acer aspire z3101, Upgradable?

Hi,
one of my friends is renting this all in one pc from a rental place, and the graphics aren't on par to his liking. My guess would be that It's all integrated cept the ram and hard drive, is that the case, or can the graphics be upgraded?

Thanks.

 

Here are the generic specs from Acer's support site:

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/2010/acer/aspire/AspireZ3101/AspireZ3101sp2.shtml

Since this is basically a notebook chassis, upgrading the graphics card would be tough if not impossible. Here are a few tips, however, that may improve the graphics performance:

* Go into the BIOS at startup (usually the "DEL" or one of function keys) and tab through until you reach the video options. Check how much on-board memory is being allocated to the video graphics. If it allows an option to raise the amount (or disable the "auto" setting) give it a try. Note: Do not make any other changes unless you're sure of what you're doing. If the system won't boot or becomes unstable after this change, restart the PC, go back in the BIOS and select the "reset to default settings" option.

How much memory is currently installed? If it's only 2GB adding a second 2GB chip for a total of 4GB may help (just remember to remove it if you turn the PC back in to the rental store).

Go into CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM>DEVICE MANAGER and verify the make/model of graphics chipset. Go to the chipset (ATI or NVIDIA) mfr's website and check for the latest drivers - Windows Update doesn't always catch them automatically.

Finally, while I understand that Rent-To-Own is sometimes the only viable way of paying for a new PC, I have a feeling your friend will end up getting ripped off for 3-4 times the fair market retail value if he/she pays it off this way over 18-24 months. If your friend can afford $150 or so for a basic used PC and CRT monitor, I'd bite the bullet on slow performance for a few months and take the $25-$30 per week rental fee and stash it away. Within a few months it will add up to the cost of building a bare bones desktop with on-board video. As finances permit, this $25-$30 per week could be funneled into upgrades such as adding more memory, a beefier video card, etc. Doing so, your friend would end up with a much nicer PC over a year or so at a much lower cost (and you can likely sell off the temporary used PC for close to what you paid for it).

Hope this helps.