Soldered RAM replacement is a job for pros—or nobody.

I wouldn’t try this at home. Yes, you can desolder the existing chips and solder on higher-capacity ones, but the odds of success are way lower than you’d expect.

The process itself is straightforward in theory: you need a hot air rework station, flux, solder paste, and matching BGA RAM chips from the exact same vendor. You heat the board to remove the old chips, clean the pads, align the new ones, and reflow. Then you reprogram the SPD (serial presence detect) EEPROM to tell the laptop the new capacity.

In practice, you’re fighting thin multi-layer boards, buried vias, and heat that can damage nearby components. One lifted pad or slightly misaligned chip and the board is toast. Even if you get it soldered perfectly, the logic board might reject the new chips if the firmware doesn’t recognize them.

A few shops do this successfully with dedicated jigs and years of experience. For the rest of us, it’s a high-stakes gamble where losing costs you a whole laptop. If you absolutely need more RAM, sell your current machine and buy one with the spec you need. Future You will thank you.