{"id":134981,"date":"2022-01-31T04:22:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T12:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/gpu-ram-upgrades-are-closer-than-you-think"},"modified":"2022-01-31T04:22:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T12:22:44","slug":"gpu-ram-upgrades-are-closer-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/gpu-ram-upgrades-are-closer-than-you-think","title":{"rendered":"GPU RAM Upgrades Are Closer Than You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/gpu-ram-upgrades-are-closer-than-you-think2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re all used to swapping RAM in our desktops and laptops. What about a GPU, though? [dosdude1] teaches us that soldered-on RAM is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QRrThOEmjOU\" target=\"_blank\">merely a frontier to be conquered<\/a>. Of course, there\u2019s gotta be a good reason to undertake such an effort \u2013 in his case, he couldn\u2019t find the specific type of Nvidia GT640 that could be flashed with an Apple BIOS to have his Xserve machine output the Apple boot screen properly. All he could find were 1GB versions, and the Apple BIOS could only be flashed onto a 2GB version. Getting 2GB worth of DDR chips on Aliexpress was way too tempting!<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QRrThOEmjOU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The video goes through the entire replacement process, to the point where you could repeat it yourself \u2014 as long as you have access to a preheater, which is a must for reworking relatively large PCBs, as well as a set of regular tools for replacing BGA chips. In the end, the card booted up, and, flashed with a new BIOS, successfully displayed the Apple bootup logo that would normally be missing without the special Apple VBIOS sauce. If you ever want to try such a repair, now you have one less excuse \u2014 and, with the GT640 being a relatively old card, you don\u2019t even risk all that much!<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first soldered-in RAM replacement journey we\u2019ve covered recently \u2014 here\u2019s our write-up about <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2021\/11\/24\/you-cant-upgrade-soldered-on-laptop-ram-think-again\/\">[Greg Davill] upgrading soldered-in RAM on his Dell XPS<\/a>! You can upgrade CPUs this way, too. While it\u2019s standard procedure in sufficiently advanced laptop repair shops, even hobbyists can manage it with proper equipment and a good amount of luck, as <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2012\/08\/10\/swapping-out-eee-pc-bga-chip-for-1-6-ghz-upgrade\/\">this EEE PC CPU upgrade illustrates<\/a>. BGA work and Apple computers getting a second life go hand in hand \u2014 just two years ago, we covered this <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/06\/28\/a-dead-macbook-gpu-shouldnt-stop-you-with-this-bga-soldering-hack\/\">BGA-drilling hack to bypass a dead GPU in a Macbook<\/a>, and before that, a <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2019\/07\/09\/liquid-damaged-macbook-saved-with-a-keen-eye\/\">Macbook water damage revival story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all used to swapping RAM in our desktops and laptops. What about a GPU, though? [dosdude1] teaches us that soldered-on RAM is merely a frontier to be conquered. Of course, there\u2019s gotta be a good reason to undertake such an effort \u2013 in his case, he couldn\u2019t find the specific type of Nvidia GT640 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybercrime-malcode"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}