I decided to help my friend upgrade the memory in his HP Pavilion zv6000. It's been a while since I'd done anything significant with anything by HP (or Compaq for that matter) because I've always despised their tendency to use proprietary hardware (down to the screws) and bizarre case designs.

Anyway, I always assume people (and corporations) get smarter over time (albeit some more slowly than others), and given that even cheap laptops like GQ make upgrading pretty painless, I didn't expect much difficulty.

Boy, was I wrong.

As it turns out, the zv6000 has two DIMM slots: 1 external and 1 internal. The external slot is about where you'd expect: under a small plastic cover on the back held in place with one screw. The internal slot is under the keyboard. This is already a bummer, but most laptop manufacturers these days make removing the keyboard pretty painless, so I forged ahead.

Anytime I have to get inside a laptop, I always read the fine manual. Laptops are difficult beasts by nature and their disassemblly isn't always obvious. So I went ahead an pulled up the following PDF:

HP Pavilion zv6000 User Guide

In case you don't feel like reading it, here's the steps:

1. Remove four screws that retain the keyboard cover (the plastic strip in front of the screen)
2. Place electrical tape (?!) over a hinge to "protect it". My first "WTF" hit right here.
3. Press down on three or four "pressure points" while simultaneously lifting the cover. Supposedly this "releases" the clips that hold the cover in place (in case the four screws all fell out).

Okay, time to pause here. We are referring to a strip of fairly brittle plastic approximately one inch deep and 10 inches long. You have to be careful with it or it will break. I don't know how many hands HP technicians have, but perhaps they should do a survey of their users before assuming more than two.

Anyway, the "pressure points" turned out to be pointless (ha! a pun!) as they released nothing but whatever the opposite of endorphins might be (in my head, not the laptop).

I finally managed to pry the cover off, fearing a sudden snap every inch of the way, so now onto the next step:

4. Remove four MORE screws that hold the keyboard in place.
5. Remove a metallic sticker that covers the DIMM slot.
6. Insert DIMM
7. Put it all back together (much easier than getting apart).

I'd like to contrast this with how I installed memory in a GQ (Fry's cheap-ass Great Quality brand):

1. Remove one screw from easily accessible panel on back of laptop.
2. Insert DIMM
3. Replace cover and screw and be happy you saved $500 by not buying a piece of crap HP.

Anyway, I feel lucky that nothing broke. And by "lucky", I mean "damn lucky".

Do yourself a favor: don't buy HP.

Oh, and before you tell me "but I have an HP and I freaking love it", ask yourself if you've tried to upgrade the internal DIMM. If you haven't then please feel free to take one for the team and give it a try. If you have and somehow feel I've misrepresented the steps (despite the fact the exact steps are outlined a bit more tersely in the HP manual), then don't bother replying because if you don't hurry you'll miss your appointment with Goddess Ilsa for your weekly degradation session.