curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-03, 23:44:

Hey Just picked up an AST Asentia 810n 486 laptop. I want to tear it down but haven't figured out how it comes apart. wondering if anyone had experience or has seen a video somewhere on them. I"m just really taking it easy as well the plastic is terrible on these units. I have had every screw I can find from the bottom and sides I Can find but thhe bottom doesn't come off and not sure how to get the top off. It does start but the battery is pretty much dead it starts the boot process and shuts down. I have a charger ordered seller must have had it to get it going but when he brought it he said he couldn't find it. Either way just want to open up check it over inside see if it might need some work on caps or anything.

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part.
Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now.

Beware, plastics are brittle AF. It's really bad. Hinges are metal on plastic, don't toy opening and closing the screen or else "crack".
Don't ask how I know - 🤣

Nexxen wrote on 2025-04-04, 00:18:

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part. Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now. […]
Show full quote

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-03, 23:44:

Hey Just picked up an AST Asentia 810n 486 laptop. I want to tear it down but haven't figured out how it comes apart. wondering if anyone had experience or has seen a video somewhere on them. I"m just really taking it easy as well the plastic is terrible on these units. I have had every screw I can find from the bottom and sides I Can find but thhe bottom doesn't come off and not sure how to get the top off. It does start but the battery is pretty much dead it starts the boot process and shuts down. I have a charger ordered seller must have had it to get it going but when he brought it he said he couldn't find it. Either way just want to open up check it over inside see if it might need some work on caps or anything.

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part.
Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now.

Beware, plastics are brittle AF. It's really bad. Hinges are metal on plastic, don't toy opening and closing the screen or else "crack".
Don't ask how I know - 🤣

I see the plastics are very brittle. there is cracks on the hinges already. I have been very careful with it. Just hoping with a charger I can get some time checking it out.

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-04, 02:40:

Nexxen wrote on 2025-04-04, 00:18:

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part. Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now. […]
Show full quote

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-03, 23:44:

Hey Just picked up an AST Asentia 810n 486 laptop. I want to tear it down but haven't figured out how it comes apart. wondering if anyone had experience or has seen a video somewhere on them. I"m just really taking it easy as well the plastic is terrible on these units. I have had every screw I can find from the bottom and sides I Can find but thhe bottom doesn't come off and not sure how to get the top off. It does start but the battery is pretty much dead it starts the boot process and shuts down. I have a charger ordered seller must have had it to get it going but when he brought it he said he couldn't find it. Either way just want to open up check it over inside see if it might need some work on caps or anything.

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part.
Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now.

Beware, plastics are brittle AF. It's really bad. Hinges are metal on plastic, don't toy opening and closing the screen or else "crack".
Don't ask how I know - 🤣

I see the plastics are very brittle. there is cracks on the hinges already. I have been very careful with it. Just hoping with a charger I can get some time checking it out.

Hope it helps.
Manual has no disassembly instructions. My suggestion is to not do anything except the HDD. The HDD can be replaced but has to be pushed in its slot. You can figure that out, it isn't difficult, just boring. The HDD will slot in with the whole caddy IIRC.

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-04, 02:40:

Nexxen wrote on 2025-04-04, 00:18:

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part. Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now. […]
Show full quote

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-03, 23:44:

Hey Just picked up an AST Asentia 810n 486 laptop. I want to tear it down but haven't figured out how it comes apart. wondering if anyone had experience or has seen a video somewhere on them. I"m just really taking it easy as well the plastic is terrible on these units. I have had every screw I can find from the bottom and sides I Can find but thhe bottom doesn't come off and not sure how to get the top off. It does start but the battery is pretty much dead it starts the boot process and shuts down. I have a charger ordered seller must have had it to get it going but when he brought it he said he couldn't find it. Either way just want to open up check it over inside see if it might need some work on caps or anything.

I have it, and the manual. Tomorrow I'll check if it has the disassembly part.
Gonna be in 12 to 16 hours from now.

Beware, plastics are brittle AF. It's really bad. Hinges are metal on plastic, don't toy opening and closing the screen or else "crack".
Don't ask how I know - 🤣

I see the plastics are very brittle. there is cracks on the hinges already. I have been very careful with it. Just hoping with a charger I can get some time checking it out.

Btw, keyboard and trackball are great.
I used an external mouse for easier operation.

The FDD failed because the belt became stiff and lost traction + it broke eventually.
Ram needs a special adapter in the unobtainium aisle. IDK if it can be upgraded by replacing the already present chips. Adapter has standard components, maybe an expert could create one.

HDD is screwed to the caddy and needs to be pushed in, being IDE, an adapter is shorter and needs to be pushed in by hand or glued to the caddy.
I used my fingers after removing the broken lid. Plastics break just by looking at them.

Cpu is soldered.

General hints, a frequent trick is to have 1-3 screws on the bottom that hold the keyboard, then you unclip that and find more case screws round the edges of the keyboard hole that need taking out to open it up.

Well I got a laptop charger that powers the unit up. The original hd is fully functional complete with all the ast stuff on it. I have pulled the drive so I can image it and save the contents. I got an SD to 44 pin adapter and installed it in place of the hdd and used 86 box to build a drive image that I wrote to the sd card and the laptop works pretty good. The screen has some issues but all in all it's a neat old machine. Once I image the original drive I plan on limiting that image back to the sd card. I just am trying to leave the original hdd alone til I get it imaged.
I also am going to hook it up to a monitor here soon just to see if the screen is actually the issue or the video card.
Ram isn't an issue but has 20mb which is the most the came with and plenty for a 486 without sound 🤣. Plus even if the screen was good. Lcd was not gaming tech in those days 🤣. It plays doom but the display ghosting is so bad.

curggles@gmail.com wrote on 2025-04-08, 04:32:

Well I got a laptop charger that powers the unit up. The original hd is fully functional complete with all the ast stuff on it. I have pulled the drive so I can image it and save the contents. I got an SD to 44 pin adapter and installed it in place of the hdd and used 86 box to build a drive image that I wrote to the sd card and the laptop works pretty good. The screen has some issues but all in all it's a neat old machine. Once I image the original drive I plan on limiting that image back to the sd card. I just am trying to leave the original hdd alone til I get it imaged.
I also am going to hook it up to a monitor here soon just to see if the screen is actually the issue or the video card.
Ram isn't an issue but has 20mb which is the most the came with and plenty for a 486 without sound 🤣. Plus even if the screen was good. Lcd was not gaming tech in those days 🤣. It plays doom but the display ghosting is so bad.

20MB of ram? That's huge!
Good for you.

Have fun!