[HN Gopher] Upgrading the soldered-on RAM of a Dell XPS13 7390 l...
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Upgrading the soldered-on RAM of a Dell XPS13 7390 laptop
Author : _Microft
Score : 441 points
Date : 2021-11-21 01:20 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gregdavill.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (gregdavill.github.io)
| curiousgal wrote:
| That 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 wrote:
| memtest86 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.
| ww520 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Very 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 wrote:
| The 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.
| postit wrote:
| It's interesting to see that nowadays reballing has the same
| exoteric feeling as desoldering your C64 chips back then.
| analognoise wrote:
| Where did they find the schematics and it looks like Allegro
| design files - not even gerbers.
|
| Where can we grab those from??
| userbinator wrote:
| Search 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 wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Thanks 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 wrote:
| It may if you get the stencil hot enough, you have to watch
| the solder
| jacquesm wrote:
| Any video of this particular trick?
| Taniwha wrote:
| Here's an example:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alQq74uWJJA
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you, very elegant and nice no nonsense video as well.
| Great tip!
| csdvrx wrote:
| For 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.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Yup, the trick though is you want some way to get all the
| pads balled to roughly the same height - otherwise when you
| heat it to solder it and the chip floats on the pads one or
| two may be too high to make contact ... or there's too much
| solder and it squeezes out and causes a hidden short.
|
| The process of filling each hole in the stencil with the same
| amount of solder and carefully scraping any excess off of the
| top effectively adds the same amount to each ball
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Yup, the trick though is you want some way to get all the
| pads balled to roughly the same height -
|
| I see you are familiar with the method :)
|
| Here's another "ghetto BGA reball" trick if that happens:
| lower the temperature of your iron to make the "pseudo
| balls" that are too big thinner by drawing some paste away
| into a vertical line extending up : let it cool down and
| just trim it to length with nail clippers.
|
| You can get balls again by rewarming a bit - ideally with a
| special IR heater to avoid pushing the balls away by the
| flow of air coming from a hot hairgun, but in a pinch a
| regular oven can do the job (prebake to temp of course)
| aledalgrande wrote:
| that reminds me of when I tried to soldier an extra chip on
| my PS1 and instead pulled up an original one oops
| Laforet wrote:
| Letting people know you could pull this off eventually leads
| to the inevitable assignment in which you need to solder a
| dozen of NAND chips in some obscure package that nobody seems
| to have a stencil for :) Oh and the deadline is 24 hours
| away.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Exactly why I'm only saying that anonymously here on HN :)
|
| FYI, I also do some SMD by hand. It's not very hard with
| leaded paste. It's a very practical skill to have when you
| only use it for yourself and a few select friends (read:
| not colleagues!)
| skinkestek wrote:
| Good thing we can reach you through GitHub ;-)
|
| Half joking, if you have forgotten that you added that
| link here's your chance to remove it B-)
| csdvrx wrote:
| And... it's gone now! (Thanks for reminding me BTW)
|
| I prefer keeping a low profile. Because I like speaking
| my mind freely, which I might not do if my account was
| linked to my name.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| You can never be too careful, you can get cancelled for
| thoughts that go against groupthink.
| rasz wrote:
| Sounds profitable, whats the problem?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4m0LoGx7Qo
|
| you can also go one ball at a time
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrXL1uGs0vU
| dogma1138 wrote:
| If you dealing with these kinds of jobs you either get a
| generic stencil and use a kapton tape as a mask or you
| invest in a laser cutter capable of cutting stencils in a
| half/quarter of a mil stainless sheet.
|
| Also RoHS goes out of the window and you use a leaded tin
| which makes your life so much easier, as well as usually
| guarantees a longer life time for the fix because it's far
| more ductile after soldering.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| Unleaded solder is awful, sadly.
| znpy wrote:
| Or: get a dell latitude 7390 instead of dell the xps 7390 and
| upgrade to 32gb by just swapping a ram stick.
| stavros wrote:
| This writeup is excellent. I wish I could work my hot air gun...
| I'll need to watch some videos, I think.
| pabs3 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Very few people need any more. There's also chip shortages of
| various durations.
| forinti wrote:
| I recently bought a new laptop for my son. One of my main
| concerns was upgradeability, so I had to discard a lot of
| models with soldered-on RAM.
|
| It really struck me how many laptops are still coming out with
| 4GB of RAM, which is simply not enough nowadays. Also, many
| vendors hide or make it difficult to know how much RAM you can
| add.
| kasabali wrote:
| Because contrary to popular belief, RAM prices haven't really
| declined in the last decade [1]
|
| 1.
| https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.107.55/ff6.d53.myftpuploa...
| tristanperry wrote:
| Yep true, although it's not just laptops. I often see 'high end
| editing PCs' with 16GB of RAM, which is possibly sufficient for
| 1080p editing, but nowhere near enough for 4K editing for
| multiple programs open.
|
| I guess it's similar to how some laptops/budget desktops still
| have hard drives, even though an SSD wouldn't cost much more
| but it'd offer great performance benefits.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Laptop 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Or 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.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| same here...
| vwoolf wrote:
| Either way, does it sleep or hibernate effectively?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952
| burnte wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Same experience here (9310, Kubuntu 21.10), but I really miss
| S3. I hope I can go back on my next laptop...
