Anyway to upgrade your laptop RAM that is soldered to the motherboard?

[Chiyawa]

With many manufacturer going for soldered RAM to keep their laptop thin and light, is there a way to upgrade the RAM if we want or need it? Assuming that desoldering works are available in every computer service shop, and that RAM chips is 'common'.

[RollinLower]

RAM is just RAM, if you desolder the chips and solder on bigger chips it would work. but because these are BGA chips, soldering them is quite a difficult task.

there are a few people who have done the same with GPU's, but the same applies to normal RAM.

[leclod]

15 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

With many manufacturer going for soldered RAM to keep their laptop thin and light, is there a way to upgrade the RAM if we want or need it? Assuming that desoldering works are available in every computer service shop, and that RAM chips is 'common'.

I've believe that often those laptops still have a second slot available

[Moonzy]

19 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

RAM is just RAM, if you desolder the chips and solder on bigger chips it would work. but because these are BGA chips, soldering them is quite a difficult task.

there are a few people who have done the same with GPU's, but the same applies to normal RAM.

Is there no logic chip like SPD chips too?

[Anghammarad]

In short, no, don't swap out the ram chips if:

 

1. you don't know the board specifics like logic chips for the ram etc

2. you don't have the equipment

3. you aren't skilled in this part of solder jobs

 

Because if you brick your machine, well you need to get a new one, then you can spend a little on more ram =)

[SupaKomputa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIsMx28Pakg

 

it's doable, but you need to change the some resistor for the bigger ram chips.

[Chiyawa]

2 hours ago, RollinLower said:

RAM is just RAM, if you desolder the chips and solder on bigger chips it would work. but because these are BGA chips, soldering them is quite a difficult task.

I see.

2 hours ago, leclod said:

I've believe that often those laptops still have a second slot available

For many thin and light 13 inch laptop, they no longer offer a RAM slot. All RAM are soldered. I just recently bought Lenovo Yoga 6 13ARE05, and all the RAM are soldered. I got a 16GB, but I believe the CPU can support up to 32GB, but Lenovo didn't offer it. I do run some VM, so RAM is a concern. The Ryzen 7 4700U has enough juice for VM, but the RAM is a little bit limited.

2 hours ago, Anghammarad said:

In short, no, don't swap out the ram chips if:

Agree. But I think manufacturer should make this available. I have a Surface Pro 4 with 4GB RAM, and now it is technically an e-waste because I couldn't run a lot of application (GIMP always crash). It is now sitting there collecting dust. Well, at least it is still good for watching Youtube and working with Office apps.

1 hour ago, SupaKomputa said:

it's doable, but you need to change the some resistor for the bigger ram chips.

Not to mention the correct RAM. I found that many RAM chips has different pin layout too. Still, manufacturer should standardised the connection for upgrades.