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Mark Germain
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Yes, v1.0-1.5 Xbox motherboard's have 4 solder pad sets, 2 on top and 2 on the bottom, for installation of an additional 64MB of RAM. 

One can purchase new parts online. Thereby not doubling the workload -- unsoldering them from one motherboard and soldering back on a different one.  Order parts that match the part number of those currently installed. There are 3 different versions of the Samsung RAM chips;

  • Xbox Versions 1.0 - 1.1 = K4D263238M-QC50
  • Xbox Versions 1.2 - 1.3 = K4D263238D-QC50
  • Xbox Versions 1.4 - 1.5 (1.6a?) = K4D263238F-QC50

Not sure matching is 100% necessary. The M, D  and F designator denotes which silicon die Samsung used to manufacture the memory chip (updates to the design layout).  Functionality should be the same but if in doubt be safe and match them as Floydzabarber suggests in his video tutorial below.

Make sure that your soldering iron is electrostatic discharge (ESD) safe.  Don't blow the chip during unsoldering/soldering.

Floydzabarber's Youtube Videos:

Advantages of 128MB RAM upgrade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQvLCdN4ZbQ

Not sure why the second video link didn't/doesn't expand to show the video as the first did. And, refuses to do so upon many editing attempts.

Edited by KaosEngineer
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  • 2 months later...

This past weekend I decided to do it myself and board is working great. Lot of flux and patience.  I’ve purchased these with great success as well. As far as difficulty, I found it to be a 7/10 but most was nerves not having done it before. Here are pix of my first attempted (and successfull board). My advice, don’t be afraid to try if your comfortable with a soldering iron. You can’t go wrong buying one either, prices are very fair. Good luck

12A5911A-ADDD-4DF7-AE16-BAAE8F0BEA14.jpeg

885C4EAD-7216-4117-A9EC-1DEDBEE52E60.jpeg

0AFD55F8-A6E8-4978-AD5A-EF36FCBE06A8.jpeg

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>lots of flux and patience

Just to add, I'd recommend non-conductive flux. I bought cheapo flux with lead in it and had a hard time with shorts circuits post-installation. Even after scrubbing my board twice in the shower with soap and a toothbrush, followed by compressed air and days of drying time. The thinnest residue left between those very narrow ram legs was enough to ruin everything.

Also, the whole method of flooding the legs with solder then wicking off the excess is bullcrap. I fried a board trying it that way. Again, the legs being so narrow and their pads extending so far back underneath it's impossible to see a solder bridge. And when you're talking about 400 legs in total it's basically guaranteed you'll bridge some.

I also found it's impossible to correctly position the modules if the pads are lumped with solder from the factory. One can level them with de-soldering braid but at risk of lifting pads. So tons of de-soldering experience is absolutely important.

One more thing: shaky hands. Probably the most discouraging part. At least it was for me. I figured out I could achieve perfect stability of my iron by holding the tip with needle-nose pliers. Suddenly the difficulty level dropped to 1/10. No kidding. I've soldered even finer-pitch SMDs this way since then with no problem..

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, drewb0y said:

For folks that have done this mod, are the advantages you gain from adding RAM worth the effort involved? Where do you really notice the difference in playing a game for example. Is it like night and day or just a little bit faster?

ive watched this

Again Floydzabarber
 



im curious to know if it will have any effect on xbmc with "full codec support":

anyone else get certain files that just dont like the xbox? is it plain and simple HD thats the issue?? or is it certain encoding?

i use it at times to stream from upnp device. works nice especially with a media server. will it handle the heavier stuff a bit better with more ram?
 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So far the ram upgrade has been alot of good fun.

XBMC makes a clear improvement in "multi tasking" so having video playing in the background while browsing files is no issue, music with visualization on main menu etc... no worry of crashing.
Surreal64CE6.0 is really cool, you can set the paging memory on the emu cores to 0 because the entire rom can be loaded into RAM (instead of paging it to hdd) and the antialiasing is great, 4Xlinear no problem on most titles, cranked up the dynarec memory etc.... just trying to burn up as much ram as possible. i can get it to eat about 100mb during emulation.

there are 0 issues in mame and final burn now. there a few games that would run out of ram when trying to load. now they run really well. king of fighters 2003 etc....

i havent developed a comprehensive list of whats better because its like pouring gas all over your spare time and lighting a match... ive been tired at work the past few days. LOL.

A few lingering questions.

I havent even tried an xbox game yet... but did find the ram de-limiter on x-bins. ill quickly discover whether or not they work before the de-limit but wondering if anyone has the answer
 

for some reason (i havent tried every game) but conkers on surreal wont load. no matter which core or which video plugin, certain combinations have different results (one loads to black screen, one loads to white screen) but its just strange, and unnecessary because ive yet to play the re-master so this will help guide me in that direction. 

I cant seem to get CPX3 to load, it just hangs.... althought to be honest, ive never booted it as a standalone emu before, but i think it would show a marked improvement. cpx3 from my understanding also uses a similar paging feature to surreal and i believe an even more sophisticated version on SF3 titles.

love my xbmc emustation (thanks guys) and this ram upgrade has made it alot more fun. you have to look at this from a hobbyist point of view. you arent going to double the ram and fix all your problems or fulfill all your desires. but it does expand an already expansive set of content. it does improve that content and allow for a bit better looking presentation. 

I 100% encourage this mod despite it being discouraged elsewhere.

OHHH I FORGOT
http://www.emuxtras.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=188&t=5278
This 128mb version of half life 1 ported to the xbox looks and feels awesome. super excited to spend a good solid 10 hours with this one sunday soon. (there is also a 64mb version which is just SMART)

 

the gains from the ram upgrade are marginal, if you were a pc guy in the early 2000's it feels very similar to adding another 256mb ram to an xp machine. lol, its totally worth it!!!

i think anyways... unless you have a bunch of other consoles you are focused on or other hobbies, personally the xbox is worth it and even has me looking at potentially acquiring the real deal N64freak board with the cpu upgrade. 
 

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19 hours ago, XC-3730C said:

Yes

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 

did not get a chance to test lastnight. im most concerned about the games that are explicitly labeled NO720, mario kart doesnt specify in the game name but was set to 720:no by default. it ran in 720 very nicely when i switched it to yes. may not follow up until next week. busy busy. life taking time away from whats truly important.... xD

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  • 2 weeks later...

so,
earthworm james pack from TIZ has 178 pre-configured n64 games ready to go. there are only 2 on the list that are listed as NO 720p
i seemed to have no troubles with goldeneye (only played the first area), and the other is fzero which still didnt work. 

games just tend to run a bit better, not sure if cranking up the dynarec memory does much for emulation, i believe this a function that aids the cpu... and although ive been toying away for hours and hours, after about 4 hours of in and out of roms changing setting back into game etc.... my brain just goes foggy the next day... could have been the beer.

the games are running great none the less.  
fire up conker BFD and your using like TONS of ram right out of the box config. from what i gather this game is 64mb, so dumding the entire thing into memory is alot for the console. but its works even better with the ram upgrade and even better if you are lucky enough to own the remastered version released for xbox.... HA!!!

referencing my above post regarding cpx3, i got it working. certain download wasnt working. the roms were good, so i found the emulator elsewhere and coupled with advice on using unleashx to ftp rather than xbmc has been successful. thanks randy.... wherever you are!!

I could go on and on and on and on, and documenting all the details really is outside of my wheelhouse. 

The fact of the matter is everything designed to work on the 64mb stock ram works on the 64mb stock ram.... and all this time its been rather impressive. Not to discount adding the ram, it all tends to work a touch better with double the ram. 
 

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