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| loser
| userbinator wrote:
| _It 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.)
| pajko wrote:
| Tried 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...
| kolleykibber wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| MSP 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Nice, 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Where would one go to look? Would love to review old
| schematics, specifically the XPS 9350, 9343... and macbooks!
| userbinator wrote:
| XPS 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".
| fock wrote:
| so, what terms are there for, say a Lenovo T440s? While
| these search terms work, I have a hard time to come up
| with them (same goes for mobile phones, TVs,...)
| rasz wrote:
| STING UMA / VIVL0 NM-A102, most likely Wistron like the
| rest of thinkpads.
| [deleted]
| userbinator wrote:
| Tons of (I guess they are leaked) schematics are available for
| laptops, phones, and related electronics. Dell didn't do the
| motherboard design; the OEM is Compal and as you can see from
| the motherboard, its actual model is LA-H931P.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Dell didn't do the motherboard design; the OEM is Compal and
| as you can see from the motherboard, its actual model is
| LA-H931P.
|
| That begs two questions:
|
| 1. You can find that mainboard in other manufacturers laptops
| or it is just made for Dell?
|
| 2. It is Dell just integrating bits and pieces designed by
| others?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| No / Yes
|
| This is a normal thing. The brand makes a spec sheet and
| the supplier (OEM/ODM) builds something to that spec. For
| some reason in automotive circles the brands are called
| OEMs, which is kinda the opposite of the usual meaning.
|
| The schematics for almost all popular laptops are floating
| around in the internet.
| userbinator wrote:
| Yes, indeed most of the popular brands of laptops people
| are familiar with don't do their own electronic design
| (except Apple, since their schematics do actually say
| Apple on them; but then everyone knows they use Foxconn
| and others for the manufacturing). More details here:
| https://ctacs.weebly.com/news--articles/will-your-next-
| lapto...
|
| The OEM model numbering isn't segregated, so e.g. the
| LA-H931P is the Dell in the article, but a LA-3481P is a
| Tohsiba Satellite A200 and LA-8133P is a Lenovo Thinkpad
| E530.
| saxonww wrote:
| I found myself wondering what is actually lost if schematics
| like this get out. Are companies worried about
| counterfeit/copycat product? Are there major differences in
| layout skill across the industry, such that Compal would want
| to prevent people learning from them? It looks like Dell was
| entitled to the schematics, so it shouldn't be that a customer
| could cut out the vendor.
|
| I'm sure it's not about preventing competent people from doing
| this kind of service on hardware they've bought. Is it more
| about making warranties work? Or something else?
| userbinator wrote:
| My guess is that it's due to NDAs on the reference designs
| (from Intel) that these were originally derived from, and due
| to legal bureaucracy and such that no one wants to challenge,
| so they're "confidential" by default.
|
| If you've looked at other schematics from Compal, Inventec,
| Quanta, Wistron etc. they all have their own uniquely
| distinct style, but otherwise for a given platform they are
| all electrically very similar.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| How does it benefit Intel to keep reference designs
| confidential?
| wildzzz wrote:
| Because they only give you the design if you plan to buy
| a bunch of chips and pay them for support. It's a way to
| make money. Additionally, keeping the reference design
| under NDA reduces the risk of someone building an chip
| that is drop in compatible with Intel boards.
| zargon wrote:
| Intel is super secretive about everything, just because.
| userbinator wrote:
| They used to be far more open; I guess that was before
| the lawyers and manager-types started taking over the
| company. Here's the famous 440BX reference schematics:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/19991010005207/http://www.int
| el....
|
| Here are all of them, it looks like they started being
| closed with the 900 series chipsets; the 800 series (P4
| era) were the last ones they offered plenty of
| documentation openly:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20040823181302/http://develop
| er....
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Keep data sheets and reference designs confidential and
| your only customers will be large-volume companies able
| to shell out serious dollars upfront and with enough
| competent staff on hand.
|
| Hobbyists and small shops who require more assistance in
| getting up to speed are left to the scraps that the
| Raspberry Pi Foundation throws at us.
|
| Sorry for the sarcasm, but the situation really REALLY
| sucks and no one seems to care about it.
| winternett wrote:
| Funny 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.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >does anyone know a rock solid/powerful brand I can buy instead
| of Dell? I kind of miss Micron PCs.
|
| I've had good experiences with HP Elitebook x360.
| Lhiw wrote:
| Lenovo or framework. Lenovo gets worse every year but it's
| still better than dell or any other consumer garbage.
| Gigachad wrote:
| The newest Macbooks (2021) are looking pretty good tbh. They
| reworked the design to make the battery trivially replaceable
| and by the looks of it, they will be selling the battery to
| end users soon.
| iSnow wrote:
| But battery is about the only thing you can replace. If
| your trackpad or keyboard fails, you have to swap out the
| whole top assembly. If your camera or display cable goes,
| you have to replace the lid.
