[BPI-R4] Successfully upgraded 8GB RAM on BPI-R4

Tombpi · October 5, 2024, 4:50pm

I have completed all step, but my R4 still detect as 4GB. Do I miss something?

First, replace two H5ANBG6NAM. Second, remove RDA and replace RDB/RDC with 240R. Third, use BPI-R4-bsp-6.1 to mod BL2; compile ATF and write to emmc.

When I completed all step, the TTL output shows that my R4 still detect as 4GB.

lu_zero · October 8, 2024, 6:21am

Now that OpenWRT mainline support is almost sorted hopefully they would have time to consider it.

liu_jie · October 12, 2024, 4:14am

需要修改atf 编译bl2.img 刷一下bl2

wwwing · October 12, 2024, 7:28am

shared by liujie: bl2 8g.rar (582.4 KB)

Need to modify atf compile bl2.img and flash bl2

Lorem_amicus · October 12, 2024, 11:31am

English: Need to modify atf compile bl2.img flash bl2

Tombpi · October 13, 2024, 7:14am

With wwwing’s bl2 files, my R4 finally detect all 8GB Ram.

Thanks for liu_jie’s tutorial and wwwing’s bl2 img.

frank-w · October 13, 2024, 7:36am

@wwwing have you done same change like above (add 4096 to AVAIL_DRAM_SIZE) or anything else?

Does the change have any impact on non 8g boards? If not (as i expect) it could be added to official mtk atf,my version and openwrt.

Tombpi · October 13, 2024, 2:40pm

After comparing the two TTL outputs, I found the possible reason why the bl2 I compiled did not detect as 8GB.

There is an obvious difference between the two TTL output: DDR4 4BG Mode; after checking some atf compile instructions, I found that if you want to enable the DDR4 4BG MODE, you need to add DDR4_4BG_MODE=1 option to the compile command.

I use default build.sh to compile atf and the command in Makefile is:

$(Q)$(MAKE) --jobserver-fds=3,4 -j -C atf-mt BUILD_BASE=./build_emmc CROSS_COMPILE=$(U_CROSS_COMPILE) PLAT=mt7988 BUILD_STRING="BPI-R4 v2023-10-13-0ea67d76-1 (mt7988-emmc-ddr4)" MKIMAGE=${PWD}/atf-mt/tools/mkimage BOOT_DEVICE=emmc USE_MKIMAGE=1 BOARD_BGA=1 HAVE_DRAM_OBJ_FILE=yes DRAM_USE_COMB=1 all

The command does not include the DDR4_4BG_MODE=1 option.

I think that’s why it has no effect even though I’ve modified dram-configs.mk and recompiled.

wwwing · October 14, 2024, 1:10am

Sorry，Frank，I didn’t tried it before. The image was provided by liujie, I just help to update here

Tombpi · October 14, 2024, 2:39am

I have tested the bl2 img which recompile with modified Makefile and comfirm that add DDR4_4BG_MODE=1 option to Makefile works.

My R4 still detect as 8GB with recompiled bl2 img.

So, only two changes to bl2 is:

1.add 4096 to AVAIL_DRAM_SIZE in dram_configs.mk

2.add DDR4_4BG_MODE=1 option to compile script and recompile.

liu_jie · October 14, 2024, 3:14am

Have you test in 4G RAM board？can it work ok?

Tombpi · October 14, 2024, 3:59am

I only have one R4 and I completed hardware mod before recompile bl2 & test.

I don’t have another 4GB R4 to test moded bl2, sorry.

Maybe other users can help us test moded bl2?

Here is my moded bl2 which mod from BPI-R4-bsp-6.1:

bl2_bsp.img (240.3 KB)

Bl2 img can flash under ssh using following commands(bl2 img msut upload to /tmp first):

echo 0 > /sys/block/mmcblk0boot0/force_ro

dd if=/tmp/bl2.img of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0

If R4 can’t boot after reboot, switch to nand boot and use the same method to flash back original bl2.

drozdi70 · November 23, 2024, 10:54am

How to simple write bl2 for SD card or NAND?

frank-w · November 23, 2024, 12:12pm

Nand is here

https://wiki.fw-web.de/doku.php?id=en:bpi-r4:uboot

And sd for sd you can look into my build.sh install option

github.com

frank-w/u-boot/blob/mtk-atf/build.sh#L79


      
          		SRCFIP=build/${PLAT}/release/fip.bin
          
          		read -e -i "$DEV" -p "Please enter target device: " DEV
          		case $board in
          			"bpi-r64")
          				set -x
          				sudo dd if=${SRCBL2} of=${DEV} bs=512 seek=1024 conv=notrunc,fsync #1> /dev/null 2>&1
          				sudo dd if=${SRCFIP} of=${DEV} bs=512 seek=2048 conv=notrunc,fsync #1> /dev/null 2>&1
          				set +x
          			;;
          			"bpi-r3"|"bpi-r4")
          				set -x
          				sudo dd if=${SRCBL2} of=${DEV}1 conv=notrunc,fsync #1> /dev/null 2>&1
          				sudo dd if=${SRCFIP} of=${DEV}4 conv=notrunc,fsync #1> /dev/null 2>&1
          				set +x
          			;;
          		esac
          		;;
          	"backup")
          		DEV=/dev/sdb
          		read -e -i "$DEV" -p "Please enter target device: " DEV

drozdi70 · November 23, 2024, 2:35pm

Also after eMMC upgrade I have an issue with as below:

MT7988> mmc info mmc_init: -110, time 21045

I used SBINDA4 128G , on file we see SBINDD4 256G but all cards are same iNAND eMMC 5.1 HS400

Is it problem with the card or bad reballancing or the card needs some action?

frank-w · November 23, 2024, 2:42pm

Make sure emmc is available in hardware…as mtk filogic only having 1 mmc controller you cannot boot from sd and access emmc…you have to boot from nand (on r3 the mmc-switch has to be right too)