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ccomleyFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Installing RAM upgrade for Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V2010

Cursed, manufacturers!

The laptop is fine and it was veyr easy to find out what type of SODIM it needs to upgrade it from the moronically low 256Mb standard. Unlike older laptops Iv'e had, it can upgrade a lot too - not just to "double" as I've had in the past.

BUT

You can't get the sodding thing open. The little hatch on the bottom that I initially presumed hid the ram doesn't open in any obvious manner, and when I resort to the humble operation of reading the manual... it says "you can't do this, a trained expert must do it".

Yeah, so instead of £35 for a SODIM, it's £35 for a SODIM, £25 carriage to send it to them, and £100 an hour for them to open it up and fit it, and, I bet, they won't fit the SODIM I already sourced. Sod that.

Anyone know how to do it? Lots of screws but I don't want to undo any thaht will subsequently prove tricky to re-fasten for any reason.
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CHurst5841

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CHurst5841

untake = undertake

Sorry for typos!
I did find this information on Fujitsu's uk site for your laptop:

"DDR SDRAM (333 MHz) can be fitted in 2 slots
    * 1 x Memory Slot Free.
    * Max 2GB.... (2 x 1024MB Modules, when released)
      256 MB DDR SDRAM PC 333 S26391-F2594-L100
      512 MB DDR SDRAM PC 333 S26391-F2594-L200
    * ( the Dimms are under a heatsink plate under the keyboard.
      This is not a recognised Customer upgrade procedure
      machine should be upgraded by qualified Technician)"

It sounds like they've make this as inconvenient as upgrading Sony VAIO laptops over here in the US.   I had to do a hard drive replacement on an older (1998 vintage) VAIO laptop, which involved the careful removal of over 30 screws, carefully removing a bracket, disconnecting the hard drive from a delicate ribbon cable and from its mounting bracket, replacing the hard drive, then reversing the procedure to complete the process.  The laptop worked fine after that (especially moving from a 6GB to a 20GB drive) but it was NOT an easy thing to do.   However, I would venture that if you have a sufficient working area and are careful about noting the location of the screws as you removing them that you should be able to do this yourself.  

If your Amilo is anything like the VAIO or other insanely designed laptops I've worked on, the first objective is going to be either a1) removing at least part of the outer case, following the precautions on p.8 of the Easy Guide Manual to prevent ESD,or a2 / b) removing the keyboard - this may be possible without removing the outer case, or not; c) remove the heatsink plate, d) install the RAM, then reversing the procedure to reassemble.

As we don't have the Amilo line in the US (to the best of my knowledge, we only have the Lifebooks) I can't be more specific than that, but I think that should be a good general guide to what's needed, subject to what you actually have to unscrew to get to the keyboard and heatsink plate.
well, I wish I had since CHurst5841's link before I wrote all that out - I missed that link on the site.
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Outstanding coz I looked on the site and failed to find that - I wasn't looking too hard coz I'd alreadyt found the manaul page sayign Don't Do This, I wasn't expecting to find it.

And having found it, what a well made document it is - pictures when you need them - the pictures of the screws side by side is a good move too!

Thanks for trying davidis99! I heae you about Vaios - my last machine was a vaio sub-notebook, actually getting into that was similar but a little easier, as the keyboard was screwed in from the bottom, no prizing out pastic clips and stuff...

I was a member here when it started tears ago and have rejoined as my work has changed.
First question, brilliant answer!  first years sub paid with change.