|
| Part of that is unavoidable as laptops become ever more
| thin, but I am reasonably sure Apple could make the
| keyboard replaceable.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| I recall on the older machines that they had upwards of
| 60 screws holding the keyboard into the top panel. I've
| not checked out a teardown in a long time, is that still
| the case or is it riveted in?
|
| I always suspected that 60+ screw solution was very much
| over engineered but I guess they wanted to eliminate any
| potential for flex of any sort.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Depending on model, I guess. My 2 year old x360 has so bad
| airflow for cooling that I've had multiple "meltdowns" if I
| forget to put a spacer underneath it. Basically the whole
| thing shuts down and won't boot again for an hour, and the
| underside is painfully hot. A pencil underneath the screen
| hinge works best for keeping enough airflow to avoid this.
|
| The first time it had a meltdown, my touchpad stopped working
| completely, so I went with an external mouse. Second time,
| the touchpad melted itself back into place I guess, so now it
| works again.
| joseluis wrote:
| another crappy experience with a Dell xps15 9575... the feeling
| of a laptop built to quickly auto desintegrate, with crappy
| components, bad BT/wifi module, very unreliable touchpad,
| butter screws... everything sucked ass. I remember also not
| being able to use the laptop 90 degrees on its side to see a
| movie for example because the keyboard would stop working and
| the fan would start to run at max speed. that was the worst
| laptop I've ever had and the most expensive too. never again
| dell for me.
|
| after that I bought a custom 14 inch laptop in pcspecialist
| back when they still had amd ryzen models (Ryzen 7 4800H 8
| cores, 64 Gb ram, no preinstalled OS...) which is the best
| laptop I've ever had in my entire life. It's been complete
| opposite experience in terms of enjoyment and reliability, with
| very few issues using Linux (my only complain the inability to
| put to sleep, because it messes up the video after waking up
| even with the latest kernel).
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning Pcspecialist. They seem to be making
| nice laptops which are aren't more costly than brand names
| such as HP or Dell or Lenovo.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Fellow 9570 user here; I upgraded my RAM, but my biggest
| complaint with it by far is around power management. Even
| running Windows 10 and nothing "weird" as far as VMs or
| whatever, it feels like I get completely unpredictable battery
| life-- sometimes it's 6 hours no problem, other times it's at
| 50% after just an hour. Most troubling still is that I've had
| multiple instances of bringing the computer out of sleep after
| it was sitting on the charger, and then a moment later it goes
| into a battery panic and shuts itself down. But then after
| rebooting (on external power), it shows the battery as full
| again and doesn't charge any further.
|
| I basically can't depend on the computer to be usable on
| battery unless I fully shut it down when I know it's full.
| exikyut wrote:
| I've read/heard enough Internet anecdata to be >50% confident
| you're experiencing issues associated with "modern standby",
| most current implementations of which are horribly broken
| (both, IIUC, in terms of bad/nonexistent Linux support, _and_
| broken Windows experiences).
|
| A quick google found https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-
| backtracks-on-XPS-15-9570..., which notes that the BIOS
| removed S3 sleep support (the standby method used since the
| dinosaurs) in version 1.3.0. The suggestion might be actively
| harmful, impossible, void your warranty, irrelevant for
| reason(s) I'm not aware of, or any combination thereof, but I
| wonder what would happen if you downgraded the BIOS to that
| version. (Once again, this suggestion is the equivalent of
| blindly reaching into a Pandora's box full of piranhas,
| pulling the first thing out I touch, and going "hmm, would
| this work?" :D)
|
| In any case, googling around for "modern standby" and "s3"
| (ie, "9570 s3") will reveal the debacle behind the curtain
| ._.
|
| Edit: Found https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-15-9570-BI
| OS-1-3-0-sl... which adds some interesting insight ("The
| issue is the following"), along with https://www.dell.com/com
| munity/XPS/XPS-15-9570-BIOS-1-3-0-sl... (BIOS downgrade
| blocked starting at 1.4.0) :(
| csdvrx wrote:
| About a year ago, I wanted to work around BIOS limitations
| by writing patched ACPI tables, like what was done for a
| long time for Hackintoshes.
|
| So I documented in more detail my finding for the 9250/7275
| on https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/kolf5f/patching_t
| he_d...
|
| I got in touch with a few other people, but nobody seemed
| very interested, so I gave up and got myself a Thinkpad
| instead.
|
| If you want to work on that, on a BIOS advertising S3
| support, IIRC all you need to do is keep the EC powered so
| it can proceed the GPE from the power power button. On S01x
| it's powered off to avoid spurious wakeups.
|
| Get the schematics, disassemble the BIOS, and you'll the
| logic would be about as complicated as:
|
| if (S01x) { EC_poweroff; }
|
| else { EC_powered; EC_monitor_GPE_something; }
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| I could not get my Latitude 5515 to sleep properly after
| weeks of playing with it. I settled on a song and dance of
| setting hibernate on and making sure I pull the power cord
| out and wait a few seconds before closing the laptop. Works
| every time and 'bootup' takes a few seconds.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Interesting! Thanks for the pointer on that. This is a
| work-issued computer, so I'm not sure I officially even
| have BIOS/boot access on it, however the Dell Update
| utility is telling me that I have a 1.21 BIOS update
| waiting in the wings, so perhaps I'll install that and see
| what happens. It would be hard to picture it getting any
| worse, though I suppose the people updating to 1.3 thought
| that too.
