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Hi all,

I am new to this forum. Do not own a x505 (yet), but been wanting it ever since I first saw one in a Sony shop in Paris back in 2004…

Anyway, I am now seriously considering buying one and am looking into upgrade options.

HDD: obviously the 32GB SSD is a great upgrade (and the SSDs will get larger & cheaper in the future)!

CPU: I think the 1.1GHz ULV Pentium M is top-of-the line as far as first generation Pentium M ULV goes, so guess it is not upgradeable (not to mention it is a soldered large ball count BGA part…)

Memory:
Most people would say “it’s soldered, so it is not upgradeable”. Well, I do not want to agree to that.
I noticed people already discussed 1Gb chip options in 32Gb SSD thread.
I guess it could be upgradeable under following conditions:
1. Chipset support
2. PCB support
3. BIOS support
4. pin-compatible upgrade chips available
5. serial EEPROM?
6. rework tools for BGA + soldering skills

X505 memory consists of 8 512Mb BGA DDR devices (266 MHz?). Only upgrade option possible, I guess, are 1Gb devices with same form factor (2Gb is probably wishful thinking?). Some 1Gb BGA DDR chips I found are, for instance, Elpida : http://www.elpida.com/pdfs/E1127E31.pdf
But, these are 32Mx32bit devices and I do not know which configuration x505 uses (could be 64Mx8bit devices, since there are 8 chips?).
Also, as far as I know, DIMM modules also have a serial EEPROM which holds some data about memory (clk delays, configuration,...?) - would it need to be reprogrammed?

For starters, could someone please post the device ID from the RAM chips of x505?
Other info (BIOS support, EEPROM, etc.) would be welcome too.

Roni

Roni,

I don’t have my X’s near me, but tomorrow I can post the info. I’d be glad to donate my spare X to ‘test’ this if someone really knows what they are doing.

If you look up the Xbox forums, people have removed soldered RAM and installed new ones, which is where I got the idea from.

Erik

Thanks Erik; waiting for chip markings.

Can you please grab some closeups of the RAM chips & whole memory part of the motherboard? Also, some images of the other (top) side of MB would be nice. The only image of the CPU side I’ve seen is in the Developer story thread

Checked some datasheets today (Intel, JEDEC). SPD EEPROM should not be problematic (i2c device; can be reprogrammed), but reading 855GM chipset documentation I am not sure if it supports more than 512MB in just 8 chips…

Roni

Roni,

Check your PMs.

Erik

Tnx for pictures, Erik.

From the markings I identified the RAM devices as MT46V64M8BN-75 (512Mb, 64Mx8, 266MHz DDR).

The only upgrade possible would be 128Mx8 devices (for a total of 1GB RAM) in FBGA60 package.
I’ve done extensive search but such devices unfortunately do not exist… (they only exist in TSOP 66 package)

I even contacted a company which makes specialty RAM devices. They could assemble a special chip. Such a chip could be constructed by stacking two dies inside a FBGA60 package, but the cost of tooling & NRE would be astronomical (more than $10k), so this is out of the question.

I guess now I know why nobody has upgraded the X’s memory… (yet)...

Well, there is still one more option: to build an adapter PCB from FBGA60 to TSOP 66 for each chip separately. It would be soldered in place of each current chip and the TSOP device soldered onto it. it would require more space - about 0.5mm extra thickness (very thin PCB would sit between the MB and new RAM chips) and would extend about 10mm over the motherboard in the space below keyboard (the TSOP devices are 10x22mm vs FBGA 10x12mm). If this extra space is there (there’s a mounting screw in the middle of this space; maybe some notch from the bottom housing part needs to be removed?), this is at least a theoretical option…

Roni

Roni,

As Erik’s answers, X505 memory seems to be impossible to upgrade to 1GB. Because the chips itself has larger capacity so they requires more pins that why they have 66 pins. I dont think adapter will work just because you also need more ADDRESSES for new chips that the old chips don’t have. I also have this idea in mind with T series, they also have 512MB onboard. But fortunately, they have extra slot.
SSD is an ideal upgrade for X505s.
Top of line for X505 CPU is Pentium M 773, 1.33GHz, 2M L2

@ngvuanh
You are correct about the CPU; top Pentium M is the 1.3GHz M773, but this one was only added in Jan of 2006 (according to Intel datasheet for 90nm Pentuim M).
I was referring to the original Pentium M (130nm process, 1M L2), for which top ULV was 1.1GHz (released in Mar 2004; 1.0GHz ULV was released in June 2003, 3 months after March 12 2003 initial Pentium M release. This is why the x505 was released with 1.0Ghz initially and 1.1 later.

The M733 is part of the second rev. Pentium M (90nm, 2M L2, released in May 2004). Whole family was released after X505 release (773 even later). I am not sure the BIOS supports it, since Sony never installed them. Would be worth trying (with special equipment and a lot of patience…)

The SDRAM (from the original PC100 some 10 years ago onward) has multiplexed address commands for row and column address on 13 address pins, which allows 2^26 theoretical address locations (64M). Each chip also has 4 memory banks for a total of 512M addressable locations. In a x8 device this translates to 4Gb (512MB) density in one chip. The 128Mx8 device actually has 14 NC pins in TSOP 66, so pins shouldn’t be an issue.

Another issue thow is the 855GM datasheet, which only lists devices up to 512Gb as supported. Perhaps this is because the document was first released in 2003 and 1Gb devices did not exist yet?

Roni

Even if we found some RAM or memory chips that actually fits, the BIOS may not even allow that much and then we’re back to square one.

One of the benchmarks I was using listed the unit as having 512 installed, max 1GB. I’m trying to re-benchmark my unit to figure out which one it was and copy the data over.

Erik

I can sure M773 works fine with X505. i855 can support 1GB because this chipset is used in T series which support 1GB.

tifosiv122 - 06 February 2008 04:21 PM

One of the benchmarks I was using listed the unit as having 512 installed, max 1GB. I’m trying to re-benchmark my unit to figure out which one it was and copy the data over.

I’ve found, that definite 1GB DDR chip can be used: http://www.pcmemory.com.au/html/memory_series/VaioPCG_PCGX505Pmemory.html
Unfortunately the price is terrible :-(