How to Access the AAO RAM Socket

sXericerider said:
ok i think i got it now the cable that was connected from the ssd to the motherboard was a bit loose. after trying to fix it after a while it booted probably every 1 out of 4 times so i knew that it was trying to read it. i opened it up one more time and then unplugged it and plugged it back in. so far so good. just goes to show that when you do the upgrade to always make sure that all the cables and latches are secured. ;) im just happy my AAO is alive and kicking again :mrgreen:
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Yeah, pay extra attention that all the cables are attached properly. The first time I reassembled my AAO I pressed the power button and nothing happened. I nearly crapped myself! Fortunately, after I took it apart again I noticed that one cable was slightly askew. After I seated it properly everything worked fine.
 
Re: keyboard troubles

Jerm78 said:
If you did what I did, you pushed the clips too far in. I had to work at them from the backside with a screwdriver to get them to poke back through the slots. It was a pain but I eventually got them all back through. Good luck!
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I apologize for this question in advance, but you pushed the clips from the backside of what, exactly? I can't see any clips anywhere. Are they supposed to be secured to the backside of the upper blue casing? Or under this somewhere?

Thanks
 
Re: keyboard troubles

everest said:
I apologize for this question in advance, but you pushed the clips from the backside of what, exactly? I can't see any clips anywhere. Are they supposed to be secured to the backside of the upper blue casing? Or under this somewhere?

Thanks
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This is hard to explain but I'll try. You know the plastic piece that that surrounds the keyboard? When you have it detached from your computer you can flip it over and get at the clips from the back side. I used a small screwdriver and just kept poking around until the spring loaded clips finally poked back through the slots. The one closest to the power button is impossible to get at from the back because all the plastic LED tubes are in the way. For that one I actually had to break the thin little bridge of plastic that's at the bottom of the slot to get at the clip. After you get that clip through you can repair the broken plastic with some superglue. It's not really necesarry, though. Once your keyboard's reassembled, everything fits tightly back together, broken slot or not. I hope this helps.
 
Re: keyboard troubles

Jerm78 said:
This is hard to explain but I'll try. You know the plastic piece that that surrounds the keyboard? When you have it detached from your computer you can flip it over and get at the clips from the back side. I used a small screwdriver and just kept poking around until the spring loaded clips finally poked back through the slots. The one closest to the power button is impossible to get at from the back because all the plastic LED tubes are in the way. For that one I actually had to break the thin little bridge of plastic that's at the bottom of the slot to get at the clip. After you get that clip through you can repair the broken plastic with some superglue. It's not really necesarry, though. Once your keyboard's reassembled, everything fits tightly back together, broken slot or not. I hope this helps.
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Wow, thanks. I figured out where you were talking about and I had to do the same - slide a small screwdriver in between the black plastic film and the hard blue plastic piece. I got the two easy ones poked back through, and could not get the clip under the LED lights from the front side, so I cut my losses at one clip. The middle and right clips seem to hold it in place nicely though. No more springy keys.

I appreciate your help. Success feels good.
 
This is hard to explain but I'll try. You know the plastic piece that that surrounds the keyboard? When you have it detached from your computer you can flip it over and get at the clips from the back side. I used a small screwdriver and just kept poking around until the spring loaded clips finally poked back through the slots. The one closest to the power button is impossible to get at from the back because all the plastic LED tubes are in the way. For that one I actually had to break the thin little bridge of plastic that's at the bottom of the slot to get at the clip. After you get that clip through you can repair the broken plastic with some superglue. It's not really necesarry, though. Once your keyboard's reassembled, everything fits tightly back together, broken slot or not. I hope this helps.
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Hi Jerm78,

I had the same problems when doing this mod but I was able to access the keyboard clip nearest the power cable socket (I think that's the one you mean, although you did say power button) from the back with a bit of fiddling. The clip there lines up between two of the LED tubes (the battery and hard drive leds). Between them there is a little bit of foam, which I gently prized back. Then I got a really small flat-head screwdriver and pushed it up under the shiny black stuff that was exposed. With some mucking around, the occasional swear word and a bit of luck I eventually got the clip back into place. Replaced the foam and hopefully you wouldn't know I'd been in there :P

Cheers,
Ben.
 
