Traditionally, all-in-one
mobos were damn near impossible to
upgrade, as the integrated features couldn't be disabled, and they often had few or no standard
expansion slots. These were the bane of my life when I worked freelance
tech-support as a teenager; endless godawful
Packard Bell or
Compaq machines with no future, and earnest owners asking me how they could upgrade them. Erk.
These days, things aren't so
grim, as integrated features can generally be disabled through
jumpers or
BIOS settings.
Intel chose to add integrated graphics to their standard motherboard chipsets a while ago, and their current baby, the
Intel 815e chipset, contains options for integrated graphics, sound and
LAN capability, all capable of being disabled via the BIOS. With the integrated features disabled, it's a phenomenal power-platform for a nice big
Pentium 3 Coppermine system, which means that integrated cheapo systems bundled with this mobo have vast
upgrade potential.
One other thing not mentioned in this
node is how small all-in-one systems can be. A English student on my corridor has a small
Cyrix based box, roughly the size of a hardback book, far smaller than a
laptop. It's impossible to upgrade, with everything integrated and no expansion slots, but it's fairly
impressive anyway.