# Acer Aspire 3000, upgrades?



## skidogg73 (Jan 30, 2007)

Ok, guys I need to know what I can do to upgrade my Aspire. I would like a faster CPU, video card, and more RAM. First can I even upgrade my Sempron 2800+, can I upgrade my 64 video card, how much more RAM can I add to make a difference in gaming?

Thanks guys, any help would be great,
Rob


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## Joefireline (Apr 2, 2006)

Hello and welcome to TSF!
The CPU would be very hard to upgrade, it probably wouldn't be possible to upgrade. This is due to a laptop being designed to be small, and compact.
The video card is definatly not upgradable, as it is built into the mainboard, and runs off the RAM.
The RAM, however, will be upgradeable. You can upgrade this laptop to 2GB, with 2X1GB sticks. You will need DDR SDRAM, best at 333 MHz.

Hope this helps.


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## skidogg73 (Jan 30, 2007)

So is it possible to upgrade the mother board to support a faster video card and processor, or is that a waste of time and cash?


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

In an Aspire 3000, there are four things that are worth upgrading. RAM, Hard Disk, CPU, and Wireless. Everything else is too difficult for even a pro and even if you could get a great video card in there.

You can really benefit from 1 GB of RAM for gamming, and 2 GB would be even better. As Joe said, it takes DDR333 PC2700 RAM, with a max of 2 GB (2 x 1 GB).

A 7200 RPM hard disk won't really help with gaming, but it will make Windows a lot faster to boot and programs a lot faster to load. With normal everyday web browsing and office tasks, the 4200 RPM hard disk is your bottleneck and if that is made faster, everything will be faster. It takes ATA-6 (ATA/100) 2.5" hard drives.

You can put in a new CPU, and it won't be too difficult, but keep in mind, in CPU intensive gamming, the IGP is the bottleneck, not the CPU. It will improve gamming a little. You really don't need a CPU upgrade unless you do a lot of large calculations or media editing and encoding/decoding. Those tasks will go noticeably faster with a new CPU, since those things are done almost entirely by the CPU. The best CPU you can get for that laptop is a Turion 64 MT40 2.2 GHz 1 GB L2 Cache.

Speaking of the IGP, you can increase the video memory since this card uses a chunk of main RAM for video RAM. If you go into the BIOS, you can increase the total video RAM from 64 MB, the default, to 128 MB, which will help with games.

The wireless won't really improve performance, but if you want to have a dual band connection, you can put in an 802.11 a/b/g card in the mini PCI slot that the current wireless card is in.

All these can be done without any major disassembly. You won't have to take out the motherboard, keyboard, or display. It is all done on the bottom of the laptop.


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## skidogg73 (Jan 30, 2007)

Thanks alot guys, now I am smart on this!


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## AKA the A (Apr 9, 2009)

I (dare to) dissagree with not having to completely gut the thing in order to change the CPU...(just finished mine yesterday)
For some reason, the removable cover is not big enough to loosen all 3 screws that hold the cooler, you have to take it down literally to the last screw.

I now have a Turion ML-32 (had Sempron 3000+) and the change is quite notable when booting and programs start noticably faster. Also, when on low load, the cooling doesn't turn on as often as it did with the sempron.

p.s. When looking at the FRU(field replacement unit) manual, the only difference between aspire 3000 and 5000(and 3500) is the CPU...so theoratically, I now have a 5000:grin:


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## Mystical (Feb 24, 2010)

TheMatt said:


> In an Aspire 3000, there are four things that are worth upgrading. RAM, Hard Disk, CPU, and Wireless. Everything else is too difficult for even a pro and even if you could get a great video card in there.
> 
> You can really benefit from 1 GB of RAM for gamming, and 2 GB would be even better. As Joe said, it takes DDR333 PC2700 RAM, with a max of 2 GB (2 x 1 GB).
> 
> ...


Hello:

I was given an Acer Aspire 3000. I upgraded it to a 160gb Hard drive and upgraded to 2gb of RAM. I also changed that video memory from 64mb to 128mb, all things that you suggested. Now I have 2 issues that I hope you can anwer:

1) Since I put in the new RAM, Internet crashes more, I sometimes get error messages after I boot such as, "xxxx.exe not found" or corrupted, or files in the Registry files are corrected. Anything that I need to do? When I would shutdown, I woud get an error message about AdAware. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and so far have had no problem. But so far, due to error messages, I have had to uninstall 2 programs and reinstall them again. Once I reinstall then, then seem to work fine.

2) You recommended the Turion 64 MT40 2.2 GHz 1 GB L2 Cache. I looked for it in google and couldn't find it. In fact, I've looked in every place that I can think of and still have not found it. Is there another CPU that is just as good or better that you would recommend?

Thank you


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## antech (Feb 23, 2010)

Turion 64 mk-38


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