Original Apple TV RAM Upgrade

[@danandrei96]

damn, just when I thought you were done with the crazy RAM upgrades haha. I was sure you would give up when the address line issue came up, but you actually took off the PCH and all the RAM chips and reballed again to run the jumper wires. I'm seriously impressed

[@kippie80]

You want 4 times memory and add only one bit, that sounds like you need to add another wire to bus. Never imagined you could do that but you clearly did. I bow to your relentless capability.

[@brun0ls]

For a long time I used this ATV 1st gen with CrystalBuntu and a Broadcom CrystalHD chip in the place where the Wifi Board used to be. And I also fitted a IDE2SATA converter and it was my media center for a long time! Very nice! Serving Samba, BitTorrent Sync and Transmission. Fun times!

[@markm0000]

That’s neat

[@NO_obs]

I still use one for this lol, haven't found a better device that has component output for connecting to my crt easily

[@Sparky400]

I never managed to fit a sata adaptor in a way I was happy with. Such a shame these weren't sata based, the time period was right but I assumed the chipset didn't have a built in sata controller.

[@Sparky400]

How did you get BitTorrent sync running on it? Also I can't imagine it ran well given how much ram resilio sync uses for me.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

the pentium m has a place in my heart. Those things packed quite a punch especially with their power consumption at the time.

[@truemorpheus]

You have 3 problems that could ruin signal integrity: impedance matching, length matching (timing problems) and your line is too far from the ground plane. To properly apply such kind of mod you need a VNA to measure impedance and a fast Oscilloscope to test timing. To solve the grounding you must use a tiny coax or flex pcb with ground plane.

[@dosdude1]

I was planning to make some custom flexible PCBs to bodge on an entire second rank (so 4 more x16 chips). Basically they'd sit under the original chips in a way where the original chip would be able to solder to both it and the pads on the board (basically BGA pads with small holes), and have a set of pads for a second chip that you could solder on, then fold around and stick on top of the original chip. You'd only have to pin out the #CS1 line from the MCH, which of course isn't used for only one rank. Flexible PCBs are somewhat expensive to have manufactured, though, and isn't worth it for this crappy Apple TV LOL.

[@truemorpheus]

@@dosdude1 That would be a financially unviable spectacular project

[@Megabean]

@@dosdude1 Projects like that sound like a good reason to make a patreon, so us EV Nerds can see something that epically unpractical undertaken lol.

[@1eyedwilli3]

Only out bro doing things no one needs wants or thought of. But holy shit it’s great

[@Mr.Macintosh]

@dosdude1 Thank you so much!!! I still can't believe my AppleTV1,1 is now running with 512GB of ram! You did an amazing job!!! What surprised me the most is how much work is involved in a mod like this. I enjoyed how you broke it all down and showed us exactly what was required to get the job done. You solidified your legacy in the macOS patching community, now you are blazing trails with Mac memory modification!!! I can't wait to see what you'll do next 👍

[@braddl9442]

The work he did at least creates a road map for anyone else that wants to try doing this. Now we know its only 512 that it can upgraded to.

[@RWL2012]

512MB you mean

[@005MDS3]

Dude you're Apple TV has more ram than my laptop 💀

[@PantusiaGaming]

Half GB

[@ethanchow9170]

Wow that’s crazy. I put 16gb in a MacBook Air 2014 a while back but this is another level of dedication and reverse engineering.

[@CodeProfessor]

Very nice. ...maybe it's not the destination that matters. Maybe it's the journey. If that journey takes a little longer, so we can do something we all believe in, I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

[@PNPRetro]

My, you are an intrepid voyager, aren't you?

[@TradieTrev]

Really solid upgrade! Never thought such a thing was possible; thanks for sharing!

[@RowanHawkins]

I know this was a long time ago but you can protect things like that IDE port with kapton tape. Just tape over all of the things that you don't want to be affected by the heat. It's great stuff. The through hole connectors are usually added after all of the surface mount using a flow fixture.

[@mndlessdrwer]

Every time I see a new video from this channel, I know I'm going to feel nostalgic for weird old tech and also learn something at the same time.

[@doogulass]

That's amazing! I had no idea you could do bodge wires with BGA chips. Makes sense that the wires were still necessary because otherwise that last address line would be floating and it would be unpredictable which half of the chips you'd actually be addressing...

