1008HA Assassination - not for faint-hearted

RAM Upgrade of 1008HA (added Video clippings too at the bottom)

This small thingie is a toy for sure!! After all the soft surgeries I had it go through, this time it was hardware's turn. Asus have some funny policies about this RAM upgrade. Netbook comes with 1GB RAM which by the way not excellent thing to have though not bad either. When you know that it supports 2GB, there is no reason why one should not do it.

I called the customer care - following is the conversation we had - pretty hilarious one. After all usual rituals of asking contact details we got down to business.

"Mam, I have a eeepc 1008HA and want to upgrade the RAM. What would you recommend?"
"Your netbook supports 2GB RAM. Please look at the specifications of the RAM you already have and get new one with similar specifications."

"Well, I do not know where to look for the specifications. I know it is DDR2. Is there anything else I need to know about?"
She puts me on hold and comes back in a quick while.
"Sir, you should use DDR2 2GB RAM."

"I know that. There are different pins available - 200pin, 240pin etc." By now, I had done some googling on eeepc forum to see what I should be get but just wanted the confirmation.
She puts me on hold and comes back in a while after asking her superior.
"Sir, as I see, you should use DDR2 SO DIMM 2GB RAM."

I skipped the question and went to next one when I saw some discussion on the forum about it.
"Mam, I see that there is something with 667MHz and also 800MHz. What do you recommend?"
"Sir, 667MHz and 800MHz would be slower. You should get a 2GB RAM."
"Naah, please open amazon.com and search for DDR2 RAM. You will see 2GB RAM 667MHz and 2GB RAM 800MHz. Which one should I buy?"
As expected, she put me on hold and came back after asking someone. I was almost sure that I did a mistake by calling support.
"Sir, we recommend 550MHz (I think, she said 550 only) to 667MHz." Now that was some information, I did not know that but anyway this answer id not solve my problem but I preferred to skip this question too.

"Do you have any instructions or video for changing the RAM that I can refer to?" This was my pain point too - no where on web, I could find these. There are a few instructions and pics (links below) but no video. All sounds scary when you read and see.
"Sir, we do not recommend you upgrade the memory!"
"What? I want to upgrade memory, why would I not do that?"
"We do not recommend you do it."
"Oh. Ok. Then you do it. Whom should I contact."
"We do not do it sir. We can provide you with the set of instructions."
"But you do not recommend it?"
"That would void your warranty."
"This is really funny. You guys manufacture a machine with maximum memory capacity of 2GB but ship it with only 1GB. Then you do not recommend user upgrade the memory and you also won't do it! Why did you make the model support 2 GB then? Why didn't you ship it with 2GB otherwise?"
"Sir, we do not do it, but we can provide you with instructions."
"What is the use of instructions if it is going to void the warranty?"

After so much of the discussion, I realized that if you induce some damange during the memory upgrade process, then Asus would void your warranty. For some problem if you send back you netbook and if technician concludes that you induced some damage then Asus won't cover it under warranty. If you do the upgrade successfully the warranty remains intact. There was a catch which I realized after performing the upgrade. You would find a sticker inside the netbook beneath which there is a screw that you have to take off if you want to reach to the motherboard. The sticker says, "Warranty is void if found broken or torn" or something like that. Well, I did the successful upgrade but I had to tear off the sticker, I am not really sure if my warranty is void or still in tact. I guess it's void.

Anyway, I closed the call after requesting her to email me set of instruction that she has. She eventually sent me some generic instructions - unscrew the bottom panel, take off the ram and replace it. Another garbage. These instructions do not work for 1008HA - it doesn't have any bottom panel.

I found following 2 links very useful for the whole process.

http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=233&t=1058030&last=12018025
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=68951

I bought a Crucial 2GB DDR2 SODIMM RAM 800MHz. 800MHz works well even though 667MHz is recommended. RAM is backward compatible.

Here is the video I captured while upgrading the RAM. Pardon for my _not_very_good_ narration and _not_very_good_ video editing. But I hope this clip will help all those who are going to do this scary stuff of upgrading the RAM for 1008HA. Hope many more such videos come up that can help users. Comments, suggestions, queries welcome.

Part 1 - opening the netbook and replacing the RAM



Part 2 - connecting things back


Special thanks to my roomie, Sahil, for patiently shooting this video and also helping out during the process. Honestly, I was sweating almost through out the process.

I tried to use the latex gloves in order to make sure that there is not damage by the static. But I really could not work properly with those gloves on - hence took it off after some time - definitely not recommended!

... and yeah, it is not for faint-hearted.