Does anyone have any additional information about the model 320?
Any pictures or other leaked information on it?
Having an extra 512 mb memory chip on it might be important.
One of the reasons a "cruz" cannot be upgraded to a later version of android (it is on android 2.0) is that the newer versions of android wont fit on the "Cruz's" 128 mb ram memory chip.
Will the 1 gig chip on the new G Tablet Model 320 allow it to install the android 2.3 OS and maybe the new Honeycomb version due out next year?
Any word if it will take the place of the Model 300? Is it being held up from distribution to allow time for the older model 300 stock to be sold out?
Edit: how much room on the 512 mb chip does the android 2.2 app use? Or another way of asking is: What is the file size of the android 2.2 OS and what is the file size of the android 2.3 OS?
My understanding is that 1gb version would not run most of the software posted here on xda, so it would be pointless.
Tmk, only a small number of 320's made it to the States, and I only know one XDA user who owns one.
It's basically a v2 Malata device, like the v2 zPads. Because of this. support is questionable because all the devs and modders here have 300's. I know from my zPad contact that the v2 zPads have a completely different boot.img and their newer kernels are not compatible with our device, so it's a double-edged sword. We have no idea it they will even show up in th States in the future, let alone replace the GTab we currently own.
So I find it very hard to find raw information. Much less the time to read through all the hardware specs.... so here is what I am looking for, Most of what I read points to Galaxy S4, HTC One, Sony ZD and Nexus 5. But everything I read is so D*** biased.... its hard to get factual advice. I am looking at getting a new phone, the software that comes with it is garbage (will be rooted, and all my own os features installed ie launcher etc etc etc, I can do anything I want to through tasker, etc) i am looking for phone with biggest batter, fastest processor, most ram, largest internal memory and I really hope an sd card slot (one thing I could never get over with nexus devices) now it doesnt have to be one of the above listed models they were just examples...
So guys whats the android with highest hardware capabilities out there? Also kind of want a device like moto-x that has seperate chip for always listening..
dugie33 said:
So I find it very hard to find raw information. Much less the time to read through all the hardware specs.... so here is what I am looking for, Most of what I read points to Galaxy S4, HTC One, Sony ZD and Nexus 5. But everything I read is so D*** biased.... its hard to get factual advice. I am looking at getting a new phone, the software that comes with it is garbage (will be rooted, and all my own os features installed ie launcher etc etc etc, I can do anything I want to through tasker, etc) i am looking for phone with biggest batter, fastest processor, most ram, largest internal memory and I really hope an sd card slot (one thing I could never get over with nexus devices) now it doesnt have to be one of the above listed models they were just examples...
So guys whats the android with highest hardware capabilities out there? Also kind of want a device like moto-x that has seperate chip for always listening..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
There are 3 threads devoted to discussions about devices, please repost your question in one of these three threads: The what should I buy thread or the The Device Suggestion Thread or the The Device Comparison Thread.
Thanks!
Hi, Hello to everybody, i don't know if this is the right place to post, or if i had to introduce myself first in some other area of the forum(sorry for the bad english but im Portuguese), but well...
Last Week i went to spain and bought a new smart phone(my old huawei u8800 was kinda broken xD) so i bought myself a 5'inch(correct for screen size??) IPS+OGS phone, wich looked very fine running android 4.4.2 on it, the thing is i bought with it a modest 16gb micro-sd card so i wont get so early out of space untill i find a better one that suits my tastes, the thing is i cannot move the apps like games tio my external sd becuase the phone has an internal memmory of 8gb(4gb for the system and 4gb for the user) and we all know about the limitation that google has put about the external cards and i need root acess to get the stuff working, thing is this device is kinda unknown and im not seeing it listed here in xda(maybe i did not search well enough) i can't get myself rooted no matter how, tried cynda impactor, tried MTK droid tools, but none of them work, i can't even get a full firmware backup with the mtk droid tools, so i decided to register myself and ask for some help of you guys if you guys can't help well no one can... here are the model and specs of the device:
Model: Primux Zeta 2
CPU: Quad Core MTK6582M 1,3 GHz
Ram: 1GB
External MicroSD up to 32GB
Display: Size 5"
Type IPS/OGS
Resolution: 960x540 qHD
OS: Android 4.4.2 Kitkat
if this post is in the wrong area please somehow move it? im really not used to the forum and don't know the places in the house, i apologize for some mistakes in spelling and anything else, Thanks in Advance.
