Saturday, February 7, 2009

Let there be light (and RAM)

Today I did my first mod for my S10 and this must be the simplest. I just added a 2G RAM. My S10 came with 1G RAM which consists of two 512M RAM's, one is soldered in and the other in the RAM slot. To upgrade, I removed the 512M RAM from the slot and replaced it with a 2G RAM. (I used a Kingston 5300 DDR2 667 module). Thus the 512B RAM is left soldered in but the total usable memory is only 2G which is the limit of what the processor can access. Thus 512M of memory is wasted.


To carry out this upgrade, first disconnect the mains and the battery. This is to prevent any stored stray current from damaging the RAM. Next, touch any metal surface to dischage any static current from your body. Remove the two screws at the bottom of the S10 and pull out the cover. You will see the installed RAM or the empty RAM slot on the right, depending on what size of memory came with your unit. On the left is the HDD which you can also easily upgrade if you so wish.



If there is a RAM istalled, spread the securing clips on either side of the RAM and it will pop up at about 45 degrees.





Carefully remove this RAM and inset your new RAM into position, at about 45 degrees slope. Press down the RAM until you hear the click of the securing clips and you are done. If not, spread the clip and repeat the whole process.



When you put back the cover, press down firmly at the threee palces where there are catches. The cover may not be flushed initially but once you tighten the two screws, it should be.


You can check the amount of memory you have by going into the System Properties. To get there, go to the Control panel > Performance & Maintenance > System, or from My Computer > View System Information under System Task. Near the bottom of the System Properties you will see the size of the memory reported.






In fact Lenovo has a series of video if you want to carry out more modification to your S10, though they are meant more for service personnel. Anyway, they can be found here, courtesy of skyhook59 in the Lenovo S10 Forum. With these you can take your S10 apart and (hopefully) put it back together again. But do be mindful that certain modifications may void the warranty of your S10 so check with Lenovo first.



For those less adventurous, here's just a tour of the various indicators available on the S10. There are three LED's at the front. The first is the power indicator which will be blue when the S10 is on either on AC or battery. The second is the battery indicator. It will be orange if the battery is charging and blue if the battery is fully charged. The third is the wireless indicator. It will be blue if WiFi is on, orange if Bluetooth is on and purple (blue + orange = purple) if both are on. These will flicker when there is any wireless activities.


If this is not lit at all, check that the wireless function is switched on by pressing the green wireless button next to the orange One Key Recovery button on the top of the keyboard. Once the wireless is on, you can select either the WiFi or Bluetooth or both to be on by pressing Fn F5 to access the wireless setting window below.


If you are not using any Bluetooth devices, it is best to turn Bluetooth off since it will save you some battery power.

The other three indicators are found next to the power-on switch at the top of the keyboard. They are the CapsLock, NumLock and HDD indicators. Of particular interest is the NumLock. For some strange (and unknown) reasons, the NumLock is enabled when the S10 is first switched on, out of the box. Not sure even if the NumLock light is on or not in this first instance. Because of this, it has caused a lot of frustration to user who had problems connecting to their secured wireless network for the first time. This is because the NumLock is on unknowingly and when one keys in the security or authentication key it will be wrong if the digit 0 (zero) is used as a / (slash) will be entered instead. (The slash is on the zero key - top row of the numbers - and will be entered when pressed if NumLock is on.) Users will not know since all you can see is just ********** as the key. Of course they cannot connect to their wireless network since the security/authentication keys do not match.
So if you have problems connecting to your secured wireless network (or entering other passwords), first cycle through the Fn F7 to make sure that NumLock is not on. After the first switch-on, the Fn F7 will function normally. It will be interesting if users can feedback any other quirks they find on their S10 in the comments.
Ronald Kwok

13 comments:

  1. Question, actually, rather than a comment. Is there anything compelling in the BIOS preventing me from upgrading to XP Pro from Home?

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  2. I don't think there's anything in the BIOS that prevents you from installing XP Pro. I have not done it myself but as long as you have a copy of XP Pro and a USB DVD drive (that's the esasiest way), you should be able to install XP Pro. Do a backup of your system using OKR first, just in case! Unless there are specific features of XP Pro that you want, it may run slower than the XP Home on the S10. Good luck.

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  3. I just ordered the same RAM you mentioned and will install it once it arrives. Is your S10 running a lot faster now? Is it a noticeable improvement?

    Thanks!

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  4. Thanks, Claire, for viewing. It all depends on the activities involved. If you just open one or two windows, it may not be so noticeable but it will be more apparent if you have many windows opened especially if you move up from just 512M. The hard drive will also work less harder and I think this is the best upgrade (most bang for your buck and the easiest to do) for the S10. Cheers and enjoy your S10.

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  5. i just installed the RAM per your instructions and it works great. Thanks so much for the detailed instructions!

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  6. Also, noticing that the fan is much less noisy with the extra RAM. What a nice added bonus!

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  7. Hi Claire, glad to be of assistance. The fan noise is one of the mysteries of the S10 and its greatest complaints by users. Yours went quieter maybe the Hard Drive is less active with the additional RAM. Cheers.

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  8. I installed a 2 gig stick, the bios will only pickup 2gig but windows 7 reports 2.5 gig...

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  9. Both are correct as Windows 7 reports the total amount of RAM physically installed which is 2G plus 512M equals 2.5G while the bios reports 2G which is the total amount of RAM that is usuable by the system because of the limitation of the processor.

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  10. I'm loving this blog Ronald :)
    This post was just what I was looking for. Going to install my RAM today
    Thanks!

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  11. Hi Naskar,
    Thanks for viewing, you'll love the extra RAM. Cheers.

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  12. hi Ronald,is it possible to upgrade the s10 to ddr3 type RAM or PC6400-800 type RAM other than 5300-667 type?

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  13. Hi jeev, sorry I am not too sure about this. Maybe readers who are more technical or who has tried it can share their experience. I believe that the faster RAM will work but only at the lower speed so it is like wasted resources.

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