M1 upgradable!

[Video Beagle]

Just now, leadeater said:

Yep but as yet ram isn't one of them. Also do M1 devices have a T1 chip or is that now integrated in to the M1?

I don't know...no one knows anything about the M1...that's why they walk before the run in experiments.

 

Now, I want cheap ram in my old iMac!!!

 

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

Now, I want cheap ram in my old iMac!!!

I had to, I forget which version of Mac OS it was but when we upgraded the performance tanked hardcore and they became rather unusable. I personally upgraded about 90 iMacs.

 

I'm about 90% sure it was 10.9 (Mavericks).

[captain_to_fire]

57 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

Yep but as yet ram isn't one of them. Also do M1 devices have a T1 chip or is that now integrated in to the M1?

The functions of the T1 and T2 chip are built in to the M1 SoC like HEVC encode/decode, SSD controller, encryption, and protecting Face ID/Touch ID data. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

And yet Ryzen hackintosh exists...

That's cuz AMD started supporting a lot of intel extensions and due to the work done by the opencore team. You will need custom SMC kexts with it. Clover still won't work. Legacy support is still wonky. And bulldozer to excavator has serious problems. And even then all apps don't work. Perhaps most infamously the apple watch emulator, parallels and Adobe apps ootb. So no, ryzentosh exists not because of apple's stupidity, but due to the great work done by a community over the years.

[WolframaticAlpha]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

But that isn't the point, this story is literally about someone doing something Apple does not support, taking a M1 8GB package desoldering it then desoldering the RAM chips then soldering on larger one. So unless there isn't an LPDDR4X modules larger than 8GB (which could very well be the case I did not check) then it seems stupid to me to not use larger ones (if they exist).

 

No it would not, it would literally work as any other ram would. M1 is not some super special thing that is unique from any of other CPU, x86 or ARM. It has an IMC that can address more ram than is possible to manufacture in a single module, literally Petabytes.

 

A greater problem will be the smbios+serial. With a preregistered serial and smbios with 32 GB ram, the iservices, watchdog, whatever apple is using instead of a uefi etc will freak out

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I had to, I forget which version of Mac OS it was but when we upgraded the performance tanked hardcore and they became rather unusable. I personally upgraded about 90 iMacs.

 

I'm about 90% sure it was 10.9 (Mavericks).

Mavericks sucked hard. Slowed my older laptop down considerably. Went back to mountain lion

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

A greater problem will be the smbios+serial. With a preregistered serial and smbios with 32 GB ram, the iservices, watchdog, whatever apple is using instead of a uefi etc will freak out

Why would it? If that were the case upgrading this 8GB model to 16GB would also freak it out. but it didn't. They even replaced the NAND chips upgrading it from 256GB to 1TB, that I would expect a much higher likelihood of running in to Apple security systems but that also was not the case.

 

These types of things don't make sense because it doesn't actually benefit Apple in any way at all and only creates them future problems when they refresh product lines but use existing stock components and parts within it. Just look how much of a pain in the ass it was for AGESA updates to support new CPUs for exiting stock (they do actually get upgraded, well depending where in the supply chain the motherboard currently is).

 

There are few systems out there that actually go to the level people seem to think Apple does, one of them being HPE on a very specific order option for their servers, namely Trusted Supply Chain along with Server Configuration Lock (SCL from here out, which you can enable at any time). SCL is currently something only HPE can do (unless this changed recently) and is the only security implementation that would detect and prevent a system from booting if RAM chips were replaced or changed in some way. Apple has Silicon Root of Trust (which HPE has) that allows it to do proper secure boot but does not do anything in regards to configuration changes of the device such as replacing RAM chips or NAND chips.

 

So if you want to get all super paranoid then you'll be buying from HPE through their Trusted Supply Chain program, complying with DFARS/FARS and operating it in CNSA mode. You won't want that, I don't want that, nobody "actually" wants that lol.

[sof006]

10 hours ago, Frugivore8894 said:

 

 

Summary

Chinese engineers have upgraded the DRAM and NAND flash on a M1 Mac.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

I don’t think anyone should actually do this but it is cool so maybe a ltt video seems really interesting but hard to do.

Sources

https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/mac-m1-mod

Can you update the link so its not an amp optimised link, for when viewing on desktop?

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/mac-m1-mod

[deci]

5 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

You can only use parts that Apple has already used in something else.

People have gotten AMD "Ryzentoshes" working, though? 

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Commander Neon said:

People have gotten AMD "Ryzentoshes" working, though? 

True.  That’s because AMD has to work hard to ape intel though because they set the standard.

[dalekphalm]

12 hours ago, Frugivore8894 said:

 

 

Summary

Chinese engineers have upgraded the DRAM and NAND flash on a M1 Mac.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

I don’t think anyone should actually do this but it is cool so maybe a ltt video seems really interesting but hard to do.

Sources

https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/mac-m1-mod

Cool, but is this news?

 

Really, you can do this with literally just about any integrated system board (eg: Ultrabooks, and the like). If you have the correct soldering tools, and a skilled hand, pretty much any system becomes "upgradable".

 

Never the less, good for them!

[StDragon]

How long before Apple updates OSX to validate approved hardware and capacity? You know, they could be total dicks about it and simply refuse to boot upon the next update. It's not like their reputation would take a hit or anything from it.