Photon Q - Upgrade ram to 2GB
I have yesterday upgraded on one xt897 mainboard original Elpida 1GB LPDDR2 to new Samsung 2GB LPDDR2 K3PE0E000A-XGC2.
I have first carefully desoldered old ram from msm8960 SOC, then i make all balls on cpu flat, then cleaning and then soldering new RAM.
Phone boots normally without problem. BUT problem is, that is still visible only 1GB.
I am sure, that MSM8960 can support 2GB RAM (for example Blackberry Q5).
If anyone have idea , how to use full 2GB RAM, then please let me know
...tomorrow i will post some pictures
this would be really great.
maybe its all about the BSP?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_support_package
http://www.ti.com/devnet/docs/catalog/embeddedsoftwarefulldetails.tsp?productId=22800
Wow! I'd buy this if you can get it to work...
Does it need a kernel mod or something?
boofus said:
Wow! I'd buy this if you can get it to work...
Does it need a kernel mod or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you didn't read the entire post (which you also quoted...)
CornholioGSM said:
Phone boots normally without problem. BUT problem is, that is still visible only 1GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
arrrghhh said:
I'm guessing you didn't read the entire post (which you also quoted...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read the whole post.
It might be that a kernel mod or boot option is needed to detect all the RAM. Some old linux systems had to have the kernel re-built for different amounts of RAM. That isn't likely here I'd guess, but it's possible that it is hard coded or need a menuconfig change or a boot option. I don't know anything about the kernel on the photon Q, so thought I'd ask.
CornholioGSM said:
Photon Q - Upgrade ram to 2GB
I have yesterday upgraded on one xt897 mainboard original Elpida 1GB LPDDR2 to new Samsung 2GB LPDDR2 K3PE0E000A-XGC2.
I have first carefully desoldered old ram from msm8960 SOC, then i make all balls on cpu flat, then cleaning and then soldering new RAM.
Phone boots normally without problem. BUT problem is, that is still visible only 1GB.
I am sure, that MSM8960 can support 2GB RAM (for example Blackberry Q5).
If anyone have idea , how to use full 2GB RAM, then please let me know
...tomorrow i will post some pictures
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have any news regarding 2GB mod? Have you tried contacting kabaldan?
---UFO--- said:
Do you have any news regarding 2GB mod? Have you tried contacting kabaldan?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, still waiting for updates
Nadlabak heve one 2gb unit from me
Cornholio, if this works out, you're my hero - again. If I'm ever in CZ again I'll try to find you and buy you a keg. [I'd say a beer, but that doesn't express enough appreciation - even tho the Budweiser there is better than the US "beer" with the same name.] You already figured out the sim slot (and modded a couple phones for me), which allowed me to use PQ when I worked for a company (in US) that gave me free AT&T phone & sim (for which I move the sim to PQ). But, after many years arguing PQ is the best and can do it all, I'm finally getting to the point I was thinking about getting a new phone (moto z with keyboard mod)., not cuz I want a bigger screen or even cuz I want LTE (which I now have with freedompop anyway), but because of the limited memory (and desire to run new apps and switch between them faster). So more TP you to my friend.
Hi all,
If adding RAM is possible, my XT897 could work perfectly. I'm daily using it as the best phone ever for IT supporting with qwerty keyboard.
As someone mentioned above,
(1) In case of Kernel built with 1GB RAM option. It would not easy to get the kernel source to rebulit it.
(2) Boot option problem. In my understanding, linux kernel would auto recognize RAM size at boot. It might not the cause of issue.
(3) My guess some circuit modification is needed. such as address bus for the RAM chip A0...A19 for 1GB RAM and A0....A20 for 2GB RAM. Is there anything like jumper to ensure connecting the new A20 pin correctly?
Sorry for my English and hope this help
Ric
-------------------
Motorola Photon Q XT897 with Sim Mod , LineageOS 14.1
Thank You
i mean , that it is problem inside bootloader - bl is preprogrammed for 1gb ram.
i am able to solder to SOC processor new 2gb ram and it works without problem.
BUT .... visible is only 1GB.
I am only stupid HW technician, but this is "sw" problem and i dont know how to solve this problem
@CornholioGSM
Likely all you need is to pass a simple command to the kernel on the very early boot phase.
Probably something like mem=2G would be enough.
So pretty simple in theory and also pretty simple in linux on a PC (all you have to do is to add that command to grub.cfg assuming you use grub as bootloader).