[@robbirobson7330]

you dont know i ve seen indian technicians who soldered a bunch of wires under the bga chips in a phone which is impossible because its so small

[@vitor900000]

Not practical and there is a good chance that you will end up ruining the chip/board but its not impossible.

[@PCBWay]

This is absolutely stellar

[@TechKingdom35]

Nice, job. I thought about doing such an upgrade on my Apple TVs as well after trying Linux, Android and OS X on them. Now that you have documented the process I might try it. I love these little machines. I even added an EGPU to an apple TV via the mini PCI E.

[@NickelLight]

Wow an EGPU? That's awesome!

[@TechKingdom35]

@@NickelLight Yes, I have a video about it :) It kinda worked but really not well. The CPU on the Apple Tv is very weak and the PCI E link is a single gen 1 lane. I bought another GPU and am currently in the process of retrying the project in OS X

[@NickelLight]

@@TechKingdom35 I watched the vid, nice job!

[@andrewo.amanfo3965]

You run Android tv on you Apple TV? Loop me in. ❤❤❤

[@DonMr]

Fan here.

[@gregshadoan4049]

Love your work. Thanks again for all the 3,1 mac pro hacks, and the gtx 680 stuff!! Thanks :)

[@nickwallette6201]

I wanted so bad to use this as a media center PC. I didn't like how the ATV software relied so heavily on iTunes, and was limited to 720p. However, the XBMC (etc.) ports were really encouraging. I even bought the CrystalHD decoder card. I kept hearing how it wasn't quite all the way there yet, so I waited a little longer, then eventually tried installing it on a custom Gentoo build, which didn't go very well. Later, I thought I might give it another shot, but there were some regressions in the decoding support, so I waited a little longer. The next time I checked, they were waiving the white flag, citing the RAM limitations as just a bridge too far for this platform. sigh... So, I've got one. Modded with a flash disk and a CrystalHD. And never really put it into production. At this point, there's no reason to bother with all the alternatives that are better in every single possible way. Something about that _still_ chafes though.

[@CadenceFilmsInc]

wow its ages later and the younger generations now tinker with this, I think I may have to boot up my old ATV and see if Mac OS X still works, its been about 15 years at least.. time flies.

[@separatedig9567]

Normal people: I will just pop out the dimm slot. Dosdude1: I will just desolder the ram chips and reprogram the spd chip.

[@reboxtherapy]

It would be cool, if hackers would make a bookable 10.4 or so CD or DVD rom for newer Intel macs. Anything newer than 10.6 is slow on 2014 and older macs. 10.4 on a touchbar Era MacBook would be a true hackintosh.

[@beauslim]

These were amazing when they came out. If you had an HD video camera back then, there really weren't many good options for showing your own content aside from carting around a computer because BluRay burners were still crazy expensive. Sadly, they ran very hot and my iTV died a very long time ago.

[@jm036]

DVD players existed and the majority of computers had DVD burners by then.

[@beauslim]

@@jm036 The 720p HD of the original AppleTV is almost 3x the pixels of DVD (i.e. 480p SD).

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@beauslimtrue. Amazing machine

[@chrisdunning6144]

DVDs weren’t/aren’t HD. Their resolution cap was 480p. HD was 720p which was a resolution jump of 3x. Playback of HD home videos on an Apple TV was a massive difference over DVD at the time. I was doing wedding videography when the first gen Apple TV came out, and I used it to show couples the footage of their video. I’d always encourage them to opt for an HD file on a USB drive in addition to the DVD, because they’d be missing out on the higher quality due to the necessary downscaling to conform to the DVD format. Lots of couples were appreciative that I mastered their videos in 1080p, 720p for future use even if they didn’t have the means to play it back at the time.@@jm036

[@badkarma6789]

Nicely done! It is known that the original Apple TV is pretty much the easily modifiable Apple TV, as you can jailbreak it and heck even run macOS!

[@TheMactrix]

Great job dosdude1 !!! Enjoyed your video. I have one of these laying around ... still works.

[@miguimau]

@Dosdude1 you are a legend, Sir.