Thanks for a very good guide. I used a credit card to push in the keyboard tabs as I didn't want to risk scratches. I found I didn't actually have to remove the entire system board on my A150; instead, I managed to lift up the front left enough to be able to remove the 512MB RAM underneath it and replace it with a 1GB one. You need a set of (preferably plastic) tweezers to hold and insert the RAM and make sure you don't twist the board too much, but it worked just fine.
 
bsv said:
Hi Jerm78,

I had the same problems when doing this mod but I was able to access the keyboard clip nearest the power cable socket (I think that's the one you mean, although you did say power button) from the back with a bit of fiddling. The clip there lines up between two of the LED tubes (the battery and hard drive leds). Between them there is a little bit of foam, which I gently prized back. Then I got a really small flat-head screwdriver and pushed it up under the shiny black stuff that was exposed. With some mucking around, the occasional swear word and a bit of luck I eventually got the clip back into place. Replaced the foam and hopefully you wouldn't know I'd been in there :P

Cheers,
Ben.
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Oops, yeah, I meant to say power jack, not button. :oops:
 
Excellent guide to open and upgrade memory. Thank you guys!!! I love my Acer One and this web site.
 
Thank you for writing such a simple and concise guide as to how to dismantle the aao. The pictures were very handy. I did all the standard upgrades in one time. I am typing on an aao that has a 320 gb hd, 1.5 gb ram and a dell 1390 wifi card. Everything works. The hardest part of the upgrade was unscrewing the screws. Its like they had bender from futurama screwing those guys in. I nearly stripped a couple just getting the screws undone. Anyway, thanks to the op.
 
greetings all! could i please have a little more info on unclipping the keyboard? i watched this vid:
and it just seems to pop out, yet mine never does. what kinda action do i need to use? which way am i meant to be pushing? any help appreciated!

edit- nevermind, finally got it (at the expense of the top right clip, which had been destroyed :roll:)
 
Hi, great guide!! i tried copying pasting it on a word document but the images wouldnt go along with it :/

do you have a .doc document or a .pdf version?
 
I had some problems with Kingstone 667 1Gb. Briefly, my computer got really slow! So I replaced it with a Kingstone 533 1Gb (I read somewhere that AAO supports up to 533), and now it works fine.

Does anyone had the same problem?
 
caho said:
Hi
After trying this HowTo (thanks btw) I ended up with a black screen and absolutely nothing happening.
This BIOS Recovery helped med: http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/08/acer ... overy.html
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Mine started off like that too afterwards, and after shutting down and restarting it, I got a screen about discarding the stored memory or trying again. So it sounded like the extra ram confused the hibernated computer. Just discard it and reboot, and all should be well.
 
I have upgraded a couple of machines now and I think the easiest method to remove the awkward screw to the left of the wireless card is to hold a small #0 precision screwdriver perfectly upright with your forefinger on the top of the screwdriver keeping it in position and pressed firmly into the screw head and then using a small pair of pliers, grip the handle of the screwdriver lower down and turn the screw one quarter turn anti-clockwise.

The increased torque seems to break the grip and it can then be unscrewed as normal.

acer-screw.jpg


Thanks

Gavin
 
My keyboard was glued to whatever it is that is under somewhere around the F9 key. The metal layer on the under side was slightly damaged when I removed the keyboard from the glue. However it doesn't show when the netbook is assembled and every key works as good as before so no harm done. Though I didn't read about any glue when removing the keyboard.

Apart from that no problem. Great guide!
 
I had problems with my screw near the wireless card it was in so damn tight the i used a pair of pliers to turn the driver but that just completely stripped the screw! So I placed a wide thin flat head between the case and the board near the screw (wrapped in tape) and made a back and forth levering motion after about 6 goes the screw thread adhesive gave nice and neatly. Just a suggestion for anyone who has the same problem. Once the upgrade was complete i put a bit of glue in the hole where the thread came from and it went back in nicely. There is no damage except that of the rounded screw head.
 
Fantastic post, completed the upgrade this morning, took me about an hour
Thanks a lot for your help i would have been in trouble without it
 
Well it would appear that the AAO is a true marvel of engineering packaging, and mods such as you've described are not for the faint of heart. There is a definite sacrifice in mod-ability and upgrading when shrinking a package such as this to the ultimate limit. I cannot image the form factor for netbooks getting any smaller than what we have here. The only way to do that is lose the keyboard via a touch screen tablet, but that has its drawbacks as well. I admire your confidence in achieving this project, and your efforts in documenting your work is such an excellent manner!
 
Despite being able to build desktop machines in my sleep (and regularly prove that when I'm awake :p) and having read the guide through multiple times, I was a little bit worried I'd never see my AAO boot again. But the guide was excellent and my trepidation wasn't warranted; had a 1GB module from Play.com installed in my A150 in under 20 minutes start to finish. Thanks for the guide, I'm a very happy AAO with 1.5GB Ram owner now!
 
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