In android is a bit more complicate because (I guess) you have to unpack and repack the boot.img and possibly the zimage (the kernel) which is inside the boot image.
And that procedure is slightly different across various devices, so experimentation and some work will be needed.
I could look in to that, but obviously a modded logic board in my hands would help a lot the process.
Did you try seeing if the bootloader can see it from fastboot with the "mfastboot getvar all" command?
Follow this guide: http://www.hardreset.info/devices/motorola/motorola-xt897-photon-q-4g-lte/faq/read-info-fastboot/
Also: I don't know about the bootloader in the XT897, but most ARM bootloaders use devicetree to tell the kernel about things like RAM configuration. I suspect that this will take priority over boot parameters, but I don't know for sure. What might be needed is a kernel that forces a specific RAM configuration.
Hi,
Great to see everyone contributing...I will take this opportunity to clear things up and focus on what actually needs to be done to get this working.
1. Those who mentioned getting hold of a BSP and SoC manuals are on the right track, but it is very difficult to get these from Qualcomm. It could only be through some back-channel via a dev at a big company that used the MSM8960. Getting access to this would be *huge*. Alternatively, a knowledgable person who has worked on an MSM8960 or similar Qualcomm SoC design.
2. boofus is correct in that the bootloader ordinarily passes memory map (and other) info to the kernel via devicetree. Either the bootloader needs modifying to pass a new memory map, or this has to be overridden in the platform code in the kernel (not difficult).
3. Changing commandline arges to the kernel is trivial (don't even need to rebuild anything, just extract the boot.img partition, edit and reflash--I have done this many times to tweak kernel args), but saying mem=2GB on the kernel commandline is unlikely to have any effect, because the kernel doesn't have a memory map describing at which physical address additional RAM is present.
4. Moreover, the DDR2 memory controller in the SoC has to be programmed to enable the 2nd chip select for the upper half of RAM. If this is not done, then the RAM is not even in the physical memory map. So any attempt to get this working must start here.
Currently, both nadlabak and I have 2 GB modded boards for testing. I'm stretched for time at the moment to look into this--much as I would *love* to have 2 GB--as someone else noted, 2 GB on the Photon Q would bring it back up to a usable level.
We would be *very* lucky if the Moto-supplied bootloader senses attached memory and configures the DDR2 controller accordingly, and even more lucky if this mapping was added to the device tree. It also has to be taken into account the baseband memory. This will fall somewhere in the physical memory map, and the memory made available to the kernel has to be outside the areas used by the baseband.
IF the xt897 bootloader is highly generic and used on other Moto phones with differing amounts of RAM, it *may* automatically detect and set everything up. If it does we would be *very* lucky. It's easy to see if this is being passed to the kernel via the devicetree, and presumably, in this case, the bootloader would also print the found memory size when booting into one or more of the bootloader stages using the key combos. Once I get my modded board into a phone I can at least check these trivial points. I have a handy comandline tool for probing physical memory, so I can easily get the existing memory map, and from that infer location of added memory. Then it is easy to attempt reading and writing where the extra memory would be if the DDR2 controller were appropriately configured, and see if memory is actually present.
More likely, the bootloader is hard-coded with the 1 GB memory map and programs the DDR2 controller accordingly. If so, to get additional RAM working requires:
1. Reprogram the DDR2 controller to enable 2nd CS. If we had the MSM8960 SoC manual and ability to extract and disassemble the relevant loader and replace it with a modified one, this would be almost trivial. However, I understand there may be encryption or signature verification preventing us from modifying early stage loaders. (This is also a fast way to permanently brick a phone, so we'd have to test changes on throwaway boards first.) If loader is protected, then we'd have to reprogram the controller on-the-fly. This probably can be done, possibly even within the kernel, if we don't have the ability to change the early loader(s), but may be a little complex, since reconfiguring the DDR2 controller may make memory temporarily inaccessible. Hence techniques such as locking the controller re-programming code into cache and waiting for the controller to come up again may be needed. However, this may crash the baseband. If the controller supports reprogramming without interruption, this would make things vastly simpler. All we need is the MSM8960 manual and specifically, the sections describing the memory map and DDR2 controller.
2. Once memory controller is reprogrammed, it's trivial to hack the new memory map into the kernel, whether or not we can change the devicetree passed from the loader.
TL;DR: yes we all want to get 2 GB working; it's almost certainly not trivial; it probably can be done, but likely requires extensive effort and knowledge from someone who has designed a product using the MSM8960, or access to manuals, or extensive reverse-engineering effort.