[@schnibie1991]

You can use a drop of resin to hold the wires in place next time, so drop of resin. Uv light and sand it down

[@tookitogo]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing: glue the bodge wires down (or at absolute minimum, tape down with Kapton tape).

[@sandeep-pe3jg]

thats insane! that is soo much effort, time, work.

[@aonezzzz]

Amazing it booted 10.5.8 with 256 of RAM… how things have changed.

[@lsdave]

It would be neat if you overlayed your Hot air station temperature and airflow rate when doing these videos.

[@BlitzkriegGT]

i love how good its the result like the macbook air

[@brunodebattista3565]

CPU upgrade next?

[@petr56321313]

Hmm. We typically design match length of the DDR address/control lines to half of millimeter....

[@dosdude1]

Yeah... of course that’s impossible with a bodge wire. But, after further research, I found that the Intel 82945 chipset indeed does NOT support 2Gbit chips at all, so this wouldn’t have worked anyways.

[@petr56321313]

@@dosdude1 Support of memory defined in Intel documentation is not technical fact on many cases, but only marketing limit. For example, i using Gemini lake CPUs with 32GB of ram, defined limit is 8 (intel memory controller and their initialization code simply support it).... Definitely, nice job! Only one note - if you want to determine if some signal is bonded/routed, you can use simple trick - every digital IO have protection diode to gnd an vcc, you can simply measure it by multi meter without desoldering the chip.

[@dosdude1]

@@petr56321313 Yes, but there is still no way to reach that pin if it isn’t fanned out on the board... So desoldering to access the pad itself is still required.

[@petr56321313]

@@dosdude1 Yes, of course. 👍

[@Jamal_Tyrone]

Seems to have a Retro Man Cave crab logo on the chips.

[@IlliterateSage]

Rather than desoldering that tiny little chip, you can just clip a programmer onto it (like a CH341A, but get a *real* clip) and run `flashrom` on it. I've done that many times and reflashed chips without touching a soldering iron.

[@Dariexraptor]

The legend did it again

[@RageTurtle_Rage]

This guy upgraded soldered on ram and can't stop now lol, great mod tho

[@michaelmichalski4588]

Off I recall modern Intel chipsets have parents set during memory initialization that specify the delay of the memory signals that arrive at the memory chips to compensate for the difference in race length. I'm not sure if that only applies to data or if it also applies to address lines. But the time the signal takes to prepare down that white could be an issue. It might be worth calculating it and comparing it to the width of the signals.

[@SudosFTW]

As you're the owner of one of these, is there any way you could figure out a solution to make a no-frills installer to get a modern CLI-only Linux distro installed on these, like Debian? No one has a tool that does specifically this, it's all media center OSes with limitations on what modules are in the kernel by default, and OSMC dropped support for the hardware ages ago. these are still wildly useful as shairport-sync airplay units and the like... so long as you're willing to do some cooling modifications. it's hard to set it up to do these tasks and any sort of other modern program amenities without running into compiler hell with the old 4.x kernels and debian-jessie-era software. 256MB is more than enough to make this happen, and given they have RCA, optical and HDMI audio outputs, they make for a great audio media center and such.

[@TechKingdom35]

It is actually not that hard to boot a Linux on these. You need a bootstick with the apple Tv bootloader and a linux installation on the harddrive or a USB stick. The bootstick boots an old version of Ubuntu and lets you start another linux kernel using kexec

[@benNdaKen]

i think it would support 1Gig however only spread over 2x512 banks but since only 1 bank is exposed it can only take 512

[@Madhawa333]

You are a generation hero 🦸🏼‍♂️ dosdude

[@Goldwelp]

Thanks for the video! Interesting and understandable. Solid video.

[@Sparky400]

I wanted this years ago. I thought 512 might be possible based on my Acer Aspire One. I didn't think 1gb would be possible. Might actually make this usable for stuff. Wonder with 1gb if we could get something later than 10.5 on it. 10.8?

[@Sparky400]

Oooo. I forgot this had dedicated vram. Upgrade that next?

[@alialo2529]

Hope this isn't a stupid question, but what can you even do with a 1st gen Apple TV today?

[@dosdude1]

Not much, this upgrade was just an experiment mostly. Still not really useful for any practical application.

