18 ms·
Upgrading the soldered-on RAM of a Dell XPS13 7390 laptop
- fock 5y agoGood to see that there is some 21st century craft skills in the west still (have only seen similar things from Asia on YT) So, general question: where do you go to get the schematics? (would come in handy so many times!)
- snthd 5y ago>similar things from Asia on YT Got any pointers?
- fock 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bloCpO7baO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bloCpO7baO8 - I might have seen something similar on HN actually. Anyway, this is basically the thing done above, just sold to repair shops for a set of very common devices!
- _Microft 5y agoAbbreviations and some comments for those who are not quite familiar with electronics: BGA - Ball Grid Array[0], a way to mount integrated circuits (IC) to a printed circuit board (PCB)[1]. TSSOP - Thin-shrink small outline package[2], a form factor of ICs 8L design - this means the PCB has eight layers, with some being ground planes (that usually are just complete layers of copper and thereby also spread heat which complicates heating up a component for (de)soldering). SMD - surface-mount device[3], the small form factor for electronics parts that go directly onto a PCB, instead of e.g. bulky resistors with wires coming out of them that are then threaded through holes before being soldered on. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_outline_integrated_circuit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_outline_integrated_cir... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology
- bserge 5y agoIPA - India Pale Ale, best thing to clean a PCB with, especially after you've had a meal break right on top of it :D
- gillesjacobs 5y agoI actually spilled a full glass of IPA in a mechanical keyboard once. Ironically, used IPA 99% to clean it with the "straw on switch stem" technique.
- jve 5y agoIPA - Isopropyl alcohol, 99%
- SamuelAdams 5y agoI’m from Michigan, 100% thought this was a beer.
- curiousgal 5y agoThat was as a great read! > So as a final step I fired up memtest86. I held my breath as I vaguely remember something about memtest86 causing hardware issues back in the day but I am not sure if I am remembering it correctly.
- bsder 5y agomemtest86 doesn't cause issues but it sure finds them. You can have a computer that is nominally "working fine" and memtest86 can still find issues. And, to be fair, memtest86 was always right.
- stavros 5y agoThis writeup is excellent. I wish I could work my hot air gun... I'll need to watch some videos, I think.
- vwoolf 5y agoEither way, does it sleep or hibernate effectively? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952
- burnte 5y agoI have the 9310 and it sleeps perfectly. I'd close it and toss it in the felt sleeve I have for it for a while before that warning came out, mine Just Works.
- eulers_secret 5y agoSame experience here (9310, Kubuntu 21.10), but I really miss S3. I hope I can go back on my next laptop...
- mrtweetyhack 5y agoloser
- jacquesm 5y agoNice, I really like how they left the 'Dell, proprietary' in place :) It's interesting that a board schematic has apparently left Dell, is that sort of thing common? It also would be quite hilarious to return the machine to Dell for servicing, I think they would be quite confused.
- csdvrx 5y agoIt's quite usual for laptops if you know where to look for. Before buying I usually check schematics, as they are often more precise than the specs (say, about PCIe lanes assignment, to avoid bad surprises)
- rootsudo 5y agoWhere would one go to look? Would love to review old schematics, specifically the XPS 9350, 9343... and macbooks!
- userbinator 5y agoXPS 9350 - Compal LA-C881P XPS 9343 - Compal LA-B441P Macbooks - there have been a ton of different models, search the exact model number (e.g. A1181) and "schematic".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- winternett 5y agoFunny I just saw this thread, today I learned that my integrated (not removeable) XPS 15 9570 laptop battery just died just a few months after my warranty expired on my Dell XPS laptop... The Internet is littered with complaints about dell PCs failing after warranty, and how recalls are covered up on them frequently. And my XPS desktop had faulty connections on it's mother board (That were known by Dell even before I bought it) for the Hard Drive controller that I discovered just after the warranty replacement expired on it... 2 problems that lead to costly repair and buying expensive replacement parts.... I have a 10 year old Dell XPS 16 that still runs (granted only windows7), but I never had any problems with it.... XPS quality has declined greatly since my first one. The standard 1 year warranty isn't enough for the way Dell computers have become shoddy, I'm deeply disappointed in Dell, and will not be buying any more of them... I don't have time to build my own, does anyone know a rock solid/powerful brand I can buy instead of Dell? I kind of miss Micron PCs.
