Upgrading my Tiny A440 laptop

Tidus · *17 Jul, 2006 4:52 pm* **RE: Tiny A440**

Hello Erdie!

Sorry about taking long to respond, i've been busy!

First off, i got my A440 off e-Bay, and it constantly had Blue Screens of death. I tried a RAM change, which didn't work. The original processor was a Celeron 1GHz. I changed this to a Pentium III, which has more L2 cache, and has MMX extensions and things.

This miraculously stopped the BSOD's happening! So if your A440 has a Celeron processor, and has constant Blue Screen problems, this may solve it.

Tiny A440 laptops are originally manufactured by FIC (First International Computers), in Hong Kong. The Tiny A series range includes the A320, A340, A360, and others, they are all manufactured by FIC. They are then shipped to other manufacturers, which stick their own badges on them. Advent and Tiny are the ones i have seen using A440's.

As for the RAM, mine was fitted with one stick of 128. The maximum memory the A440 can take is 256MB, according to FIC's datasheets, but they may take more.

I upgraded it with another stick of 128. The original stick was faulty, it had been in since the machine was manufactured 5 years ago! I have 2 sticks of RAM from an Apple iMac, one 128 from an iMac of my wife Kassie's, and a 128MB stick from my friend Greg's old B&W iMac. The spec of the RAM you should order is the following:

SO-DIMM PC-133 144 pins

The original HD was a 10GB, and i have upgraded it to a 20GB Fujitsu without problems, running on the factory flashed BIOS.

The total parts that can be upgraded on these machines are:

1. Hard drive

2. CPU (Either Celeron or Pentium III, from 400MHz to 1GHz)

3. DVD-ROM (If you buy a new drive though, make sure either the fascia from the original drive will fit the new one, or that you can get a suitable fascia) I've bought a CD-RW drive for mine, although i can't get hold of a fascia for it, and the original DVD-ROM one won't fit, so i have to use it without a fascia!

I have the complete set of service manuals for these machines, our corporation was an authorised repairer for Tiny, so if you want one, i'll email it to you free!

Hope this helps you friend!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Tidus,
Thanks for the reply, I was given this for nothing and just wanted to see if I could make it run any better spending a little money on it. I have ordered more ram this morning, do you think that they could take more than 256mb, if I can see some cheap on ebay I may give it a try. I have got a pIII in mine but I think it is a 866 mhz, do you think I would get any benefit by upgrading the chip to a 1ghz or would I hardly notice any improvement. Looking for upgradeable parts for pc's is a nightmare, I thought it was bad enough when I upgraded a couple of desktops in the past but that was a few years ago. I ordered some ram for the tiny last week but it was the wrong type, kingston in their wisdom do a 168 pin and 144 pin ram with almost exactly the same part number the only difference is one digit right in the middle of this long code.
Once again thanks for the reply.
erdie

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Tidus · *18 Jul, 2006 10:02 am*

Hi Erdie,

I think you would get a substantal speed increase if you upgraded your 866 to a 1GHz, these laptops are really good once they're all juiced up (no pun intended!)

I noticed on Crucial's site, their memory checker download is crap, it was out by miles when i ran it on my laptop, it failed to see that there was 2 memory slots, and thought that there was 256MB installed, when at the time i had 128!

Once you get it up and running, if you have any problems, i'm always here! I had a few probs with mine with the Celeron CPU that used to be fitted, i think the microcode was faulty!

They really are great laptops once they're running! Good choice!

The screens are bright, last a while (mine's over 5 years old, and the screen is still perfect with no dead pixels. The cooling system is very efficient too, it keeps the laptop cool, in fact, cooler than many newer Pentium 4 laptops! My wife has a Dell P4 laptop, running at 2.8GHz, and hers gets much hotter!

The sound chips are damn good too, the internal speakers don't do them justice, but hook a good pair of Sony headphones up, or a surround sound speaker set, and the sound is really crisp, and goes loud too!

The only fault i've noticed is the base plastic assembly, on the side where the DVD drive is, and the opening for the floppy, these are weak structural areas, and tend to break under high temperatures, i've replaced the base assembly once, and now this one's starting to go, it's a design fault ;(

If you need any more assistance, i'm here! Do you want a service manual? It will help you upgrade and troubleshoot it. Just don't give it anyone, the general public aren't supposed to have these, only repair shops like ourselves!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Tidus
I was looking at 1ghz pIII to get an idea of the price but yet again they have got so many different variations that the little bit of info that I have got from the fic website is not of much help. Can you let me know the exact specs of what I need for a new chip for this laptop. Sorry to keep asking you these questions but it is a bit of a maze trying to work out what you need.
Thanks
Erdie

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Tidus · *19 Jul, 2006 1:35 pm*

Sorry that my posts are so long, it's just as Senior Executive of a computer repair company, i like to be thorough, and get jobs done, and customers helped first time!

