Upgrading CPU/RAM

[diabol]

Hi all,
I'm thinking of getting a Pandora, but I'm kinda late to the party.
There's not a lot up for sale anymore, so I'm thinking of getting one of the originals with 600Mhz OMAP3530 and 256MB RAM and "just upgrading that".

Searching around a bit reveals that people have been crazy about the subject before the newer units were released, but apparently noone has really tried it?

I've looked through the hardware wiki pages, part lists*, etc. and found that the exact part for the DM3730 can be readily ordered from farnell in single units (for about 45e), but the PoP memory which was used in the Pandoras seems to have EOL'd a while ago.

My local hackerspace probably has the required hardware to do a hacky reflow job or whatever with, so it's kind of feasible to do it. I guess.
And oh yes, I am totally willing to trash one of the probably last pandoras to sell for a reasonable price just to squeeze out a bit of extra power

My questions are:
- Has anyone actually attempted this or similar?
- Any idea where to get a compatible PoP memory chip? (frankly my searches are a little clumsy and have been without luck so far, but if the SoC is still being sold I guess there's still memory chips out there)
- Are there any other changes to the revised board beside the SoC? (My guess would be voltage regulation?)

Greetings,
diabol

* I was actually thinking of building it from scratch, the specs being open sourced and stuff. but just looking at the parts list tells me that it would wreck me financially and mentally

P.S.: my GP32 is still alive and kicking (although the SMC is dead)

 

[Agricola]

I actually don't own a Pandora and never really looked at the open resources, so I've got no idea about other possible changes to the PCB, but are you sure you want to resolder a Ball Grid Array SoC and get into this hell of a software driver situation just to get a slightly faster Pandora (because the best SoC to solder on it is the DM3730) for double or triple the money with the Pyra just around the corner? Of course it would be cool and if you really want to go down that road I'd love to read some updates, but I honestly don't see a scenario where that's feasible for any purpose.

 

[levi]

Software shouldn't be a problem if you upgrade the OS before doing anything; that DM3730 is the 1GHz part I think.

I understand that the IGEPv2 board in the 1GHz configuration uses exactly the right CPU part, and RAM of the right capacity - presumably being the same CPU part means the RAM is PoP. I don't know, but perhaps it's easier to take the two off the board together than to try to install fresh RAM to a fresh CPU (should you even be able to get such a thing).

But I've not heard of anyone doing this, and it does seem rather hard - I'm not sure exactly what pinout the DM3730 has but it's pretty small and I'll bet sub-mm precision is needed in lining it up. But if you fancy giving it a go, more power to you!

 

[Binky]

I think its extremely unlikely (blue moons and flying pigs don't even enter into it) that normal hackerspace-grade equipment could rework fine-pitched POP BGA parts.
Even pick&place machines, working with brand new boards and parts straight out of the reel, need several test runs before they get the position and solder distribution just right.