| bryan0 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > Funny I just saw this thread, today I learned that my
| integrated (not removeable) XPS 15 9570 laptop battery
|
| takes about 10 minutes and the correct screwdriver to replace
| the battery on most every dell XPS laptop i've seen.
| ksec wrote:
| > The Internet is littered with complaints about dell PCs
| failing after warranty, and how recalls are covered up on them
| frequently.
|
| Technology has advanced to the point where they can get some
| components to fail soon after warranty period expired with
| decent accuracy. Power unit failure tends to be a common one.
|
| In terms of PC, your best bet is probably Framework laptop.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Technology has advanced to the point where they can get
| some components to fail soon after warranty period expired
| with decent accuracy. Power unit failure tends to be a common
| one._
|
| Unless the hardware is designed to be damaged (or restricted)
| by software, there's no way this is true. Technology can be
| great, but you can't "program" hardware to die on a certain
| date without knowing how it will be used, how long it will be
| used, what temperatures it will operate in, etc.
|
| And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has no
| idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore doesn't
| even know the date that the hardware "should" fail.
|
| Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and
| happening, it's just a conspiracy theory.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| It's fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you design
| anything. That said it's probably not as malicious as
| people might think their goal isn't to artificially lower
| the MTTF to just beyond the warranty period but rather that
| they don't put any effort in extending the MTTF beyond
| that.
|
| And really it's not that companies in the past did that
| much better, it's just that in the past getting replacement
| parts was easier and you had fewer integrated components.
| Today everything is pretty much in a single package even
| basic electric circuits like a bridge rectifier. So things
| got smaller and are more likely to fail and they are harder
| to replace.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _It's fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you
| design anything._
|
| Where did I disagree with this?
|
| What I'm saying is that MTTF is measured in _usage time_
| , whereas warranties are measured in _calendar time_.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Cycles under normal usage conditions aren't that hard to
| calculate.
| smt88 wrote:
| The range of "normal" is massive for things like cars and
| laptops.
|
| Again, provide a source please. Otherwise this is just
| unprovable speculation on your part for something that is
| theoretically difficult in the first place.
| porlw wrote:
| It's not really a conspiracy, just the natural outcome of
| design optimization - any part that still works reliably at
| the end of the design lifespan is a candidate for cost
| cutting in the next iteration.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _any part that still works reliably at the end of the
| design lifespan is a candidate for cost cutting in the
| next iteration_
|
| This assumes a positive correlation between quality and
| price for parts. That isn't always the case. There's no
| reason a better part will be more expensive.
|
| And again, you're ignoring my primary argument:
| "lifespan" is not measurable in calendar years for
| electronics. Some people I know use their laptops 360
| hrs/mo, and some people (like me) only use them when
| traveling, ~20 hrs/mo.
|
| After a calendar year of that, my laptop has only 240 hrs
| of life lost, while another laptop might have 4,000+ hrs
| of life lost.
|
| Please provide a source about how a hardware manufacturer
| (without the aid of software) could plan for a component
| to fail after either 240 hrs of usage or 4,000 hrs of
| usage.
| [deleted]
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible
| and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory.
|
| It's quite easy and I think most manufacturers of
| electronic devices, electric appliances and even cars are
| doing it.
|
| You just have to calculate what the average working time
| during the warranty period and adjust the quality of
| materials and the build quality so the MTBF is just a bit
| higher than that time.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _even cars are doing it_
|
| Cars are not doing it. Like I said: provide a source that
| isn't your own suspicions and anecdata.
|
| I am a shareholder of an auto insurance company, and our
| actuaries would know if cars were doing it. There is a
| lot of very high-quality data about vehicle reliability,
| and major trends are very visible.
|
| Car companies are often stupid and/or evil, but they
| can't (and don't) precisely plan obsolescence. Car usage
| is a huge bell curve, with the average American driving
| ~15k miles/year, but large groups of people driving far
| less or far more. You couldn't possibly plan a car to
| fail at X years.
| vortext wrote:
| Car manufacturers usually set the warranty as 36
| months/36,000 miles, for example. I'm not claiming that
| this is the case, but it'd be far easier to plan for X
| miles than years.
| blihp wrote:
| It could be from the standpoint of thermal design and
| having a reasonable idea of how long components will last
| at the temperatures they will typically run at.
| Realistically, all you need is a capacitor or two to fail
| in the ballpark to achieve that end with most customers.
| Granted, one wouldn't be able to to say 'after exactly X
| years of expected usage it will fail' but more likely be
| able to say 'after no more than X years of expected usage
| most units should fail'. Some heavy users would have theirs
| fail early and the company might have to correct via a
| warranty claim but that could easily be more than made up
| for by the masses of other customers that arrive for
| replacements roughly on schedule.
|
| One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make
| 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily
| replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and wait
| for them to start failing. As long as most manufacturers
| did this, you wouldn't have to worry about losing business
| to your competitors due to the practice. Pretty sure you
| can put a check mark next to most phone and laptop
| manufacturers on that front these days.
