June 6, 2009
Performing Computorial Modifications
So all of my parts and shit came in.
It was time to upgrade my Eee PC.
First things first, I had to flash the BIOS in order to recognize the new parts. I had ordered a new USB thumbdrive, so I went to format it as FAT, which it required in order to find the new ROM for the BIOS… but I couldn’t format it FAT. It was 8 Gigs and thus too big.
I raged for a bit. The walkthroughs I had read had told me to use a stick at least a gig big! But dammit, this was frustrating. The ROM was less than a megabyte. I decided to fuck it, and formatted my old 256 meg stick, and tried flashing it with that. That worked. Score.
So I unscrewed the little hatch on the bottom of the lappy. Inside was the SSD and the RAM. It was a little cramped, with barely enough opening to see them both completely, but eh, I could handle it. I pried the clips on the RAM apart to pop it out. It caught and pinched my fingers. Then I slid the 2 gig stick on in there and clicked it in place.
I turned the thing on. Blank screen! I turned it on again. Blank screen! Lovely.
Oh, wait, I’m stupid, the RAM didn’t click in the right way.
Fixed that, and it booted, and recognized the RAM. Score.
I then started to unscrew the two screws holding in the SSD. I tried and tried, but my screwdriver couldn’t get ahold of the tiny screws. I searched the house for more screwdrivers, trying them. Nothing could find purchase. Once again, in a bit of a rage, I decided to go buy a set of tiny screwdrivers. I did, and came back. Having the right tool for the job made it work easily. I slide the new 16 gig SSD into the slot and screwed it back in. It’s recognized in the BIOS. Victory.
Of course, then I had to get an operating system on there. I had gotten it into my head to install Windows 7 RC1 on there, but try as I might, I couldn’t get the installer to boot from a thumb drive. So I said fuck it, and went with my original plan, and installed Easy Peasy. The little program got it on the thumb drive easily, and it installed. Score! Then it updated! Score! And then I was almost late for work.
So, uh, I got all the work done… but I haven’t even gotten to try it yet.
Go… me…?
I’ll tell you how I like Easy Peasy’s modification of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface, and if the upgrades helped the computer, soon.