[Jet_ski]

8 hours ago, Arika S said:

what about a fluxed capacitor?

 

Now you can go back in time and get the laptop with more RAM. uPgRaDAbiLIyy.

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Good on you if you can solder this pin pitch reliable on a multilayer PCB with a Yihua 858D ...

 

99% of repair shops can't solder a simple micro B connector so this is far from upgradable.

o.O ive done that... a lot.  And I dont even have a shop (well I have a room I call my shop but it’s not the same)

[Frugivore8894]

I mean you can also just download more ram /s

 

lol 

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, James Evens said:

That GDDR4X  pinpitch? I hope you have atleat a preheater.

Oh hell no.  The usb thing.  I don’t mess with reballing.  That’s a massive PITA and takes these little balling masks I don’t even have.  That reball on the soc RIGHT NEXT TO the cpu was more than a bit nuts.  Have to put some sort of heat sink AND heat shield on the  cpu section before the hot air gun even comes out.  I don’t even own a hot air gun suitable for microsoldering. I’d have to use an iron.  Probably couldn’t be done.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Bombastinator

[WolframaticAlpha]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Why would it? If that were the case upgrading this 8GB model to 16GB would also freak it out. but it didn't. They even replaced the NAND chips upgrading it from 256GB to 1TB, that I would expect a much higher likelihood of running in to Apple security systems but that also was not the case.

 

These types of things don't make sense because it doesn't actually benefit Apple in any way at all and only creates them future problems when they refresh product lines but use existing stock components and parts within it. Just look how much of a pain in the ass it was for AGESA updates to support new CPUs for exiting stock (they do actually get upgraded, well depending where in the supply chain the motherboard currently is).

 

There are few systems out there that actually go to the level people seem to think Apple does, one of them being HPE on a very specific order option for their servers, namely Trusted Supply Chain along with Server Configuration Lock (SCL from here out, which you can enable at any time). SCL is currently something only HPE can do (unless this changed recently) and is the only security implementation that would detect and prevent a system from booting if RAM chips were replaced or changed in some way. Apple has Silicon Root of Trust (which HPE has) that allows it to do proper secure boot but does not do anything in regards to configuration changes of the device such as replacing RAM chips or NAND chips.

 

So if you want to get all super paranoid then you'll be buying from HPE through their Trusted Supply Chain program, complying with DFARS/FARS and operating it in CNSA mode. You won't want that, I don't want that, nobody "actually" wants that lol.

have you ever tried putting 32 gigs of ram in an i3 laptop? It can technically address 16 eb, but intel has limited it to 20 gigs. So, I  believe, that fruit company has done the same thing

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, Bitter said:

Of course this works. How else would they be able to sell you a new and improved one next year with the barest of investment in the product?

It's not even improved, it's just taking the 8gb model and making it a 16gb model which already exists.

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

It's not even improved, it's just taking the 8gb model and making it a 16gb model which already exists.

Yes but it shows that the foundation is there and they're the same just different ram soldered to the package. Likely could handle 32GB or more. Likely could have made that memory socketed too.

[PocketNerd]

Call me when you can actually place SODIMMs and M.2 SSDs into an M1.

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

have you ever tried putting 32 gigs of ram in an i3 laptop? It can technically address 16 eb, but intel has limited it to 20 gigs. So, I  believe, that fruit company has done the same thing

Can you elaborate on which specific i3 we're talking about, in which specific laptop?

 

Each Intel CPU has it's own Memory Limit.

 

Example:

The 4th Gen Intel Core i3-4330:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/77769/intel-core-i3-4330-processor-4m-cache-3-50-ghz.html

Has a max supported RAM of 32GB.

 

The i3-4005U, however, only supports 16GB max:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/75105/intel-core-i3-4005u-processor-3m-cache-1-70-ghz.html

 

I'm not sure what i3 would support 16 Exabytes (I can only assume that's what you meant by "eb") on paper, but none that I've seen.

 

Even the newest 11th Gen i3-1125G4 only supports 64GB max:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/208656/intel-core-i3-1125g4-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-70-ghz.html

 

So, assuming we're talking about an Ultrabook with an i3 (say like the i3-4005U) with 16GB max, it being able to address 20GB is actually above specification.

 

Granted, I suppose there could be something custom going on from the OEM?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Picture me shocked. Here I was expecting the ram chip itself would be tied through a unique identifier to prevent unauthorized repair/attack! (Only half joking.... sigh)

[Sauron]

55 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Likely could handle 32GB or more.

That's not necessarily true, there are hardware limits on how much memory you can have (especially on an SoC) and I don't think it's a coincidence they top out at 16GB even on their "desktop" offering.

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Picture me shocked. Here I was expecting the ram chip itself would be tied through a unique identifier to prevent unauthorized repair/attack! (Only half joking.... sigh)

Ha — as much as Apple likes to govern how and when people upgrade, I think it rightly determined that the likelihood of someone soldering in new RAM and SSD chips was so low that it wasn't worth locking things down to that degree.

[Dabombinable]

19 hours ago, imreloadin said:

If it requires physically swapping the individual flash chips then it's not really "upgradeable".

It's the difference between my Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 Pro and my Riva 128ZX. The Stealth has sockets for (half of) RAM, while the Riva is soldered