|
| This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world examples
| of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure modes:
| incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail
| ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have
| lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are designed to
| fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in
| the tub to slowly disintegrate via your laundry detergent.)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make
| 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily
| replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and
| wait for them to start failing. As long as most
| manufacturers did this, you wouldn't have to worry about
| losing business to your competitors due to the practice.
|
| Based on the lack of profits from selling hardware in the
| first place, it makes more sense to me that these lower
| quality products are made with tradeoffs that result in a
| lower price for their target audience. The grand
| conspiracy idea, even if it were true, clearly did not
| pan out considering the loss in market value for
| basically every laptop brand other than Apple.
|
| > This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world
| examples of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure
| modes: incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to
| fail ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily
| have lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are
| designed to fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers
| design a seal in the tub to slowly disintegrate via your
| laundry detergent.)
|
| Source? Unless there was only 1 or 2 washing machine
| manufacturers, it seems kind of trivial for a competing
| company to sell the tub with a better seal with a longer
| warranty. Once again, it is probably lower quality
| products aimed for people who want to pay lower prices.
| The speed queen or Miele washer with 5 year warranty is
| available for those who want to spend for it.
|
| Personally, I would rather buy a washing machine that
| costs half as much from Costco which comes with a 4 year
| warranty, and trash it when it breaks. If another
| manufacturer wanted to sell a washer with a 5 year
| warranty that cost the same, or a 10 year warranty that
| cost less than double, I would be game for that.
|
| The same situation for the light bulb. If there are
| competing manufacturers, people would rather pay more to
| not have to change light bulbs. Although, this depends on
| how easy it is to change the bulb. For a parking lot
| light needing a truck with a boom, I would spend double
| to get a quality bulb with a better warranty. For a house
| bulb I can change with a step ladder, I would rather pay
| $2 and gamble on it lasting longer than a $4 bulb,
| because even if it does fail after 1 year instead of 2
| years, I am not going to spend my time warrantying a $4
| item.
| coryrc wrote:
| Light bulbs lifetime was open collusion because longer-
| lifetime lightbulbs are less efficient electrically.
| Lifetime electricity cost for incandescents is much more
| than purchase cost, so buying longer-lived bulbs costs
| you money.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not see how that is collusion in the usual sense of
| the world?
|
| That is simply consumers opting for the better value,
| making the sale of longer lifetime bulbs an uncompetitive
| option.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail
| ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have
| lasted far longer)
|
| This is repeated a lot but not correct. All the "forever
| incandescent" bulbs have one thing in common: they're
| dim, and they have a very red color temperature. They
| live long, _because_ their filaments are much colder. If
| you want whiter light, and more of it (because lower
| filament temperatures are less efficient, since they emit
| even more infrared, as the entire spectrum is more red-
| shifted and flatter), the only way with incandescent is a
| higher filament temperature, which inherently lowers lamp
| lifetime.
|
| What changed, besides lifetime, when lamps went from
| around 2000-3000 hours to 1000 hours is that they got way
| brighter and more white. Which is what customers wanted.
| asddubs wrote:
| although it certainly is true these days, that the
| average LED based bulb is pushing those LEDs hard, which
| incidentally also makes them less efficient, rather than
| just using more of them at the same wattage.
|
| Check out the dubai lamp to see a lamp designed to be
| efficient and last:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4
| rasz wrote:
| > clothes washers are designed to fail after ~10 years
| (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in the tub to slowly
| disintegrate via your laundry detergent.)
|
| Worse :( Seal can be easily replaced. They cast Drum
| Support/Spider part from specially selected alloy with
| curious property of easily Dissolving in washing powder
| :)
|
| https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=corroded+spider+
| was... https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-
| VIEWTHREAD.cgi...
|
| Drum spider corrodes and falls apart, incidentally it is
| often the Only internal part not covered with anti
| corrosion paint :), and drum itself is obviously
| stainless. For comparison something like Miele is all
| stainless.
|
| Audi (VW group) 2.0 TDI BLB Engine is made to fail at
| ~200K no matter what you do, from oil pump to head micro
| fractures. Crankshaft sprocket at 200K http://lh6.ggpht.c
| om/_m_33vQTtsxM/SyuSlFIeSXI/AAAAAAAAG9o/rt... http://lh3.
| ggpht.com/_m_33vQTtsxM/SyuSn5YALLI/AAAAAAAAG9s/ul... http
| ://lh3.ggpht.com/_m_33vQTtsxM/SyuSp1yUs4I/AAAAAAAAG9w/mO.
| .. VW answer: this part is non serviceable, whole
| crankshaft needs to be replaced :D Why is it made out of
| putty while smaller sprocket (the one taking more force)
| is still 'working'? Why is it designed not to be
| replaceable? Good 'old timer/not by the book' mechanic is
| still able to replace it (heat whole crankshaft, use big
| hammer). 200K is usually first crankshaft turn/grind,
| engine block itself is good for >500K easily.
| ksec wrote:
| >Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible
| and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory.
