Can you upgrade those Gateway Astro all-in-one POS'es?

[RambleOn]

My friend who's not really into computers has a Gateway Astro computer bought in Feb 2000, it's a Macintosh style setup, with the monitor and hardware all in one case. I haven't been over his house to look at it, but I was wondering if you can get at the hardware easily, without messing with the monitor interals. It only has a 400mhz Celeron and 64mb RAM (actually 60MB since 4mb is used by the crappy onboard video). I was thinking of popping in a 128mb stick of RAM, to help with the laginess. He doesn't do any gaming at all, just web surfing and school work, that kind of crap, so it's probably not worth ditching the comp, since it still works, it's just lags badly opening web pages even though he's got cable.

 

[yakko]

While I am not sure it is probably more trouble than it is worth.

 

[Pepsi90919]

my mom has the same machine. i tried [somewhat] to get it apart but couldn't figure out how.


upgrading the hard drive is pretty simple, it slides out the back.



try taking out any screws you find and go from there

 

[RambleOn]

The only he's interested about is upping the RAM to at least 128mb, did you notice if the DIMM slots are easily accesible on your mom's computer, Pepsi90919?

thanks for the replies

 

[Ryan]

This could be of some help: http://www.gateway.com/support/product/astro/index.shtml

 

[RambleOn]

Thanks a whole lot rbloedow, this was just what I needed, I should've thought if it myself!

Two upgrade questions here, assuming I can get into the case on this thing, could

Here are some pertinent specs that I found out about his computer:

Intel Celeron ® 400-MHz processor, 66-MHz Front Side Bus, Socket 370

• Intel 810 chipset
  
  082810-DC100 GMCH0 (421 mBGA)
  
  82801AB ICH0 (241 mBGA)
  
  82802AB FWH (32 PLCC)

Memory
One (1) unbuffered 64-megabyte (MB) or one (1) 128-MB SDRAM DIMM
168-pin 4-clock, 3.3V
Non-ECC (64-bit)
100 MHz only

(He's got just the 64mb stick of RAM). Too bad it doesn't say how many DIMM slot's there are. I have two sticks of 256 pc133 SDRAM running my rig. Could I pull one out and loan it to him for a day or two and test it out on his computer just to see if it feels more zippy, or will my pc133 stick not work? It's only running on a 66mhz bus according the specs, and in the memory section as you'd see from my cut and paste up above says 100mhz only. Does that mean it'll only accept a pc133 stick? If not, we can always order a 128mb pc100 stick for an upgrade, that'd probably help with the lagginess in Win98.

Next question, can that 400mhz Celly be upgraded to something a little better, like say a 500 celeron? Probably have to adjust some jumpers I assume, just wondering if that can be done. The video is a lost cause pretty much since it's onboard and 4MB which eats into the system RAM which sucks, but there is no agp slot, and I doubt it's worth getting a slightly better pci video card. He doesn't game at all anyway, so it wouldn't matter to him having a better video card. Who knows if this comp even has any empty PCI slots since everything is onboard, including sound, modem.

 

[Ryan]

PC133 ram will work fine. I don't know about the processor, though

 

[RambleOn]

Here are some pics from the website of his computer just so you guys know what I'm talking about here. This thing is COMPACT!


Rear View

Front View

 

[RambleOn]

I went over today and checked out his computer. The ONLY thing you can do is unscrew 2 screws in the back, and slide out the hard drive. There's no other components that could easily be accessed, including the memory slots. What a POS, I guess you'd have to start undoing screws on the bottom of the unit, then you'd be involved with monitors components which could be dangerous, plus I might not be able to put it back together again. Pepsi90919, do you have any insight on this?

Thanks