[@rismawanYT]

If only this machine can run custom android tv rom, its gonna have a new life

[@JohnDoe-s4u2g]

Hey! How did you install macOS on Apple TV? is there a guide?

[@osakoedward]

I would have given up by the time I got to the Address 13 problem. Too much work!

[@baconfister]

Everyone else: too much work. Dosdude: I have tne patience of a Buddhist monk. I shall make this work.

[@thesingleindian7368]

I think Apple will reject your warranty request(s) after this.🤣

[@transcendtient]

This is how I upgrade the ram in all my Apple products. Easy peasy.

[@kokodin5895]

stupid question in the early 2000's board manufacturers were able to pull a trick of installing both ddr1 and sdram pc133 on the same bus, mostly via and sis in ecs pentium 3 boards but you could find ocasional pentium 4 board or athlon where you have to phisically move tows of long jumper blocks . for some reason the bus and voltages of the ddr memory could work on pentium 3 board in lowered speed and pentium 4 boards could run either depending on what was detected. what if you go this way , frankenstein an interposer board to install some ddr3 chips of higher capacity? it would be a lot of head scratching but if you localise row and cass lines you could probably even add in more ddr2 chips i know it is not worth doing but i have no idea what an old apple tv would even be usefull nowdays if not upgrading for sport ok after watching the whole video i see tha issue it would be funny to just smack small pcb under the chipset and install ram socket on the side of it :) like people make frankenstein ps3 fat with ps3 slim gpu's does 4gbit ddr2 chips exist because microchip is mentioning them in some intel atom chipset specyfication

[@fane991]

iPhone RAM upgrade next! 😁 jk, great work man!

[@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862]

would there be any possiblity of a cpu upgrade? maybe same cpu/chip but higher ghz versions of it?

[@markm0000]

I don’t see why not. The hard part would be finding a compatible chip.

[@AbdAlgani1999]

i always watch all your videos really nice thank you

[@LoganE01]

Ever thought about doing the ram upgrade, and CPU overclock to the Dreamcast?

[@jmzorko]

Srsly impressive. Working with surface-mounted stuff is quite a bit outside of my experience and seems super difficult.

[@treedeblue]

This guy is the Mac legacy master

[@Angultra]

A true Mac guyver

[@sunsindustries6760]

Yeah is this real? And May I have part list?

[@mrmerhtin3625]

Awesome work

[@florider_hd]

@dosdude1 do you remember when you did the cpu upgrades on the 2009 macbook/mac mini? i wonder if it is possible to replace the nvidia 9400m in those systems with the 512mb graphics chip of the early 2009 macbook pro? im currently restoring an early 2009 macbook and this could be one of the coolest things ever. 8gb ram 3.06ghz processor and 512mb of vram. that would greatly increace its performance if possible

[@Cyber_Horse_Studios87]

Here’s an idea. Find a way to put a Mac Mini into a Apple TV 1 shell. That would be AWSOME. Also wait… this must be the older DDR2 cause later DDR2 machines that use laptop RAM could go up to 4GB. I also know someone found a way to make a 4GB DDR2 laptop grade module.

[@shaocaholica]

Do the component outputs and other video outputs all work under OS X?

[@dosdude1]

I haven't tested them yet, but I believe so from what others have documented.

[@ioannis69k]

Great ! thanks for sharing.

[@jackmacdonald714]

I got a 1st gen apple tv a couple months ago and i was wondering if it was possible to upgrade the ram chips tho there were no guides anywhere at the time. Ty for making a guide on it.

[@ishpreetsingh3104]

Can you please do a video on SMC replacements .

[@bramvandenbroeck5060]

If you put 512mb of ram in a slot of the powermac g3, it only uses 256mb of ram. Maby there is something going on with that ram, while indeed there is 1024mb, it's only "seeing" or using 128mb per module.

[@jeffwalther2023]

MPC106 memory controller used in the Beig3 G3 is limited to 768MB RAM maximum. It's a hardware limitation.

[@TroisDjinn]

1Mhz for every 1MB, I miss those days,

[@luiginetstar]

Good job, 512 is better than 256

[@MK-fg9qe]

5:52 mod/ upgrade job starts.