|
| we are close to 2022, this shouldn't really be a conspiracy
| theory anymore
|
| As some have mentioned Lightbulb is one of those prime
| examples. Where vast majority of LED lightbulb offer say 10
| years of warranty, and yet because manufactures know most
| people dont bother sending them in, they cheap out on
| quality. Most LED ( if not all LED ) dont fail at all, it
| is the controller that fails, it is expensive and makes the
| difference. As long as it last 3-4 years, no one is going
| to complain. People will attribute this failure to bad luck
| / QA and just buy another one.
|
| As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is
| to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems
| long enough for Consumer Electronics. Most dont go and
| figure out it was X failure and just buy a new one.
| Synology J series NAS power unit is an example of this.
|
| Consumer Electronics has been doing this in China for over
| a decade. There are reason why things are cheaper. And most
| internet user are still stuck with "Spec" comparison as if
| spec means everything.
|
| >And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has
| no idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore
| doesn't even know the date that the hardware "should" fail.
|
| Electronics get used when they are sold. MTBF since usage
| in many cases can be extremely predictable.
|
| There is another point to look at it, a lot of consumer
| actually prefer to have CE fail within reasonable time so
| they get an excuse to buy something new. The market for
| some people like me who thinks something should last _at
| least_ 10 - 20 years is ridiculously tiny. Although the buy
| for life internet following is certainly helping a bit.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way
| is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which
| seems long enough for Consumer Electronics._
|
| You're moving the goalposts here. You said that:
|
| > _they can get some components to fail soon after
| warranty period expired with decent accuracy_
|
| But then you specifically mention a window of _2 years_.
| From a business perspective, 2 years is not "decent
| accuracy".
| ksec wrote:
| I am pointing at normal circumstance with example for
| Synology which is a decent brand. There are cases where
| the accuracy is in _months_. Digital TV STB sold that
| last only 9-12 months with a 6 months warranty. And all
| it takes is using low quality capacitor in special batch.
|
| And no, they dont ever reach the shore of US or EU unless
| you other them via Aliexpress.
|
| And you completely ignore the LED light bulb example
| where evidence are given with respect to warranty and
| lifetime usage.
| sirius87 wrote:
| > The Internet is littered with complaints about dell PCs
| failing after warranty, and how recalls are covered up on them
| frequently.
|
| Not to divert from the topic, but I sometimes wonder how
| companies on Twitter have their staff monitor tweets to get on
| top of social media controversies started by random people
| involving their brand (race, discrimination, etc.), while
| giving a cold shoulder to paying customers complaining about
| broken product features or design (with staple replies such as
| "contact support" or "see warranty info").
| Lhiw wrote:
| The woke foke would lose their shit if they were told to
| contact customer support.
| gjs278 wrote:
| the time it took you to write this post you could have bought
| all the parts and assembled them yourself. you have the time.
| credittw2021 wrote:
| Dell 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)
| easytiger wrote:
| I've owned several XPS laptops.
|
| For less than two days each.
|
| All returned. The quality control is a joke and I more
| wouldn't touch Dell with a bargepole.
|
| One XPS 15 powered off every 5 minutes. One had a high
| pitched whine. In one I had the keys were loose and not
| fitted properly. In another the hinge was screwed and another
| became inexplicably hot at idle to the point it was painful
| to touch.
|
| When I asked to return these they didn't even care why I was
| returning them.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| When did they stop using nonstandard PSUs?
|
| Also, their motherboards are not a standard size.
|
| At least they aren't pulling the crap HP does on the
| enterprise side - requiring service contracts to access
| firmware updates. This means there's financial incentive to
| include bugs in component firmware now, to "fix" over time.
|
| Oh yeah, and they also DRM'd drive caddies by integrating a
| bunch of useless capacity indicator LEDs on the front of the
| drive tray, because they want people to buy their stupidly
| overpriced drives instead of buying caddies at $5/pop off
| ebay and putting bulk-purchased drives in.
| userbinator wrote:
| _My current work XPS laptop will downclock to 800mhz when
| chromium has hardware acceleration enabled._
|
| That is at least partly Intel's fault for creating CPUs with
| "configurable TDP-down" and the whole power limit thing. It
| happens to Lenovos too. There are utilities that can stop
| that from happening and let you use the full potential of the
| hardware. There's some discussion about that here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18425687
| asddubs wrote:
| you could give the framework laptop a shot, it's designed to be
| easily repairable. otherwise maybe a thinkpad?
| victor9000 wrote:
| I was just about to recommend a framework. I've been running
| Ubuntu on one from batch 1 and I couldn't be happier. Funny
| enough, I also came from an XPS, and switched after realizing
| that dell intends for their machines to be disposable. Now I
| can upgrade and replace anything and everything and boy do I
| ever love it.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Only if commenter is from USA.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Or Canada, actually.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| If he's from EU, he might try Pcspecialist as mentioned in
| another comment.
| rpgmaker wrote:
| I've had to change the battery of every laptop I ever owned
| after a year or two after warranty expires. Why would anyone
| buy a laptop with a non removable battery? It's crazy.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because the thin ones are all like that. They typically use
| prismatic cells glued in place.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| Same goes for soldered SSDs, both components degrade with
| use.