- bryan0 5y agoI stopped buying Dells ~10 years ago when my last one stopped charging from the AC adapter. It used some hardware check to determine whether it was using an “authentic” Dell AC adapter, but if there was a failure with the check you were SOL.
- 14 5y agoI bought a $1000 plus gaming laptop for my son and exactly a year and a month later the hinges bust off the thing. I am so ticked off and will never buy another one. Too cheaply made and the fact that it happened a month after warranty was the kicker. I keep hearing my dad talking about companies designing parts to last just long enough. They don't care if some people claim warranty they have done the numbers and if it can last a year they don't care. Sad.
- credittw2021 5y agoDell quality and practices have been questionable for some time. Back in they day, they went out of their way to use non ATX power supplies. My first xps desktop was utterly incapable of having all of its drive bays used without said drives cooking to premature failure. My current work XPS laptop will downclock to 800mhz when chromium has hardware acceleration enabled. Other colleagues have had multiple laptops replaced because theirs downclocked when plugged into AC. Dell is no better in quality than most of the MFGs who died in the 90s and 00s. (As a random aside, I loved how HP would use a nice ASUS mobo and then trash everything else back in the day. We used to joke those little cases were what an Antec 1080 pooped out)
- georgeoliver 5y agoGreat write-up, went to 11 at > Lastly, and this is definitely overkill. I had a dentist take an xray of the new and old parts.
- anemic 5y agoI did not know dentists offer such a service but i'm still a bit hesitant to ask at my next checkup.
- userbinator 5y agoDepends on your relationship with the dentist, and the specific one. I'v heard of others getting their dentist to xray small things for them, either for free or a nominal fee.
- rfrey 5y agoI think this is more "my neighbour and buddy who happens to be a dentist" versus "my dentist who happened to ask about my hobby".
- jeffybefffy519 5y agoI wonder if some day we will get a DRAM board specification thats smaller then SODIMM.
- csdvrx 5y agoIt could be done simply with Pogo pins, or like for cpus a long time ago, ZIF sockets
- mschuster91 5y agoZIF sockets likely would be extremely challenging in terms of mechanical integrity at high pin density and EMF radiation hardening. Not worth the effort, sadly.
- joe_guy 5y agoI believe one issue with all of those is they go through all layers of the PCB. Not sure if surface mount sockets exist?
- csdvrx 5y agoThink in 3D: I never said the Pogo should be under the chip in one 2d plane. They could be on the sides at an angle, and the chip in a "hole" cut in the PCB
- analognoise 5y agoWhere did they find the schematics and it looks like Allegro design files - not even gerbers. Where can we grab those from??
- userbinator 5y agoSearch for "Compal LA-H931P". I didn't look too hard but there are some places selling them, although you'll probably find a free download (possibly needing to register on a forum) if you look enough.
- Taniwha 5y agoI've been to Shenzhen and seen (been taught) how they reball BGAs for phones in the markets, none of that futzing about with solder balls - they just clean the pads on the chips, re-tin them, lots of flux, then place the steel pad stencil over the top of the pads, spread solder paste over and through the holes, wipe off any excess then hit it with some hot air until you see the balls form, if you do it right the stencil will just pop off (don't push it)
- burnte 5y agoThanks so much for this, I always assumed I was bad at stenciling but I see I was just doing it wrong. I was spreading the paste then pulling it up, not heating it first as I assumed the sldier would melt onto the steel stencil. Thanks!
- Taniwha 5y agoIt may if you get the stencil hot enough, you have to watch the solder
- jacquesm 5y agoAny video of this particular trick?