[@RBMK1500]

dear mr. dude :-) that was really impressive. would you share what hot air station you use and the think is called to pick up the hot chips? i would like to start doing more smd work and i am not sure if i should waste money on a hot air station. i would love to get some suggestions on that. thank you and keep up the great work

[@dinmorsamushimushi]

Is it possible to overclock the m@chine via eprom? Via hex editor, like voltage and stepping

[@Paberu85]

It’s not the impedance but inductance that is the problem. That budge wire is too long.

[@poorlydrawnstickman1660]

Have you ever considered console ram upgrades? I know the original xbox benefits from more ram in various games and scenarios. Upgrading old consoles and comparing performance could make for some cool videos!

[@kaukospots]

Before the original Xbox's generation I think only the N64 had virtual memory, so there's really no way to add/use more when you're working with fixed memory maps. And minus the original Xbox, I don't think consoles came with memory allocators (games usually implemented their own) until the 360/PS3 era, which meant hardcoding the maximum address space.

[@ujicos]

@@kaukospots It is actually possible to double, and use the ram on an XBOX 360, however, it involves the same process as this video with the exception that theres simply 2 unoccupied slots on the board, however you are required to mod the console and install RGLoader to be able to use the added 512mb.

[@ridersdiary1868]

Great work there sir. I have the same 1st gen ATV. The light is flashing but there is no display on Monitor. what is the possible cause of this problem? I already remove all then reconnect still there is no display on monitor.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Interesting find sir. I wonder what it's like to play around with these? Are you finding the experience to be worthwhile for computing?

[@User14881944]

Hello. Can you upgrade 4gb gtx 1650 to 6 gb or 8 gb such as gtx 1660 ? Is it technically possible or not ? Thank you.

[@dragonlord0666]

I have a 3rd gen, I think (small black one) of these do you know if it's possible to get photos off it. I don't have the photos any more only on this device so don't want to destroy them and can NOT just sync it.

[@tomekhornik1831]

can you share a working rom for apple tv with the 512mb spd data applyed? also what chips i can use to do that mod i'm thinking about doing that at home.

[@SteveChisnall]

I wonder whether you can upgrade the GPU's VRAM chips to a higher capacity as well?

[@danielrhodes7594]

On the top side of the board next to the wifi card there is one or more Samsung memory chips. Can they be upgraded as well? Were you able to determine the pin out on the 10/100 ethernet chip to see if it can be upgraded to gigabit ethernet?

[@berkant_k]

Keep up the good work :)

[@destrierofdark_]

to be honest, the a13 issue is probably down to some firmware stuff in my honest opinion. otherwise it'd at least try to do something. maybe it has uart that'll help you figure the problem out? also you might really want a spi flash clamp to not have to desolder and resolder that spi chip every time you flash it.

[@dosdude1]

I found later that it’s simply due to the fact the i945 chipset doesn’t support 2Gbit RAM chips. I do have another idea that should allow me to add 4 more chips, allowing use of 8 1Gbit chips to achieve 1GB.

[@omarkul5320]

I don't understand very much but still very cool!

[@denishodovic3570]

Can I install El capitan or newer or Windows 10 with 64 bit on this macbook with a detour? macbook mb403ll/a

[@Einimas]

was looking for the info ewererywhere and couldn't find it, would the firmware accept if you mess with ram timings?

[@brianmoran8998]

what magnification scope do you use? i've been offered a SZM45T-B1 7x-45x zoom quite cheap.

[@imranmalik1757]

Its RAM can be found in a laptop

[@markdjdeenix6846]

Well done 😊 this is way above my head.I was wondering if you put 2 of the old chips back on ! What would happen? May gain 128 mb on top of 512 mb

[@martinfinne7259]

You would be stuck on the original 256mB as the chips are working in parallel, each taking up a part of the buss width, so the smallest chip determines the usable capacity

[@markdjdeenix6846]

@@martinfinne7259 thanks 🙏 like I said initially it’s above my head ,after watching this several times! The chipset is missing data pathways so apple cut the expansion path But someone will probably prove me wrong 😊

[@danielrhodes7594]

I saw that there is a Geforce Go 7300 with 256mb would that help any of the performance? I know it is about 4x the memory for the GPU? Since it is the same chip, only with more memory, would the ROM have to be modified? Wondering since you wanted to put 4x the memory in for the system. Have you looked into any other memory chips that would have worked better? No need for the wires that had to be added?

