In a recent video [Jeff Geerling] addresses an issue discovered with the Raspberry Pi firmware, specifically how since around 2024 the firmware locks down what RAM size and even module is supported. This isn’t an issue that is widely known, probably because most people just use the board as-is, but it can be an unpleasant surprise for those looking to upgrade or repair their Pi.

Naturally there is a valid reason for wanting to prevent unscrupulous RAM module changes, with a [Geekworm] blog post from earlier this year detailing this exact issue and how each board is marked with a specific code that identifies the model, RAM size, RAM manufacturer and such. Based on the earlier linked forum post and also a 2025-era GitHub ticket on the rpi-eeprom project, the resulting symptoms seem to vary from not seeing the additional RAM to the board not booting at all.

Although you can go back to an older EEPROM firmware image to work around this, it’s still very annoying that this is even a thing. As also noted by [Jeff], the primary frustration here is probably one of ownership. When you can upgrade the RAM on just about any device you can buy, including a modern GPU and even Apple computer, but not on a Raspberry Pi board that loves to flaunt its open source/hardware credentials, then something is very much off.

In the end it’s highly unfortunate that Raspberry Pi has chosen this path that feels a bit too much like the hardware pairing that companies like Apple got rightfully called out on.