5. Turn the AA1 over and open the lid. You need to remove the keyboard next. It's held in place with three spring-loaded clips, marked below. Using the screwdriver, gently press each one in and it'll release the keyboard. You have to push hard, but be careful not to slip and scratch your AA1. You can use the corner of a credit card instead, which should minimise the risk of scratching, but makes it harder to push in the clips.
As each clip gets pushed in, it should raise the keyboard enough to get either the flat-blade screwdriver or card in to hold it open - albeit only a tiny amount.
Once it's free at the back, lift the keyboard gently forward and two side clips will come free allowing you to remove it. Take care not to yank it off - there's a cable underneath you need to remove first.
6. The keyboard cable's attached to the AA1 with a simple clip: just flip up the black clip with your fingernail and you'll be able to slide the keyboard cable out.
7. Remove the marked screws.
8. Below the keyboard connector, you'll see a similar but smaller attachment for the trackpad cable. Again, flip up the black catch to release the cable.
COMMENTS
Can't get the keyboard to pop back in!
I unpopped the keyboard successfully and don't appear to have damaged the springs but I cannot get the keyboard to pop back in now. How do I get the clips to reattached to the top of the keyboard?
Interestring
I think I'll persevere with mine as it is ta! I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 on it at the moment, and after the odd tweak here and there, the machine is perfectly servicable for mine and my girlfriends use.
@ Trolling AC 19th February 2009 18:55 GMT (Can we have a troll icon?)
ODFO.
@Richard Lloyd
Fair and reasonable points, however it's worth remebering that the AAO is/was about a tonne cheaper than most other netbooks.
Asda
Asda do the 160gb HD, 512mb job for 150 squid.
I got one, fitted an extra gb memory and whacked XP/ffdshow on there.
With hyperthreading it plays 720p with only 50% CPU usage. sweet.
This is why I didn't buy an AA1
This 5-page guide (with a link to the video at the end) is one of the two main reasons I haven't bought an Acer Aspire One. Upgrading the RAM on any machine (netbook, notebook or desktop) should *never* be as painful as this! Most machines either have a hatch exposing the RAM or have the DIMM slots easily accessible once you remove (usually only one side of) the case.
The other reason the AA1 isn't worth buying? The pitiful battery life - just about the worst in the entire class of netbooks out there - and the correspondingly expensive replacement battery you have to get to go beyond the 2 hour mark.
A shame really, because with easily upgradeable RAM and a decent battery, the AA1 might have been a contender. Mind you, don't get me started on the AA1's dog slow SSD either :-)