[@Teejahvideo]

can you still upgrade to mac os on a unsupported mac

[@Pikmew]

Dude! Im watching this video on the exact same display as yours xD Its a Emachines monitor right?

[@dosdude1]

Yes LOL, I just use it as a testing monitor. Got it from Goodwill for $5 years ago.

[@Pikmew]

For 5 bucks? I got mine for free because my Grandma's Tower Pc literally died. Making the monitor have no use, I have it unplugged right next to me rn xD though I would definitely use it later on.@@dosdude1

[@danielrhodes7594]

Awesome video! Since it can only be upgraded to 512MB, are there 4 bank chips that are double the memory of the original ones that can be used and not have to do all the extra connections that you had to do @ 34:17? Can the 7300 graphics card be upgraded? I have seen that they made a 7400 that is the same size but better so can it be upgraded as well? I also noticed that the Ethernet controller RTL8100C is on 10/100, but they make an identical one that is Gigabit Ethernet, can it be changed out as well?

[@dosdude1]

The issue isn't the bank size (even 1Gbit chips, 4 of which give you 512MB, have 8 internal banks), but the 2Gbit chips require the extra address line in order to achieve enough address space for the larger density. Upgrading an onboard GPU like this is unlikely to work, and if you were to do so, would require extensive ROM modifications. The Ethernet controller MAY be able to be upgraded, but I know Gig E requires extra filtering/inductors. Also have to verify the pinout is the same.

[@jeffwalther2023]

@@dosdude1 I looked into the pinout on the ethernet controller many years ago and they didn't match at all, IIRC. It'd probably be easier to create a custom MIni-PCI card for the one slot in the machine based on an 8169 or some such.

[@cell1540rol]

What hot air station and hot air plate are you using? Great work as always!!

[@dosdude1]

My hot air station is an Aoyue 852A++, and the small preheater is a Madell QK853.

[@Soul94255]

Is it possible to upgrade the CPU as well?

[@hidde1626]

What bodge wires did you use and where did you get it from?

[@SoraSnake]

I saw one of your videos when you solder a CPU socket in a laptop and then install an upgrade CPU to it, and I'm thinking in this idea I'm wandering, if it is possible to put a socket in a PS3 or an Xbox 360, those systems used to have thermal issues and maybe be with a mod like the one that you performed and a custom heat sink they can work properly and avoiding future overheating and the necessity of reballing the CPU over and over until the chips die, it's just an idea And I think that you are the right person to ask, do you think this is possible, and if it is what kind of modding technique need to be performed to make it work I know that it will not look pretty haha (I'm not a native English speaker, i apologize for the lack of right writing)

[@JaredsGarage]

just guy sounds just like Millhouse from The Simpsons.

[@Frostbite..]

So ive been watching you for a while. But i was wondering if you could give me any pointers on replacing a FCBGA cpu. I wanna change out this old celeron 2955u for a i7 5557U. its about 4x better. both use FCBGA1168 but i was wondering mainly where i could get some of the tools you use and the solder balls. Also do i put flux under the cpu when heating up the solder balls?

[@adamfahey5774]

@dosdude1 could you do this to a 2014 Mac mini base model? I have the 4gb model and would love to have more RAM.

[@TheMactrix]

ha ha...Adam, I have one of those too for my Media center Mac on a 55 inch 4K monitor... that would be heaven. Funny thing, I thought I was buying the 8GB version, but the one I hit buy on ...was the 4GB version.... all those years ago, I did a bonehead maneuver.... and am still living with the old soldered in 4 GB of RAM... LOL

[@adamfahey5774]

@@TheMactrix yeah I just use it to watch KZbin on my TV and as a file server because it can't do much. If I had 8 GB ram in could use it for a lot more. Oh well still a good little computer.

[@dosdude1]

@@adamfahey5774 Yes, I have upgraded the 2014 Mac Mini to 16GB of RAM.

[@bakebook]

Awesome video! So interesting when people upgrade the ram on soldered memory.

[@hectormanuel8360]

Running linux is possible?

[@IndellableHatesHandles]

I've heard the Pentium in this referred to as a Pentium 3, unless my mind fails me. Is this also a reasonable assessment?

[@Diesr]

but can it run crysis?