- csdvrx 5y agoFor smaller numbers of connections, you don't even need a stencil if you how to use surface tension and have a fine tipped soldering iron.
- lucb1e 5y agoWhat kind of jig is that? That thing is beautiful, I love the copper color, but I don't even know what to google for ('copper colored jig' doesn't do the trick). This is the thing I mean on the right: https://gregdavill.github.io/posts/dell-xps13-ram-upgrade/images/EuQE37MVoAAyr15.jpeg https://gregdavill.github.io/posts/dell-xps13-ram-upgrade/im...
- extrapickles 5y agoIts probably a HT-90X or similar reballing kit. They are generally made out of aluminum and anodized various colors.
- asddubs 5y agoI mean jig is a pretty generic term. i searched for reballing jig and found it pretty quickly on aliexpress: https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005001617899659.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.7b01154aFixyJD&algo_pvid=687015ed-f646-4066-b104-066b9559950a&algo_exp_id=687015ed-f646-4066-b104-066b9559950a-43&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000016836106704%22%7D https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005001617899659.html?spm=a2g... on ddg images there were also several results for a site called dhgate.com that were cheaper, but no idea if that site's legit
- lucb1e 5y ago> I mean jig is a pretty generic term Yeah I realized, but I didn't know a better term for it. Not a native speaker, but I also couldn't think of anything in Dutch so... Thanks for the link!
- userbinator 5y agoIt passed through 4 passes of all it’s tests without issue! Personally I would go for at least 10 or more --- sometimes intermittent memory errors show up after an extended amount of time. I usually leave memory tests on new (to me) hardware running over a weekend. I wonder if the Rowhammer tests find anything? This is LPDDR3 so might be affected, but I don't know how to read Hynix datecodes. (<2010 is usually not, 2010-2011 is questionable, 2012 and newer definitely rowhammer-vulnerable.)
- newbie789 5y agoThis is genuinely impressive and a wonderful write up! Dear lord, what a Herculean task
- fithisux 5y agoI personally would avoid soldered ram. If you ask a software engineer this is against Open/Closed principle. It is an unecessary bad practice against the benefit of the user no matter what companies claim.
- kube-system 5y agoWe've slowly been removing socketed components in laptops for 30 years. Soldering irons aren't DRM, they're just require some tools and skill.
- MichaelBurge 5y agoWhy is RAM special and not CPU cache, floating point coprocessors, integrated graphics? They moved FPU onto the CPU 30 years ago and that wasn't a big deal to FSF people.
- vinay427 5y ago> unecessary bad practice against the benefit of the user Are there not noticeable battery life consequences of socketed RAM? From what I can tell, and I’m sure others here would know more, this often comes up as a reason for the battery life of the Framework laptop (or other socketed RAM portable laptops) compared to similar laptops with soldered RAM.
- wildzzz 5y agoIf the majority of your sales are intended for businesses that plan to constantly buy new laptops, it makes perfect engineering sense to just solder the ram to reduce costs. You also have to balance MTBF, the costs of rework, and the length of the warranty, these are all decisions engineers make when building products. You could make a laptop with components that should last 15 years, a modular design, and a plan to build replacements for years after but you'd end up with really expensive laptop that few would be interested in buying. Obviously engineers should strive for sustainability and not being hostile to diy repairs but I know who signs my paycheck and it's not XPS or Thinkpad enthusiasts on the internet.
- pugworthy 5y agoBack when I was a kid, we un-soldered the original Mac 128 memory and upgrading to 512k...
- rasz 5y agoAs described in Dr.Dobb's Journal Volume 10, Number 1, January, 1985 http://dserver.macgui.com/Dr%20Dobbs%20Fatten%20Your%20Mac%201985.pdf http://dserver.macgui.com/Dr%20Dobbs%20Fatten%20Your%20Mac%2...
- pugworthy 5y agoCorrect! One of my college friends was an EE with good soldering skill, but would not do it for me. But he did coach me and it was successful. Still have the Mac tucked away in one of those old padded carrying cases.
