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Raspberry Pi 5 EEPROM update now blocks manual RAM upgrades

49 points by csmantle 13d ago

Dead_Lemon 13d ago
Raspi is likely going to continue making moves like this, since they have gone public. You can't just have people buying the cheaper 1GiB boards and upgrading them to 4GiB, that's taking potential profits away from the investors... I doubt many are doing this upgrade, and I think its awesome someone has the tooling & skill to do so. I cannot fathom how this is a threat to RPI. I would assume a community firmware patch will likely release & resolve the limitation (until it becomes a signed binary)
- eqvinox 13d ago
  > until it becomes a signed binary It's already a signed binary, with rollback protection. (According to Reddit comments; I stopped using Raspis a long time ago)
- jezek2 13d ago
  Consider the alternative where a bigger number of modded boards with dubious RAM gets into circulation, which is no problem for Chinese companies to do. It would quickly result in a distrust of all RPi products and everyone would suffer. It also has nothing to do with going public, it is consistent with what they were always doing: it never was fully open, in fact quite the opposite and they were always protective about their HW, you can't even order the SoC as a separate chip, only as a part of premade/customized board.
  - vanchor3 13d ago
    This doesn't stop dubious RAM from going into circulation, it just prevents different RAM sizes than what it expects. A Chinese company could still swap in faulty RAM bought in bulk as long as it's the same size. This doesn't do anything to protect consumers or brand, just profit margins.
    - gambiting 13d ago
      No, if you read the actual post by them they said swapping in parts of the same size won't work either because they program in several other hardware attributes that the board will check for when booting.
- cyanydeez 13d ago
  Likely botched resellers claiming theyre RPI and the company getting angry customers. Perfectly rational.
- kotaKat 13d ago
  I think what's giving me more concern is: what if the Pi is embedded in a device and the manufacturer doesn't realize the supply chain got tampered with? https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761 https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761 One EEPROM update and suddenly you brick the board. It's like the FTDI bullshit. You're going to end up snaring legitimate users that didn't know they had illegitimate boards.
mrheosuper 13d ago
Ah this suck, why does every company who goes big have to be hostile to end-user.
- mitxela 13d ago
  Capitalism
illright 13d ago
In the comments there's a link to consumer rights wiki that includes Raspberry Pi's response to this: > there may be a minor financial gain in buying a part with say a 2GB part, swapping it for an 8GB part of dubious origin, and reselling it as an 8GB device. However, this brings an element of risk to the user - the board hasn't been tested by us - and is a potential support burden for us, with customers complaining of unreliable devices. We therefore remove the commercial incentive by locking devices to their original RAM size. Frankly, that sounds pretty reasonable to me
- pmx 13d ago
  I don't agree. They're stopping the owner of the device from using it how they want to based on a theoretical user who purchases a modded device. There may be some small profit to be had in raw material costs but if you factor in the time it takes to pull off a mod like this, and the number of failures I don't think it's a good argument. Even if it was, why not a warning that you can bypass by setting a config in a txt file in the root of the SD? Or even just typing "I agree I won't bother you about this board" or something?
- HackerThemAll 13d ago
  Yeah that practice is not unheard of. I can easily imagine having a ready-made device to desolder the original chip out of Raspberry and solder another one, of poor quality and/or counterfeit, and then sell that modded Pi for profit. Heck, remember fake SD cards, USB drives etc. Therefore I agree with manufacturer's decision.
- cloudie78 13d ago
  No it does not sound reasonable. If they want to reduce the support burden they can use serial numbers to track what board has what ram - if they don’t match no support because it’s modified hardware.
- mitxela 13d ago
  It's not reasonable. Every company uses a similar "consumer safety" excuse for all its locking down. It's why you can't install apps on iPhones. It's why you can't upgrade the RAM on your laptop. It's why you can't replace your battery when it wears out. It's why your car door won't open if you replace the door handle. It's carefully manipulated PR bullshit in every case.
justin66 13d ago
Preventing counterfeit boards with janky memory upgrades, or something, from getting out onto the market seems like a potentially worthwhile thing, but also probably a reaction to an imaginary problem. Preventing end users from doing what they want seems like a bad thing, but given how few users are actually capable of doing this upgrade, also probably an imaginary problem. Given the state of the world I'm a little amazed anyone can muster any outrage about this.
- gambiting 13d ago
  Except it isn't - 8GB boards that started their lives as 1/2GB variants are absolutely on the market. >but given how few users are actually capable of doing this upgrade, also probably an imaginary problem. Just remember that in China there are places where you can get your iPhone storage upgraded by someone desoldering the original chip and soldering on a new one, they get the whole process done in 20 minutes. If labour is cheap and the skills high that's what you get.
  - justin66 13d ago
    Where could I buy one? That's interesting.
    - gambiting 13d ago
      I don't know where you can buy one now - but when the 8GB model first came out it was instantly out of stock everywhere except for aliexpress at suspicious prices...it's an anecdote so it's not like I can give you % numbers, but I know 2 people who bought them and they were both clearly re-soldered units(they worked fine though, afaik they are still using them).
philipallstar 13d ago
A blaring warning might've been better than a full-on block.

