9. Starting with the rear right edge, slide your card or (gently) the flat-blade screwdriver into the casing between the lower black section and the upper blue or white plastic. Slowly move the tool forward and, as you do, you'll hear the case's clips pop open.
Do the two sides first and then the front, which is a little trickier to do - so take your time. Again, the credit card is the best choice of tool here, as it'll minimise scratching.
10. Lift off the lid to reveal the AA1's motherboard, wireless card and, to the right, daughterboard.
11. Remove the marked screws. The one on the right holds the wireless card in place - once free, the card will spring up and you can slide it out of its slot and move it to the rear of the case.
Take care with the screw on the left. It's in tight, and we nearly stripped the head getting it out. If you don't have a screwdriver that fits the screw's head, don't proceed until you have one that does.
12. Lift the tape holding this cable down - the wires connect the AA1's speakers to the motherboard - and gently pull out the connector. Use the nails on your two index fingers to pull the connector forward and out. Don't just pull the wires.
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 :-)