- pabs3 5y agoI feel like the RAM quantity on laptops hasn't really increased much over time, anyone know if that is true and what is driving it?
- mixmastamyk 5y agoVery few people need any more. There's also chip shortages of various durations.
- crossroadsguy 5y agoLaptop makers are making sure people are locked in with less RAM so that they’ll buy another laptop soon. Both my last laptops were made obsolete only by less RAM.
- Gigachad 5y agoI very much doubt this is the reason. Soldered on ram lowers the cost of the device, makes it thinner, and improves the reliability. At the cost of upgradability. Since the average user never upgraded the ram when they had the ability to, its purely a win for most users.
- Zak 5y agoIt also allows the manufacturer to charge users who want more RAM higher prices. They often charge much more than the street price of DIMMs.
- fock 5y agosame here...
- lotsofpulp 5y agoOr one can look at the anemic and declining profit figures for laptop makers (other than Apple) and come to the conclusion that they are desperately trying to compete by trying to meet their customer’s price points.
- forinti 5y ago
- bserge 5y agoYeah, it's sad that it would apparently bankrupt the company if they used some sort of socket for the RAM (and CPU, and SSD). Everything being soldered just shows how little people give a fuck about the environment. Save a penny, fill a landfill, plenty of kids to scavenge through all of that shit in their bleak future.
- gab007 5y agoNot an electronics engineer, but have enjoyed the read. If you can pull this off, more power to you. With soldered storage and RAM onto the boards becoming nowadays fairly common, the author can probably open up a business and do this as a side-job or full time! Add Chromebooks into the mix, and you'll probably have customers.
- lostgame 5y ago>> With soldered storage and RAM onto the boards becoming nowadays fairly common, the author can probably open up a business and do this as a side-job or full time! Especially if they can figure out how to upgrade certain Mac models.
- filmgirlcw 5y agoI love this. I wish I had enough faith in my solder skills (or all the equipment on hand) to attempt anything like this, but I love seeing other people do it successfully!
- ww520 5y agoThe soldered RAM dissuaded me from buying a XPS13. My 6 year old T460s is dying after one too many drops. The XPS13 and Thinkpad X1 Carbon are the final choices for replacement, but all of them have soldered RAM and cannot be upgraded. Also the XPS13 keyboard is worse than the Thankpad (why don't Dell fix the PgUp/PgDown layout?). Finally I settled on the AMD Ryzen 7 Pro based T14. The RAM is expandable. And the CPU performance is double of the i7! It's cheaper even after max out on 4k display and ssd drive.
- grumpyprole 5y agoIt's not as simple as soldered versus socketed. There are no DIMMs for low power LPDDR4 RAM, so if you buy a machine with DIMMs, the battery life is slightly worse. This is especially noticeable when the machine is sleeping. I just buy twice the RAM I really need, to help future proof it. Although the disadvantage of this is that one is often forced into buying hotter and noiser Intel chips.
- ww520 5y agoVery good information to know. The model I picked has 16gb soldered RAM (hopefully LPDDR4?) and the expandable socket, allowing up to 96gb. Most xps13 and x1 models have 16gb soldered. Only one model of either has 32gb max.
- grumpyprole 5y agoThe T14 has DDR4 RAM instead of LPDDR4, in order that it can support DIMMs. Even the soldered portion will still be DDR4. The X1 has LPDDR4.
- DeathArrow 5y agoI've been reading through comments and many are complaining about planned obsolescence of laptops, lackluster build quality and lack of upgradeability. If law makers don't want or can't stand up for consumers, it is for consumers to stand up for themselves. Vote with our wallets, make bad publicity for badly behaving manufacturers, support good manufacturers. Use crowdsourcing and make a Wikipedia like resource with good and bad experience regarding devices.
- system2 5y agoHN community is very small. We are conscious but average customer isn't. They will still buy HP printers, super expensive Apple products that can't be fixed easily (yeah yeah the new Self Repair), or anything they sell at BestBuy. We just need to be careful, we can't save everyone. I am voting with my wallet and buy the right stuff. If other's don't learn from other's mistakes, so be it.
