one of these Pinebook beauties.

Thank you!

[pfeerick]

Has anything changed in that 7 months or so to allow me to open the Pinebook and upgrade to 4 or 8 GB or more of RAM?

8GB??... I doubt it. IIRC, the pine64 CPU is only capably of addressing up to 3GB of memory, so it would be a complete overhaul to a different CPU and associated teething problems of such a change.

The previous post mentioned that the RAM was soldered onto the board. It's probably folly, but might it be possible for an amateur like myself to un-solder that RAM chip and solder on a socket to allow me to pop in a larger RAM chip?

Changing the memory on these would not be for the faint hearted... we're not talking parts that have accessible solder joints... their ball grid array type parts, meaning all the solder joints are under the chip, and would have to be detached through use of a heat plate. And then there would be the "fun" of trying to get the new one on (say an upgrade from 2GB to 3GB) without any shorts.

The proper answer to the OP question would have been "NO" - or "Not unless you have a whole reflow soldering setup and know how to remove and replace BGA parts... and then assuming nothing needs changing in the software." There may be a new main-board out at some point, based on the rock64 or rock64pro designs... and then you'll be able to look forward to better CPU, graphics and RAM performance.

[aproximation]

Thank you for that reply!

I am definitely not brave enough to un-seat a chip and feel like I woudln't break absolutely everything. And it sounds like even if my will was as string as solder and filled with flux, the CPU itself can't address a full 64-bit memory range on additional RAM anyway.

Thanks again!