Another Old System Question

Hello,

I have a Gateway M350WVN with a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive. Even though it is four years old (it has a 3.5 in floppy disk drive on it and no memory card reader), I like this computer and it works well. But as you can imagine, the increasing complexity of the software we use is outstripping the abilities of this hardware setup and I'd like to improve it as much as I can.

I've called Gateway to inquire about increasing the RAM beyond 1 GB and they said that 1 is the maximum for this model. Short of a new motherboard (which I understand is hugely expensive), is there some way I can make this computer recognize more than 1 GB of RAM? Are there any software changes that might make such a thing possible? I would like to take it to at least 2 GB, but 3 is my preference. Thank you for your help.

 

here is your spec's and it looks like 1 gig is the max
http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/400WVN/3501666sp58.shtml

 

And it'll be impossible to replace the board... even today - look at two HP computers that look almost exactly alike... but one may have an AMD CPU, the other an intel - doesn't mean the thermal systems are compatible... Or even one with a Celeron CPU vs another with a core2 CPU.

You can go to a store, drop about $700 for a new 15" notebook with a dual core CPU (AMD or intel), 2~4GB RAM, 250GB HD... hmm.. some with 17" screens for that price. But you'll get vista unless its a business notebook.