49 points by csmantle 13d ago

Raspi is likely going to continue making moves like this, since they have gone public. You can't just have people buying the cheaper 1GiB boards and upgrading them to 4GiB, that's taking potential profits away from the investors... I doubt many are doing this upgrade, and I think its awesome someone has the tooling & skill to do so. I cannot fathom how this is a threat to RPI. I would assume a community firmware patch will likely release & resolve the limitation (until it becomes a signed binary)

eqvinox 13d ago
> until it becomes a signed binary It's already a signed binary, with rollback protection. (According to Reddit comments; I stopped using Raspis a long time ago)
jezek2 13d ago
Consider the alternative where a bigger number of modded boards with dubious RAM gets into circulation, which is no problem for Chinese companies to do. It would quickly result in a distrust of all RPi products and everyone would suffer. It also has nothing to do with going public, it is consistent with what they were always doing: it never was fully open, in fact quite the opposite and they were always protective about their HW, you can't even order the SoC as a separate chip, only as a part of premade/customized board.
- vanchor3 13d ago
  This doesn't stop dubious RAM from going into circulation, it just prevents different RAM sizes than what it expects. A Chinese company could still swap in faulty RAM bought in bulk as long as it's the same size. This doesn't do anything to protect consumers or brand, just profit margins.
  - gambiting 13d ago
    No, if you read the actual post by them they said swapping in parts of the same size won't work either because they program in several other hardware attributes that the board will check for when booting.
cyanydeez 13d ago
Likely botched resellers claiming theyre RPI and the company getting angry customers. Perfectly rational.
kotaKat 13d ago
I think what's giving me more concern is: what if the Pi is embedded in a device and the manufacturer doesn't realize the supply chain got tampered with? https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761 https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761 One EEPROM update and suddenly you brick the board. It's like the FTDI bullshit. You're going to end up snaring legitimate users that didn't know they had illegitimate boards.

mrheosuper 13d ago

Ah this suck, why does every company who goes big have to be hostile to end-user.

mitxela 13d ago
Capitalism

illright 13d ago

In the comments there's a link to consumer rights wiki that includes Raspberry Pi's response to this: > there may be a minor financial gain in buying a part with say a 2GB part, swapping it for an 8GB part of dubious origin, and reselling it as an 8GB device. However, this brings an element of risk to the user - the board hasn't been tested by us - and is a potential support burden for us, with customers complaining of unreliable devices. We therefore remove the commercial incentive by locking devices to their original RAM size. Frankly, that sounds pretty reasonable to me

pmx 13d ago
I don't agree. They're stopping the owner of the device from using it how they want to based on a theoretical user who purchases a modded device. There may be some small profit to be had in raw material costs but if you factor in the time it takes to pull off a mod like this, and the number of failures I don't think it's a good argument. Even if it was, why not a warning that you can bypass by setting a config in a txt file in the root of the SD? Or even just typing "I agree I won't bother you about this board" or something?
HackerThemAll 13d ago
Yeah that practice is not unheard of. I can easily imagine having a ready-made device to desolder the original chip out of Raspberry and solder another one, of poor quality and/or counterfeit, and then sell that modded Pi for profit. Heck, remember fake SD cards, USB drives etc. Therefore I agree with manufacturer's decision.
cloudie78 13d ago
No it does not sound reasonable. If they want to reduce the support burden they can use serial numbers to track what board has what ram - if they don’t match no support because it’s modified hardware.
mitxela 13d ago
It's not reasonable. Every company uses a similar "consumer safety" excuse for all its locking down. It's why you can't install apps on iPhones. It's why you can't upgrade the RAM on your laptop. It's why you can't replace your battery when it wears out. It's why your car door won't open if you replace the door handle. It's carefully manipulated PR bullshit in every case.

justin66 13d ago

Preventing counterfeit boards with janky memory upgrades, or something, from getting out onto the market seems like a potentially worthwhile thing, but also probably a reaction to an imaginary problem. Preventing end users from doing what they want seems like a bad thing, but given how few users are actually capable of doing this upgrade, also probably an imaginary problem. Given the state of the world I'm a little amazed anyone can muster any outrage about this.

gambiting 13d ago
Except it isn't - 8GB boards that started their lives as 1/2GB variants are absolutely on the market. >but given how few users are actually capable of doing this upgrade, also probably an imaginary problem. Just remember that in China there are places where you can get your iPhone storage upgraded by someone desoldering the original chip and soldering on a new one, they get the whole process done in 20 minutes. If labour is cheap and the skills high that's what you get.
- justin66 13d ago
  Where could I buy one? That's interesting.
  - gambiting 13d ago
    I don't know where you can buy one now - but when the 8GB model first came out it was instantly out of stock everywhere except for aliexpress at suspicious prices...it's an anecdote so it's not like I can give you % numbers, but I know 2 people who bought them and they were both clearly re-soldered units(they worked fine though, afaik they are still using them).

philipallstar 13d ago

A blaring warning might've been better than a full-on block.