|
| It's like buying a car with tires that last 50k miles, but if
| you want to replace them you have to cut off the entire
| drivetrain and weld on a new one. Technically possible but
| only with excessive effort.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >It's like buying a car with tires that last 50k miles, but
| if you want to replace them you have to cut off the entire
| drivetrain and weld on a new one.
|
| I think that car manufacturers can borrow a lot of bad
| ideas from IT: not being able to own a car, instead just
| renting it from the company, artificially gimping it and
| requiring a sum of money to "unlock the features".
| vezycash wrote:
| >requiring a sum of money to "unlock the features".
|
| Tesla already did this
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I feel like the more egregious example is BMW's
| subscription model for heated seats. I think once you buy
| the self-driving package, you get to keep it, along with
| future updates. Sure, it's pricey but it's also an
| incredible feature. The idea of being able to have your
| car do the work on interstates sounds amazing, not that I
| can afford it. If it required yearly payments and cost
| extra to upgrade, that would be pretty bad, in my
| opinion.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| For Tesla FSD you can pay a lump sum to unlock it
| permanently, or you can pay a monthly fee. When I did the
| math I recall it would take ~4.5 years to equal the lump
| sum, although they say to expect price increases on the
| monthly plan.
|
| Tesla also has a monthly fee to unlock rear heated seats
| in the Model 3.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| >Tesla also has a monthly fee to unlock rear heated seats
| in the Model 3.
|
| I didn't realize. This kind of thing is really lame. In
| my case it wouldn't matter at all but for some reason it
| really rubs me the wrong way.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Why would anyone buy a laptop with a non removable
| battery? It 's crazy._
|
| For me personally, it's because I never use my laptop without
| it being plugged in. There's nowhere I would want to use my
| laptop that I can't find an output (home, work, planes,
| airports, friends' houses, etc.)
|
| The only exception I can think of is when actively riding
| public transit, but I never use my laptop in those
| situations.
|
| A lot of laptops are also bought by people's employers and
| are a tiny cost that no one cares about (~$1,000 every 3
| years for an employee making $300k+ in that amount of time).
| They don't care if the battery degrades.
| Gigachad wrote:
| As long as the battery lasts long enough to last an hour or
| two in a meeting room, its good enough. But now I work from
| home permanently so that doesn't even matter. I'm glad
| MacOS recognizes this and only charges up to 80% to
| preserve the battery health if I ever did need it
|
| The only time I ever cared about battery life on a laptop
| was in highschool where it had to last all day without
| being charged.
| ahonhn wrote:
| When the battery fails (or decides it has failed) you
| probably won't be able to use the machine anymore unless
| you can disconnect the battery.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| The 9560/5520 battery was perfectly removable. I didn't know
| they did away with that the next year.
| _Microft wrote:
| Abbreviations 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
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board
|
| [2]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_outline_integrated_cir...
|
| [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology
| bserge wrote:
| IPA - 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| IPA - Isopropyl alcohol, 99%
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| I'm from Michigan, 100% thought this was a beer.
| fock wrote:
| Good 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 wrote:
| >similar things from Asia on YT
|
| Got any pointers?
| fock wrote:
| 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!
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, 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.
| lucb1e wrote:
| What 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/im...
| extrapickles wrote:
| Its probably a HT-90X or similar reballing kit.
|
| They are generally made out of aluminum and anodized various
| colors.
| asddubs wrote:
| I 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=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 wrote:
| > 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!
| newbie789 wrote:
| This is genuinely impressive and a wonderful write up! Dear lord,
| what a Herculean task
| georgeoliver wrote:
| Great 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 wrote:
| I did not know dentists offer such a service but i'm still a
| bit hesitant to ask at my next checkup.
| rfrey wrote:
| I think this is more "my neighbour and buddy who happens to
| be a dentist" versus "my dentist who happened to ask about my
| hobby".
| userbinator wrote:
| Depends 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.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| HN 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 wrote:
| I 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]
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| I wonder if some day we will get a DRAM board specification thats
| smaller then SODIMM.
| csdvrx wrote:
| It could be done simply with Pogo pins, or like for cpus a long
| time ago, ZIF sockets
| mschuster91 wrote:
| ZIF 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 wrote:
| I believe one issue with all of those is they go through all
| layers of the PCB. Not sure if surface mount sockets exist?
| csdvrx wrote:
| Think 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
| jacquesm wrote:
| That would probably not work, those chips have ground
| planes under them for cooling purposes.
| csdvrx wrote:
| RAM remains passively cooled to this day, so some thermal
| pads diffusing the heat to the metal case might be enough
| joe_guy wrote:
| I'm having difficulty picturing this. Can you point to an
| example?
|
| What's the reliability like on a socket like that to a
| decade of bumps?
| starky wrote:
| I don't think they are available as standard components,
| but there are companies out there that make sockets for
| mounting DRAM chips to allow for debugging.
| ksec wrote:
| That was my question as well when looking at how much space
| SODIMM requires on the Framework laptops. Although I am not
| entirely sure if there is a market for it. Part of the reason (
| or benefits ) for going soldered Memory and NAND is assembly
| automation in production line.
