Asus Laptop
Asus UX501 Disassembly and SSD, RAM upgrade options
In this guide, I’ll explain how to disassemble the Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 to remove the bottom case, battery, SSD, RAM, wireless card, cooling fan, and motherboard.
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Remove all screws securing the bottom case.
Remove the rubber mat. You can find the hidden screw.
Remove four hidden screws.
Pry up and remove the bottom case.
When the bottom case is removed, you can get access to the internal components, including battery, SSD, RAM, speaker, wireless card, heat sink, and cooling fan.
To protect the hardware, we should remove the battery first.
Disconnect the battery power cable from the motherboard.
Remove all screws securing the battery.
Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 has an 11.4v 96wh Li-ion battery, and the Asus model is C32N1415.
In the next step, we will remove the SSD, RAM, and wireless card.
Remove one screw securing the SSD and takes it out from the M.2 slot.
The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 features a Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 SSD.
Separate two clips and the RAM will pop up.
The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 comes with a Samsung 8GB PC3L 12800S RAM.
Remove one screw.
Disconnect two wireless antenna cables.
Azurewave AR5B22-SB wireless card
Remove the yellow cable. The cable is used to connect the motherboard and USB board.
Remove all screws securing the heat sink and cooling fan.
Disconnect two cables from the motherboard.
The yellow label is the Asus warranty label. If you damage it, you may avoid the warranty.
Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 comes with a dual copper pipe heat sink and dual cooling fan.
Remove all cables connecting the motherboard, including LCD cable, touchpad cable, keyboard cable, and speaker cable.
Remove all screws securing the motherboard.
Remove all screws securing the LCD hinges (left and right LCD hinges).
Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ 2.6 GHz processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz) with Intel® HD Graphics 4600
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics card
SK Hynix graphics memory onboard
When the motherboard is removed, you can access the touchpad and keyboard.
USB board
I found a really good sale on this laptop (30% off an already discounted price). I didn’t open mine up (it needs a Torx 5 screwdriver), but from all the pics, there’s only one RAM module slot and one M.2 SSD drive slot.
The USB 3.0 ports will be handy for an external drive. USB 3.0 tops out at 5 Gbps, compared to SATA III at 6 Gbps. An SSD external drive connected via USB 3.0 can read/write at speeds of 200-300 MB/s, according to this 2014 video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJaYCTDaBQ
Really, the only letdown so far is the 1MP webcam. Not even full HD!
The display is very glossy. It’s bright enough to be used outside, but the reflections will make it very difficult to see. Probably not the best choice for outdoor use.
By default, the display brightness is lower for battery power. However, when I set the brightness to maximum for both battery and wall power, I couldn’t notice any difference when switching between them.
In my opinion, the screen looks very nice. The colors are very sharp, and I like that it’s a touchscreen. I know that some people don’t like glossy screens like this.
I would rather have a decent internal 2TB SSD than lugging along an external one. My version only has a 256GB SSD, so it is really small. I will upgrade to a larger SSD as soon as the price is attractive enough.
The question is, how do you transfer/clone the content of the existing SSD to a new one via the USB 3 with an adapter? That was the way I upgraded my 2.5″ HDD on my MSI notebook using Seagate software (only works on Seagate HD)
Hi, San,
I recently updated the Microm M600 256 GB M.2 to the Samsung EVO 850 SSD M.2, which was compatible with my version. To clone the content of my previous SSD, I needed a box for an SSD M.2 with USB 3.1. In your case, if it is a normal SSD, you can buy a USB 3 adapter for it. After that, I cloned the content using Samsung’s migration tool, and when this was finished, I only had to replace the old SSD M.2 with the new one.
After that, you can use the M.2 SSD as an external SSD or, in your case, it is a normal SSD.
I hope this will be useful for you.
Thanks. I think mine has an M.2 too. I will have to get an M.2 USB 3 adapter. Currently, a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD costs $AUD225, and the 1TB 960 EVO costs $AUD629, so I may have to wait a bit more time.
You must confirm it supports 16GB RAM.
I bought this months ago for professional purposes, specifically for photo archiving optimization and editing. I immediately noticed the significant issue of the yellow color shifting to green. There is no way to get a normal yellow color, even after changing the display, cable, and motherboard through Asus service.
Even worse, the service returned my Zenbook with 2 new defects: the memory card and keyboard backlit were no longer working.
What can I do to fix these two problems myself? I opened the case and noticed that the cables seemed to be properly connected to the related cards.
Thanks for the answers
Is the Wi-Fi card upgradable?
Hi, has someone already tried to get the 4K display working in the full HD version of the UX501? I think the system board is quite the same. The question is, will the cable connecting from the mainboard work with the 4K panel as well? Has someone tried it out? Thanks for your answers.
What size are the Philips screws under the rubber feet?
You only need a common flat-head screwdriver.
Can you replace a UX501J motherboard with a UX501VW motherboard?