Adding RAM to the Nexus One without soldering

posted May 5th 2010 9:00am by
filed under: android hacks, cellphones hacks

Want 21 megabytes more ram in your Nexus One? [Coolbho3000] worked out a way to tweak the kernel and remap memory usage to free up some resources. That means this comes as a custom kernel image requiring no hardware alteration. Try it out and share your experiences in the comments. But if you don’t need more ram you can just upgrade to the most recent kernel.

[Thanks Juan]



19 Responses to Adding RAM to the Nexus One without soldering

  • Little_Neo says:
    May 5, 2010 at 9:47 am

    I really need to get a Nexus One now.

    Reply Report comment
  • fartface says:
    May 5, 2010 at 10:18 am

    glad I dont have to do these hacks for my iPhone…

    Jailbreak it and I’m free-er than all the android people.

    Reply Report comment
  • Vonskippy says:
    May 5, 2010 at 10:40 am

    You mean I could get a WHOLE 21M more? Wow, that is spiffy.

    Reply Report comment
  • underminded000 says:
    May 5, 2010 at 10:45 am

    Are you free to use flash on your iphone?

    Reply Report comment
  • bobbarker says:
    May 5, 2010 at 11:24 am

    If you had the N900 you’d have had more ram to begin with…

    Reply Report comment
  • Buzz says:
    May 5, 2010 at 11:35 am

    Seems like this is taking memory that has been reserved for DSP use. If that is the case, it’s great if you don’t use any hardware acceleration. But not worth it if you do.

    Reply Report comment
  • mowcius says:
    May 5, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    “glad I dont have to do these hacks for my iPhone…

    Jailbreak it and I’m free-er than all the android people.”

    Umm, can’t apple remotely de-activate any apple iphone/ipod touch/ipad?
    Hmm, don’t think anyone can do that to nexus one’s or nokia phones or any other phones that I know of.

    How free are you then?

    Not that I don’t like apple but I just thought i’d make that comment

    Reply Report comment
  • Hugo says:
    May 5, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    It’s worth noting that for those of us still running a stock kernel on Nexus One, it’s possible to unlock about 200 MB more in total.

    Reply Report comment
  • MS3FGX says:
    May 5, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    “glad I dont have to do these hacks for my iPhone…

    Jailbreak it and I’m free-er than all the android people.”

    Stealth troll.

    Reply Report comment
  • coolbho3000 says:
    May 5, 2010 at 4:15 pm

    fartface, I’m about to submit this patch to the Android Open Source Project. If Google’s engineers accept it, it will eventually be pushed to all Nexus Ones.

    Can you do that with your iPhone?

    Reply Report comment
  • coolbho3000 says:
    May 5, 2010 at 4:33 pm

    Buzz: This tweak simply moves things around (camera and GPU were moved to an unused area), and expands the first memory bank beyond what it was before (the Incredible source showed that this could be done). It does not remove any memory from the DSP.

    Reply Report comment
  • jproach says:
    May 5, 2010 at 10:28 pm

    “If Google’s engineers accept it, it will eventually be pushed to all Nexus Ones.”

    Awesome.
    Ignore fartface he is a lowly troll.

    Reply Report comment
  • icey says:
    May 6, 2010 at 1:11 am

    Thought it was allready implemented in cyanogenMod kernel 2.6.33.2?

    Reply Report comment
  • Maave says:
    May 6, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Some people don’t think that 21mb isn’t much RAM, but these are tiny devices running small apps. 21mb is like a gold mine.

    Reply Report comment
  • dan says:
    May 6, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    “Umm, can’t apple remotely de-activate any apple iphone/ipod touch/ipad?
    Hmm, don’t think anyone can do that to nexus one’s or nokia phones or any other phones that I know of.”

    Actually, every single phone in the world can be remotely de-activated. Try calling your provider to report yours missing.

    Reply Report comment
  • Cantanko says:
    May 7, 2010 at 4:32 am

    “Actually, every single phone in the world can be remotely de-activated. Try calling your provider to report yours missing.”

    That just bars the phone from the network (IMEI block) – everything other than the cellular radio still works. Apple can brick the whole phone.

    Reply Report comment
  • infogulch says:
    May 10, 2010 at 11:26 am

    I’m glad I don’t have to do anything at all to my nexus one to get double the ram that your iphone has.

    Each little increase is nice tho.

    Reply Report comment
  • TheParadox says:
    May 28, 2010 at 6:40 pm

    Ever heard of iDroid? Yeah thats right Android on the iPhone. I am a developer in this project. We are working hard to get it all ported. Were almost done we just need to get some sort of Power Management Unit implemented so the battery doesn’t die within 3hours. I have the baseband/wifi/multitouch everthing works. So Android Fanboys can STFU did I mention we dualboot Android and iPhone?
    Dualboot Proof http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5657/previewwj.jpg and heres the link to the wiki http://www.idroidproject.org/wiki/Main_Page

    Reply Report comment
  • Coward says:
    June 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    @TheParadox

    So you mention Android fanboys…

    But are you not putting Android onto an iPhone?

    You should be telling Apple fanboys to stfu because you are taking all of Apple’s programming hard work and raining on their parade.

    Anyone who puts on Android on an iPhone is just rooting for Android.

    Reply Report comment

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