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that's what i wrote 2 pages ago...

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Well I dont have the specs in front of me, but from that from the photo earlier in the thread it looks like a 66-pin TSOP-II layout. I just did a quick google search for "66 pin TSOP-II test socket" and found a number of them, so yes they exist.

Second time no luck either :( This time I used extra care when removing the chips and soldered them back with SMD rework station. I guess we are stuck with 128MB unless bPlan gives us some info, but seeing as they don't even reply emails I think that is not going to happen.

Oh well back to pet my Mac Mini and hoping it will get MOS port soon.

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Yep they exist, but they are mighty expensive.

@Painkiller

You could remove the 2 original memory chips and replace them with others with twice the memory capacity. That way you probably wouldn't have to take much care about jumpers.

Anyway why don't you ask BBRV?

What a shame Bplan doesn't answer ... they could at least say " yes it's possible but we do not provide you info ", " or no you can't because ... " .

What do they have to loose ?

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NAH I'm not willing to waste anymore of my time on this project. This would have been the easiest way to expand Efikas memory...

BBRV?

You might have asked on www.powerdeveloper.org.
I am sure at least Neko would throw some harsh words on you - but usually inside his harsh words there's some useful information included.

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it's shame i can't find the thread on powerdeveloper where Neko was saying that the firmware couldn't handle more than 128mo in it's current version.
i'm pretty sure i haven't dreamed it.

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Wasn't this thread?

No, its mostly about Graphiccard memory which is limited to 128MB, too

Geit

Efika just uses 128 MB GFX memory on any installed radeon card?
uff, ...

I emailed BBRV and he said that you can get other versions with greater than 128M, but you'll have to order at least 300.

So it would make sense for bplan to NOT tell you how to put 512M since they sell a configuration similiar to that.

Its not about getting cards, its about using the memory on them. You easily can get card on ebay which have 256MB on it, but only 128MB will ever be used.

Geit

Ehm, geit, TheMagicM is clearly referring to the system RAM. BBRV told that bPlan can build Efikas with 512MB if there are at least 300 orders, he's not referring to the difficulty to find gfx cards with loads of VRAM...

Now, I guess it would be next to impossibile to find 300 people interested in buying an Efika with 512MB of RAM at something like 125-150$, even though these machines would make a lot more sense in real life usage than those with 128MB.

Kind regards,
Andrea

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I still hope the 5121 based Efika2 materializes one not too distant day (The E2 is said to ship with a lot more RAM). But we hadn't an update about that device since quite a while.
Anyway - if and when the Efika2 has materialized I hope to see MorphOS support for that device soon. I still think it's a very interesting device.

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What about the Pegasos II? The Utility GraphicBoards shows only 128MB memory with my Radeon 9250 256MB. Is there a 128MB limit of graphic mem, too?
-- sorry for the off topic --
drayman

Hey Drayman,

This topic has been addressed numerous time.

Dig this thread some post ago, I posted a link about this story at powerdev.

Czk.

@drayman

Yes, MorphOS can only use memory which has been set up by the OpenFirmware, and only 128MB VMem are supported by it.

Graphic cards with 256 MB or more memory are just a waste of energy.

The system memory of 128MB is quite ok. I can do anything with it. FTP Server, SVN Server, Audio Player, Video Player, play my favorite MAME Games, Surf the Web, EMail, IDE, even play Quake 1 and 2 and much more.

Its hard to say what isn't possible with this tiny system. You can even run Blender on it. Just a few things need to much memory, but thats a known fact. And the CPU is not the fastest, so for rendering movies its not the optimal choice.

With linux the system is unsuable in my opinion. Just for those who didn't know/try MorphOS. With the Efika you can run more than one application. e.g. IDE, EMail client, music player and servers together using a transparent desktop with all its features without running out of memory and more important with out any use of virtual memory.

Geit

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I have found the 128MB on my Efika to be it's biggest limiting factor. While it's true, strictly from a memory perspective, that you can do most normal user things with 128MB of memory, there are things that 128MB is not enough for. Specifically there are a couple of porting efforts I started where I cannot get certain components to compile because 128MB is simply not enough. Granted, the Efika was not intended to be a developer box. But if it had 256 MB or better yet, 512 MB it would be no problem..

@geit I disagree! the system overall is fun yes true but the limiting factor of 128mb and the fact that surfing produces unwarranted expiration of ram, causes you to not be productive. I have also have numerous drops of mice, and or keyboard under cpu load, again weird under a combo unit. Point is it is as successful as what peripherals are on it,how it is configures, and how hard you use it. Transferring files sometimes drops my usb (usb transfer)

As for mame I too enjoy it another great program(fab plug!), but it would benefit greatly more from more ram, at least on efika.

The real test of this OS should come from of a serious port of somebody's office program suite, I'd take sputnik with access to google docs at this point.

About the 128Mb limit, it is a little short to my taste as well. You can do multitasking but to the physical memory limit. Wookiechat + polyglot + sputnik + mail + shell + music + ... = memory shortage. This is not an uncommon situation.

VMem would be nice to have. Even if this impact somewhat the responsivness of the system, I take.

How memory left do you have at boot?

I have around 82Mb free (1650x1080x16 ambient)

Especially when using Sputnik the 128 MB are too few (complex pages take a really big ammount, take e.g. n-tv.de, ebay.#? or such). More than 2 tabs are hardly possible.
Anyway, since more RAM is not possible (at least not easy) I always keep an eye on the RAM usage and use e.g. rather Aweb (instead of Sputnik) as much as possible to save precious RAM.

how do you watch the ram? and what do you delete(cache) to free it up?

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I just bought my EFIKA a few weeks ago and would have gladly paid an extra $50 to $75 to get one with 512mb RAM instead of the only available option of 128mb.

Does the firmware have to be changed to use 256mb system RAM when/if it is added to the bottom of the EFIKA mobo?