Laptop Hack

Hacker InsideLate last year I got a new Toshiba Satellite laptop which came with 512MB of RAM on board and for most that’s plenty of memory for everyday tasks.

As many know, I don’t do everyday tasks with my laptop, so I wanted to upgrade my RAM. There was only one available user-accessible memory slot, so I added a 1 gig chip which took me to 1.5 gigs of RAM.

Again, for most, this is a lot of RAM but I read on the detailed product specification sheet that this new laptop of mine could go up to 2 gigs but I couldn’t find any other memory slots. Major bummer I thought, so for many months I was running at 1.5 gigs of RAM.

Fast forward to last night. I got the urge to find a way to expand my memory to 2 gigs. After a lot searching, I found that the only way to do it was with a “in service upgrade”. In service upgrade?!?! That meant I would need to send my machine to a Toshiba support center or something. “No way” I thought, so I did more digging around.

After many hours of searching, I found out how to get into the sweet spot of my laptop and remove the 512MB chip. 10 minutes later I had removed the 512MB chip, added another 1 gig memory module, closed everything back up, said a small prayer, then fired up the machine.

I’m now running at 2 gigs of RAM - and there was much rejoycing… YAY!!!

I plan on posting the exact details of how I did the hack including pictures soon. Yes I took pictures of the process. I’m a geek. Get over it :)

April 11, 2006 · Filed Under Hacking, Projects

Comments

One Response to “Laptop Hack”

  1. ed on October 29th, 2007 4:03 pm

    i would like to know more of this sweet spot and how to get mine to 2 gig

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