Question [Asus C201] Upgrading soldered memory slots

[duvh]

Hello everybody,
I have just bought an Asus C201 Chrome OS laptop and I am planning to libreboot it and install arch linux for ARM. I have only managed to find the 2GB RAM version available for sale.

I will definitely experiment with the software. Still having only 2GB of RAM hurts in 2019. I was thinking about dissoldering the 2 smd RAM banks and substitute them with the double capacity versions (you can see those mounted on the 4GB variant here). Do you think there may be any HW incompatibility? I mean, its hard to imagine Asus to have developed 2 different PCBs for a very low-end laptop...I would assume the PCBs to be the same and only the bank capacity to be varying between the two variants.
I am also interested in hearing your opining about doing the same with the flash emmc chip. I've found this list of compatible chips for repairing broken boards and there are 64GB substitutes of the original 16GB chip soldered on brand new C201s. There's also [link removed look like scam]this Pakistani company spamming (maybe just scam?) their upgrade Chromebook storage service on many posts on the internet.

Let's assume no SW limitation holds thanks to fully configurability of all the running SW, do you think there may be HW limitations?

Francesco

 

[TJ Hooker]

How do you intend to desolder/solder the BGA packages? Do you have access to a reflow oven and the skills to use it?

 

[duvh]

How do you intend to desolder/solder the BGA packages? Do you have access to a reflow oven and the skills to use it?

I am not able to do this on my own but have friends who have free access to those instruments and are willing to help me. (university EE dep. labs)