Don't worry about all the questions, it's my job to be helpful, and answer questions. They are often fired at me like a machine gun on steroids! Thanks Antony, this forum is really good, i've made a couple of special friends here, Erdie, and Mikie!

Right Erd, on to your current question. The Pentium III i have put in my A440 was from another A440 i had previously, which had a faulty motherboard. The chip looks and performs exactly like the desktop PIII Socket 370, it actually IS Socket 370.

After running the excellent CPU-Z utility on my A440, it is actually a standard chip. CPU-Z tells you virtually everything about your processor, motherboard, and RAM.

Download it here

friend: then click on the download link on the left hand side. You will find it very useful, not just on your laptop, but any other machines you have, apart from Macs, they don't support those yet.

I hope you find this useful, and i look forward to working with you again, and the service manual is here for you if you ever want it!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Tidus, Thanks for the reply.
I have downloaded a manual from fic and it has got a bit in it about upgrading the cpu. On the instructions it says to slide the keyboard to the right and then tilt it up towards the screen. I have tried this but the keyboard is not moving, do you have any suggestions on how I can get this off or is there another way into the machine to see the processor. I have seen a cheap one on ebay that I am thinking of buying and an internal vd/dvd rewriter.
Thanks
Erdie

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Tidus · *20 Jul, 2006 6:38 pm*

You've actually got confused here erdie! You don't actually move the keyboard yet.

See the panel where the power button is, the intake vent, and the LED's? It also has a NoteBook logo on the right side, it does on mine.

This panel has to come off first. On the left hand side of this panel, there is a raised bit with a tiny hole. Put a bent paperclip into the hole, and push the panel to the right, it may need a bit of force! Once you see it move, and hear a click, and it won't move any more, lift it off. Be careful that you don't damage the clips on this, they're robust, but can't take much battering!

Once the panel is off, lift the keyboard towards you from the top, using a fingernail under the keys. The keyboard isn't held in by any screws Lift it by using the F function keys, like the F7 key, use this one, as it is central.

Then when this lifts up, the keyboard is attached with a ribbon cable to a socket under the metal panel you see, this panel is the heatspreader.

On the socket, there are two notches you need to pull out, DON'T pull the cable straight out, it'll get damaged!

Pull the notches to the right, and they'll click. You can then pull the cable out, it should come out really easy without any force.

Then simply put your keyboard to one side, be gentle, these are fragile!

I'll walk you through getting the CPU out too, it's quite easy.

Remove ALL power, mains, batteries etc. Then, look at the right hand side of the metal plate that the keyboard used to sit on. Right above the upside down "U" where the keyboard cable was, there are 4 spring loaded screws in recessed holes, all in a square layout you'll need to unscrew, you can't miss them. DON'T unscrew the tiny screws, these remove the plate separately, and we don't need to.

They may be a bit tough to get out, that's because they're spring loaded, and are holding the whole heatsink & fan assembly together!

The screws don't come all the way out, they'll click when they spring up, that is all that is needed. Then, put your finger under the upside down U cutout, and lift gently. Lift the left hand side up first, then slide the whole lot out to your left, to get the cooler out of its guides.

Then, unclip the fan wire, and that's all there is to it! Re-assembly is the reverse of what we've just done! If you are in ANY doubt, get back to me, and i'll help!

BIG important note: When you reassemble it, MAKE SURE you put the fan wire back, otherwise the CPU will overheat when you switch it back on!

P.S: Send me the links to the items on eBay, and i'll check that they're right for you, to save you any hassle!

