Raspberry Pi RAM Restrictions No Big Deal, Frankly

Raspberry Pi Foundation quietly pushed a bootloader change (between the 2024-09-10 and 2024-09-23 EEPROM releases) that checks RAM size on Pi 4, Pi 5, and Compute Modules, blocking boards from booting with upgraded RAM chips that don't match their original spec. The change stemmed from resellers on Aliexpress/Amazon buying cheap low-RAM Compute Modules, illicitly upgrading them with harvested or unknown-origin RAM, and reselling them at a markup without disclosure—buyers only discovered the tampering when boards auto-updated firmware and refused to boot. The restriction is easily bypassed by downgrading the bootloader to the last known-good 2024-09-10 release via rpiboot and the mask ROM over USB, since patching the signed bootloader itself isn't possible. The author argues this is consistent with Raspberry Pi's long history of limiting low-level hackability (signed bootloaders, closed GPU/wireless firmware, locked JTAG, unpublished schematics, cryptographic camera EEPROMs) and that the change mainly protects unsuspecting buyers from shady resellers rather than harming genuine hobbyists.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/09/22/raspberry-pi-ram-restrictions-no-big-deal-frankly. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.