Asus Laptop
Asus X502CA Disassembly
In this guide, I will explain how to disassemble the Asus X502CA to remove the battery, hard drive, heat sink, wireless card, cooling fan, and motherboard.
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Remove all screws from the bottom cover.
Insert a plastic pry tool between the bottom cover and the palm rest, sliding the pry tool to release the clips on the palm rest until it completely detaches from the laptop.
Please note that after separating the palm rest, you will also need to disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable and the touchpad ribbon cable from the motherboard in order to remove the palm rest.
Here are the palm rest and keyboard.
When the palm rest is removed, you can get access to the battery, hard drive, speakers, USB board, and motherboard.
Remove the four screws securing the battery, then unplug the battery connector from the motherboard. Next, lift and remove the battery.
Close-up of the Asus X502CA battery
The laptop has a 5136mAh, 38Wh Li-polymer battery, Asus P/N: C21-X502.
Remove the four screws securing the hard drive module. Grip the black tab with your fingers, lift the hard drive, and slide it to the left.
The ASUS X502CA comes with a 500GB HGST 5400 RPM hard drive. This hard drive is installed in an HDD caddy. If you need to upgrade the hard drive, you will need to remove the HDD caddy and install it onto the new hard drive.
Now, disconnect all cables from the motherboard.
Disconnect the two wireless card antenna cables.
Remove all screws securing the motherboard. Lift the motherboard from one side with your hand, and gently wiggle it until it is completely detached from the laptop.
On the other side of the motherboard, you can access the wireless card, CMOS battery, heat sink, and cooling fan.
The memory chips of the Asus X502CA are directly soldered onto the motherboard, so the memory cannot be upgraded.
Remove the screw securing the wireless card.
The laptop comes with an AZUREWAVE AR5B125 wireless card.
Asus X502CA internal parts
I’ve disassembled it to replace the keyboard. How do you remove the keyboard from the top cover? I don’t see anything holding it in place except some plastic tabs.
I’m having exactly the same issue. The new keyboard works perfectly, but no apparent way to reattach it to the case. I’m thinking of glue at this point. 🙁
I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but for the new guys.
I pried up the edge of the keyboard from the back until the little plastic button popped off. There’s no way to remove the keyboard without destroying all the little plastic buttons that hold it in. There are a ton of them. I then used packing tape to hold the keyboard in place while reassembling it. It makes the new keyboard a bit bouncy to type on, but it works. If you really want the original firmness, you’ll either have to spray the underside of the palm rest keyboard outline with strong glue (the spray glue used by automotive shops to hold up headliners is a good choice) and then carefully place the keyboard in. Otherwise, you have to buy the entire palm rest assembly in the proper color and replace the entire unit.
I can’t seem to reinstall the keyboard. Help?
Just connect the keyboard cable and touchpad to the motherboard.
Is there another area where I can install additional RAM, or am I stuck with the soldered RAM on the mainboard?
Can I add more RAM or am I stuck with the onboard memory?
You can’t, there are no spare RAM slots
You’ll have to remove the existing RAM and replace it with larger capacity RAM. I know this is an older post, but for anyone coming across it, perhaps it will help.
Do you have a link to the parts I need to upgrade my existing RAM to 8GB?
I cannot find a close-up video of how the keyboard and touchpad cables actually fit into the connectors on the motherboard. Is there anything available that shows how these connectors actually accept the ribbon cables and how the locking device works?
Please, where is the RAM located? My PC won’t turn on or even charge, so I want to check the RAM, but I don’t know its location.