- anuvrat1 5y agoI hate to say this, but “Vote with your wallet” assumes that consumers are rational and companies are honest, which isn't happening. In the current scenario, voting with our wallets wouldn't get us far and lawmakers should step in real hard or else we would keep getting “paper/metal straw” solutions for complex problems like endangered aquatic life.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pajko 5y agoTried to do the same with a Toshiba AC-100. Have thrown it out at the moment I have realized that they just did not route the extra address line which would made the chip swapping possible. 512MB RAM was not enough for anything back then, even my phone had more...
- sschueller 5y ago"But next time I think I’ll just buy the 16GB variant upfront." Next time don't buy from a company that forces you to spend the maximum if you want to use your laptop after 3 years. I am hopping but not expecting that this chip shortage will force vendors to make systems more modular again as they can't get enough ram/disk out of the get go. Wouldn't that be a nice world where you can upgrade your laptop or desktop PC yourself?
- AshamedCaptain 5y agoActually, the trend is to put the RAM inside the main chip itself so as to avoid those pesky latency and area-costly PCB traces. The performance improvements this allows are hard to resist and some manufacturers are already falling in (e.g. Apple). And I guess the side effect of making upgrades impossible is nice, too.
- mciancia 5y agoIs there actually noticably lower latency when going from sodimm/on MB RAM to memory integrated in SoC? I would expect bottlenecks to be somewhere else, not in those few extra centimeters of traces
- AshamedCaptain 5y agoLook at Apple's or HBM benchmarks. Also, it's not just the length, but the extra contact points, the "safety" margins for it all (to allow some extra routing distance for lazier/complicated mobo design), etc. all force you to a lower frequency, which also reduces bandwidth. (IMHO, I would not trade off modularity for that. But the public disagrees.)
- floatboth 5y agoApple uses the exact same LPDDR4x that others route through the mainboard, in stock JEDEC spec, so they don’t really get performance advantages from memory on package.
- postit 5y agoIt's interesting to see that nowadays reballing has the same exoteric feeling as desoldering your C64 chips back then.
- znpy 5y agoOr: get a dell latitude 7390 instead of dell the xps 7390 and upgrade to 32gb by just swapping a ram stick.
- kolleykibber 5y ago>Lastly, and this is definitely overkill. I had a dentist take an xray of the new and old parts. Is this a friend? Or would any dentist consider this for a fee? I'll be broaching this subject at my upcoming clean and polish.
- wolrah 5y agoMSP for a bunch of dental offices here. The number of times I've xrayed my car key fob or cell phone when testing out the digital xray sensors after a new PC install at a client site can't even be counted. If they have a digital xray system it'd take literally seconds and cost them nothing, so if you have a good relationship with them you can probably do it.
- cesarb 5y ago> So as a final step I fired up memtest86. Doesn't Dell have a built-in hardware tester in the BIOS (press F12 for the one-time boot menu, then choose its option), complete with a memory tester? Or is that only on the more professional Latitude/Optiplex lines? The built-in tester would have the advantage of also testing other parts of the board.
- floatboth 5y ago> Remember how I mentioned that the schematic specified 2133Mbps? Well the LPDDR3 from my old mainboard was only rated at 1866Mbps Desktop DDR4 can be overclocked by a lot, surely the 1866 rated ICs would work completely fine at 2133…
- randombits0 5y agoSay you’re inexperienced and have a 20% chance of screwing the pooch each time you attempt this. I wouldn’t risk it.
- floatboth 5y agoThe only risk in memory overclocking is that it’s not stable and your data gets corrupted in memory sometimes. Which, well, who gave you a guarantee that it won’t happen on stock specs? Nobody without ECC ;) So run a memtest and you’ll be reasonably sure it’s good enough.
- randombits0 5y agoNo, I’m referring to the surgery. While I’m only a hobbyist, my success rate is about 80%. Practicing beforehand was definitely the right thing to do.