Upgrading a Samsung Q35 laptop to 2.5GB RAM
@ Tony Cheneau | Friday, May 20, 2011 | 2 minutes read | Update at Friday, May 20, 2011

Hi readers,

Since 4 years already, I am the happy owner of a Samsung Q35 laptop. This is a neat laptop. Among its strong points, I can point its weight (~1.5kg I would say) and its excellent compatibility with GNU/Linux (everything works out of the box!). However, there is a huge drawback: the RAM. By default, there is only 512MB installed. Additionally, this memory module is soldered to the motherboard and thus can not be upgraded. Hopefully, Samsung’s engineers were smart enough to design the laptop with a RAM expansion slot. And this is exactly the point I want to get at with today.

It is a totally trivial information, but it sounded more like a really good surprise to me. Indeed, the Samsung Q35 manual states that you cannot add more that 1GB of memory to the system (limiting the global memory to 1.5GB). The good surprise is that this statement is plainly wrong. I bought a Crucial 2GB 256Mx64PC2-5300 memory several weeks ago and I can confirm that the memory module was recognized right away. Meaning that I now have 2.5GB of total memory (and that I can now play quite a bit with the vitalization technologies).

While this information is not new and has been spread among several forum already, I truly hope it will help any Samsung Q35 owner in enjoying his aging hardware a bit more longer.

See you around.

Copyright by Tony Cheneau

Everything about $me

My name is Tony Cheneau and I’m currently a devops (catchy title) at ANSSI.

I was previously occupying a postdoc position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (also known as NIST), in the Advanced Network Technologies Division. This was a really entertaining job where my main research interests are focused on wireless applications over the Smart Grid and defining new security solution for these applications.

If you are interested in my education (or in hiring me), you can check out my very formal (and not so up to date) resume.pdf.

How you can contact me

My previous projects

  • SimpleRPL: an implementation of the Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RFC 6550)
  • NDprotector: an implementation of the Cryptographically Generated Addresses (RFC 3972) and the Secure Neighbor Discovery Protocol (RFC 3971)
  • and more on my GitHub page

Former research interest

During my PhD, I studied several aspects of the Link-Layer security. through the extended use of the Secure Neighbor Discovery protocol (RFC 3971 and RFC 3972).

Other of my previous research interests included MANEMO. MANEMO is the combination of multiple research areas:

  • MANET (Mobile Ad-Hoc Network) specifies how new dynamic routing protocols enable mobile node to route packets over Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks.
  • NEMO (Network Mobility or Network that Moves) defines a protocol similar to Mobile IP where a whole network is moving.
  • AUTOCONF defines an addressing scheme and corresponding solutions to allocate addresses inside a MANET.

Publications

Thesis

  • Tony Cheneau, « Amélioration des adresses CGA et du protocole SEND pour un meilleur support de la mobilité et de nouveaux services de sécurité (Enhancing CGA addresses and the SEND protocol for a better support of mobility application and new security services) », January 2011 manuscript slides

Journals

  • Tony Cheneau, Aymen Boudguiga, Maryline Laurent, « Significantly improved performances of the cryptographically generated addresses thanks to ECC and GPGPU », Computers & Security journal, Elsevier, Volume 29, pages 419-431, June 2010. pdf

Conferences

  • Tony Cheneau, Ranganathan Mudumbai, « Adaptive key management for wireless sensor networks », IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Atlanta, USA, December 2013.
  • Tony Cheneau, Andrei V. Sambra, Maryline Laurent, « A Trustful Authentication and Key Exchange Scheme (TAKES) for Ad Hoc Networks », 5th International Conference on Network and System Security (NSS), Milan, Italy, September 2011. pdf
  • Tony Cheneau, Maryline Laurent, « Using SEND Signature Algorithm Agility and Multiple-Key CGA to Secure Proxy Neighbor Discovery and Anycast Addressing », 6th Conference on Network Architectures and Information Systems Security, La Rochelle, France, May 2011. pdf slides
  • Tony Cheneau, Maryline Laurent, « Étude des solutions de proxy Neighbor Discovery sécurisées et proposition basée sur la Signature Agility » (a study of secure proxy Neighbor Discovery solutions and proposition of a Signature Algorithm Agility based solution) , 5ème Conférence sur la Sécurité des Architectures Réseaux et des Systèmes d’Information, Menton , France, May 2010. pdf slides
  • Tony Cheneau, Aymen Boudguiga, Maryline Laurent-Maknavicius, « Amélioration des performances des adresses CGA et du protocole SEND: étude comparée de RSA et d’ECC/ECDSA » (Improving the CGA and SEND protocol performances: a comparative study of RSA and ECC/ECDSA), 4ème Conférence sur la Sécurité des Architectures Réseaux et des Systèmes d’Information, Luchon, France, (best student paper award), pages 139-156, in proceedings (SAR-SSI 2009) (ISBN: 978-2-7483-4833-0), June 2009. pdf proceedings slides
  • Tony Cheneau, Jean-Michel Combes, Une attaque par rejeu sur le protocole SEND » (A replay attack on the SEND protocol), 3ème Conférence sur la Sécurité des Architectures Réseaux et des Systèmes d’Information, Loctudy, France, pages 289-300, in proceedings (SAR-SSI 2008) (ISBN: 978-2-7483-3289-2), October 2008. pdf proceedings slides

Research Report

  • Aymen Boudguiga, Tony Cheneau, Maryline Laurent-Maknavicius, « Usage and Performance of Cryptographically Generated Addresses » TELECOM and Management SudParis, 08-014 LOR, 2008. zip

Internet Drafts

Back in time, I made some propositions inside the CGA and SEND maIntenance working (CSI) group:

  • draft-cheneau-csi-send-sig-agility-02 proposes a Signature Agility Solution to the SEND protocol (RFC3971). link
  • draft-cheneau-csi-ecc-sig-agility-02 on the previous draft and proposes to use Elliptic Curve Cryptography in CGA (RFC 3972) and SEND (RFC 3971). link

Teachings

During my PhD, I happened to give some lecture:

  • Data network (ingénieurs 1ère année)
  • Virtual Private Network (Master 2 CCN, Master spécialisé SSR et ingénieurs 3ème année)

Education

  • 2007-2011: PhD held at the Institut Télécom SudParis under the direction of Maryline Laurent. This PhD was funded by a grant of the ANR for the MobiSEND project.
  • 2007: Master 2 SSI (sécurité des systèmes informatiques), University of Paris XII, obtained with mention bien
  • 2006: Master 1 d’informatique (STIC - F3I), University of Poitiers, obtained with mention bien
  • 2005: Licence 3 d’informatique (TIS - parcours des réseaux), University of Poitiers, obtained with mention bien
  • 2004: DEUG MIAS (mathématiques et informatique en application en science), University of Poitiers
  • 2002: Baccalauréat S Sciences de l’Ingénieur, lycée E. Branly de Châtellerault (Poitiers academy), obtained with mention assez bien