If anyone would like to step up please say so. I'll work on it myself as I have time and hope nadlabak will too. I personally can't wait to get a working 2 GB xt897.
---------- Post added at 04:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 AM ----------
In sum, if anyone has access to any of the following, *please* let us know:
- MSM8960 SoC manuals;
- Knows someone who has developed MSM8960-based products or otherwise has knowledge of the MSM8960 architecture and especially the memory controller;
- Knows something about the xt897 or typical Moto bootloader structure, whether Moto often shares bootloaders across devices, and most importantly what loader stages there are, and whether each of these is encrypted/signature-verified, precluding making changes, or whether we can change it.
CornholioGSM said:
Photon Q - Upgrade ram to 2GB
I have yesterday upgraded on one xt897 mainboard original Elpida 1GB LPDDR2 to new Samsung 2GB LPDDR2 K3PE0E000A-XGC2.
I have first carefully desoldered old ram from msm8960 SOC, then i make all balls on cpu flat, then cleaning and then soldering new RAM.
Phone boots normally without problem. BUT problem is, that is still visible only 1GB.
I am sure, that MSM8960 can support 2GB RAM (for example Blackberry Q5).
If anyone have idea , how to use full 2GB RAM, then please let me know
...tomorrow i will post some pictures
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will need to make custom software to support this mod. I recently purchased this phone and the amount of hardware mods i has blows me away. I am excited and scared to do all these things, I spent 150$ USD on this sim modded Photon Q to replace my Droid 4 and the idea of losing it all freaks me out BAD.
Back to the software, the problem is that all the device/kernel configurations are built around 1GB ram, so they will only utilize 1GB of the 2GB of ram, assuming the system even detects it at all! Its neat that you have done this, now that you have modded the hardware, its time for you to mod the software
Once again, the main problem is that I need the MSM8960 application processor developer manual. Someone who has worked on this SoC could make the manual available to me (anonymously due to NDA).
I hope someone can help me here!
CornholioGSM said:
Thank You
i mean , that it is problem inside bootloader - bl is preprogrammed for 1gb ram.
i am able to solder to SOC processor new 2gb ram and it works without problem.
BUT .... visible is only 1GB.
I am only stupid HW technician, but this is "sw" problem and i dont know how to solve this problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If we could grab a bootloader file and edit it (probably with hex edit grrr) we might be able to see if it just lists the hardware values, and in that case simply add 1024 to the ram value
Surprised no one has given this a peak. I'll give it a shot if I have any time but if I **** it up someone is getting their phone bricked.
CornholioGSM said:
Photon Q - Upgrade ram to 2GB
I have yesterday upgraded on one xt897 mainboard original Elpida 1GB LPDDR2 to new Samsung 2GB LPDDR2 K3PE0E000A-XGC2.
I have first carefully desoldered old ram from msm8960 SOC, then i make all balls on cpu flat, then cleaning and then soldering new RAM.
Phone boots normally without problem. BUT problem is, that is still visible only 1GB.
I am sure, that MSM8960 can support 2GB RAM (for example Blackberry Q5).
If anyone have idea , how to use full 2GB RAM, then please let me know
...tomorrow i will post some pictures
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you solved this problem? I also encountered the same problem. The 2GB running memory chip I replaced was BA164B1PF. And the eSIM chip was removed, and the mini SIM card slot was installed. In addition, I replaced the CPU at the same time, and now the status code number has become 1.So it is became an engineering machine, and the BootLoader lock is completely invalid.
not solved...and i am now on fxtec phone. I have not changed whole cpu (why) i have changed only ram...whole problem is, that data on one emmc partition are paired with cpu...same problem happens if you change emmc from another mainboard.
CornholioGSM said:
not solved...and i am now on fxtec phone. I have not changed whole cpu (why) i have changed only ram...whole problem is, that data on one emmc partition are paired with cpu...same problem happens if you change emmc from another mainboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very old mobile phones do not have the problem you mentioned. The reason I did this is that my technique is very poor and I cannot repaint the upper layer of the CPU with tin. I am just an DIY amateur. In addition, I tested other mobile phones using the same CPU and found that Motorola not only limits the RAM capacity, but also the speed, which is only about half of normal.
I replaced the emmc chip, and the test proved that 64GB of storage space can be successfully used, and faster, except for games. I have some additional questions that I need your help, and I have already emailed you.