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Tidus · *28 Jul, 2006 7:56 am*

Erdie,

You've not replied since my last post. Is everything OK? I hope i haven't overwhelmed you!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Hi Tidus,
Sorry I have been a bit quiet lately. I got my new ram last week and installed it that is working fine. I got a PIII 1ghz from ebay which was pulled from another laptop, it was only £10, hopefully it will work. When I change the chip do I need to use some thermal paste sure I read it somewhere, thought you mentioned it in one of your post but I cannot see it, if I do need to use it where can I get it from?
I think I will have to buy a hard drive from a proper shop as I am having no luck on ebay I have put in a few offers but I have been outbid a few times. I don't know what size to get though either 40 or 60gb
I want to get a cd/dvd writer but I need one that plays dvd-ram as well, I know that burning dvd make take a long time on this machine but I have just had to get a new dvd recorder which records on ram and I want to be able to edit some of the disc on the laptop. I have seen a couple of panasonic's the dvr-k16 and dvr-k06 which I am interested in, do you know if these will fit?
Look forward to hearing from you.
erdie

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Tidus · *31 Jul, 2006 8:14 am*

It would be best if you put new thermal paste on your new CPU. In fact, you MUST! Also, with a laptop, you should ideally renew the paste every 6 months, when i upgraded my Tiny's CPU, because the paste had never been renewed in 5 years, since it's manufacture, the old thermal paste was literally hard dried on, and would not come off the hatsink. I had to leave the heatsink soaking in water, and scrape it off. I took the fan off first, obviously!

Since i upgraded the CPU, and put Arctic Silver paste on (this is THE BEST thermal paste money can buy) the temperature of the machine has been lower than it ever was, and the cooling fan doesn't kick in as much as it did.

You can get thermal paste from literally any computer shops, just make sure you get Arctic Silver, and not any cheap stuff.

As for buying a hard drive, be careful here, as i haven't upgraded mine past 20GB, that is the maxiumum i know will work with these machines, but i'll ask my colleagues, KJC CEO Rikku knows, i trained her! I have only ever had a 10GB and a 20GB hard drive, but i'll keep you notifed!

If you want to use a DVD writer with your A440, it's easy to find a good internal writer, but not one with a fascia that will fit!
The DVR-K16 will actually physically fit, but again, it's the front fascia that won't! The drives fitted to A440's have a cutout, where the floppy drive is, so you'd have to either remove the fascia, or cut it with a hacksaw, which i don't reccommend, if you ever have to send it back, you won't be able to, and for £40, isn't worth the risk! Then again, the one from the A440's DVD-ROM may fit, i don't know, i've never fitted a DVR K16.

I would reccommend you buy a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, like this one, Link to eBay item.

and buy an external DVD Writer, as these Tiny machines only have USB 1.1 onboard, and only 2 slots, which is wayyy to slow for DVD burning!

An ideal external DVD writer i recommend is one like this: Link to eBay item.

as this one supports DVD-RAM, as you wanted! I know they're expensive, but you'll have a nice bit of kit! And you can also use the writer with any other machine, in your house, or at a friend's house!

I hope i've been useful!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Thanks Tidus
I did a search this morning and saw other people giving arctic silver the thumbs up, trouble is finding it in a high street shop, I know I can get it on the internet but I am itching to try out the chip.
I like the look of that cd/writer link that you sent me. I am assuming that it is powered via the usb, as I have got enough electric cables in the house to I can't think what to say to do but I have got loads and we don't need anymore stuff plugged in. Using external was my original plan but I was thinking more about space and cables. I have been looking at usb 2 pcmcia cards for ages but never get round to ordering one.
If I order the external writer I will let you know, it will save me a lot of work and aggravation.
Thanks
erdie

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Tidus · *31 Jul, 2006 9:39 am*

Unfortunately all external hard drives and optical units have to be plugged in. They need too much power to be powered from the USB bus. USB uses 5v, and an optical drive/hard drive needs 12v, so it isn't possible to power them from the bus!

USB mice and keyboards are bus powered though, and some laptop hard drive caddies are too, although one i have uses 2 USB connectors at any one time, making it 10v. Laptop HD's are only 5v, whereas desktop ones need 12v, due to their more powerful motors and electronics!

As for your house of wires, i know exactly what you mean, having as many machines as we do at home! Unfortunately, wireless perfection is still a while away yet Sad

Good luck old friend, and as always, i'm only a message and a click away!

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erdie · *paul* Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 12

Tidus,
I changed the cpu last night and all is working well, I was suprised how easy it was to get inside the machine. All that remains is to get a new hard drive and cd/dvd writer.
I will let you know how I get on with that.
erdie

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Tidus · *02 Aug, 2006 1:22 pm*

Congratulations Paul!

They always say, "You learn something new every day!" And it is true!

Is your CPU actually running at its proper speed? When i changed mine i had to adjust a small jumper to increase the Front Side Bus (FSB) and the memory clock speed (and i mean SMALL, it was microscopic, and was covered with some tape!)

Thanks for keeping me informed, that way i can help you to the best of my experience!

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