| gab007 wrote:
| Not 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 wrote:
| >> 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.
| floatboth wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Say you're inexperienced and have a 20% chance of screwing the
| pooch each time you attempt this. I wouldn't risk it.
| cesarb wrote:
| > 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.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I 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!
| fithisux wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| We've slowly been removing socketed components in laptops for
| 30 years. Soldering irons aren't DRM, they're just require some
| tools and skill.
| wildzzz wrote:
| If 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.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > 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.
| MichaelBurge wrote:
| Why 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.
| sschueller wrote:
| "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?
| vadfa wrote:
| There aren't many options for Windows laptops.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| There are HP laptops with user-replaceable RAM, such as the
| Pro and Elite Books. The 13" ones are comparable to the XPS
| line in terms of size / weight / performance. I don't have
| experience with the other sizes.
|
| The top panel being metal is also nicer in my opinion than
| the weird sticky thing on the XPS.
|
| The company I work for uses those, and they don't seem to
| have any issues with them.
| zdqdqzd wrote:
| Honestly it's quite his fault by choosing the XPS 13, an ultra
| portable. Take the XPS 15, it's the best compromise between
| portability and repairability. I have a 9750 or something and
| chose it because it was just the most repairable laptop at the
| time. You could replace ram and disk for sure, but also buy new
| fans directly from Dell, or new hinges, a new battery, a
| motherboard, you name it. Remove a few screws and you have
| access to everything, easy to mount and dismount.
|
| So no, the company didn't force him, he just went for
| portability.
| vwoolf wrote:
| It's his fault for buying a product being sold with defects
| that are apparently known to insiders?
|
| This kind of shit makes me hope Framework succeeds.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Actually, 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 wrote:
| Is 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
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Is there actually noticably lower latency when going from
| sodimm/on MB RAM to memory integrated in SoC?
|
| No.
|
| But it's easier and lower power to run higher bus
| frequencies for higher bandwidths. Same goes for bus width.
| phire wrote:
| There isn't any latency reduction on the M1, Apple use the
| exact same 4,266 MT/s LPDDR4X that can be found soldered
| onto the motherboards on a few window's laptops, and they
| are just using the stock timings.
|
| I think the main reason Apple are doing it is to simplify
| their motherboard PCB design and make the design more
| compact.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Look 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 wrote:
| Apple 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.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It's the chipset & CPU that have to slowdown to account
| for the extra cost to reach it, hidden in whatever stage
| you call it -- even if the actual DRAM chips may be the
| same. They're the dumbest part in this entire diagram.
|
| Also, they benefit from larger bus widths, lower power,
| etc. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-
| apple-m1-teste... ( despite this being DDR4 I have to go
| to DDR5-systems to find similar bandwidth & latency
| results ) ,
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-
| performanc... and
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-
| performanc... ( I have to go quad-channel DDR5 or HBM to
| find similar results elsewhere)
| Stevvo wrote:
| Yes, when you get to the very high frequencies of modern
| RAM, physical distance is significant. For years
| overclockers have been using mini-ITX motherboards to get
| the RAM closer to the CPU for higher frequencies.
| floatboth wrote:
| ITX usage was never about trace length, it's about having
| a 2-DIMM board for running 2 sticks - Unoccupied DIMM
| sockets are terrible!
|
| These days we have the luxury of overclocking boards that
| are 2-DIMM in ATX form factor.
| rasz wrote:
| You bought into Apple marketing. Speed of signal in copper
| ~20cm per 1ns. 5-7cm of extra track length to a slot would
| not hurt anything.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Oh my god, did you just discredit the entire field of EDA
| place & route in just one sentence? This is not your usual
| 20MHz bus. These are signals that switch at 2, 3, 4 GHz,
| and there are a shitton of effects that get in the way and
| limit how fast you can toggle a (longer) wire. Or at least
| significantly alter the power vs latency vs speed vs noise
| tradeoffs.
|
| (and no, I most certainly did not buy into apple marketing,
| since I'm pointing that as a negative)
| rasz wrote:
| Did you miss the part where Apple is clocking those chips
| at same speeds as normal DDR4? Closer placement did not
| result in lower latency nor higher speeds. Apple M1 is
| same situation as RPI foundation using POP ram. Requires
| fewer pcb layers, simplifies layout, lowers cost and as a
| bonus gives assured future sales due to forced
| obsolescence. I didnt dismiss anything, I simply know
| physics and have some experience in high speed layout.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Is Intel making SoCs like this yet? All the Core, Pentium,
| etc. CPUs I've seen are still just CPUs. True Apple is doing
| this, and ARM Chromebooks probably do it, too.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Intel also makes it, kinda:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16195/a-broadwell-
| retrospecti...
| pugworthy wrote:
| Back when I was a kid, we un-soldered the original Mac 128 memory
| and upgrading to 512k...
| rasz wrote:
| As described in Dr.Dobb's Journal Volume 10, Number 1, January,
| 1985
| http://dserver.macgui.com/Dr%20Dobbs%20Fatten%20Your%20Mac%2...
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