Dell Alienware 18

Dell Alienware 18 disassembly and SSD, RAM, HDD upgrade options

In this guide, I’ll explain how to disassemble Dell Alienware 18 to remove and replace the battery, SSD, keyboard, palm rest, hard drive, Graphics Card, heat sink, wireless card, memory, cooling fan, and motherboard.

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First of all, remove screws securing the service cover.

Open the nameplate. There are specifications and date of manufacture on the nameplate.

When the service cover removed, you can get access to the battery, memory, DVD drive and hard drive.

Loosen four screws securing the hard drive module and disconnect cable from the motherboard. You can remove the hard drive.

The cable has two SATA connectors, that’s mean you can add a second hard drive. Alienware 18 also has four spare screws.

Remove two RAMs.

This Dell Alienware 18 comes with two SK Hynix 4GB RAMs.

Remove four screws securing the DVD drive.

Dell Alienware 18 features a Blu-ray optical drive, and you can see the DVD drive have a caddy.

Remove one screw securing the battery and unplug the power cable from the motherboard. You can remove the battery.

The laptop comes with a 14.8V, 86WH Li-ion battery, Dell P/N: 2F8K3.

Remove the upper part of the service cover. You can access three cooling fans and SSD.

Remove all screws securing the cooling fan and unplug the cable from the motherboard. You can remove the left cooling fan.

Remove four screws securing the cooling fan and unplug the cable. You can remove the right cooling fan.

Remove four screws securing the cooling fan and unplug the cable. You can remove the third cooling fan.

Remove one screw securing the SSD and take it out.

It features a Samsung 64GB mSATA SSD.

Pry up and remove the palm rest.

On the back of the palm rest, you can access the keyboard and touchpad.

Under the palm rest, you can find two RAMs and two graphics cards.

Two Hynix 4GB memory

First NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M Graphics Card

Second NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M Graphics Card

Wireless card

SLI cable

8 Comments

  1. Hi, i want to buy a ssd for my alienware 18 but i dont know what interface is compatible with it. My idea is to replace the HDD for a 1 Giga SSD or just adding a 500 giga SSD to run the OS and programs, keeping the original HD and the mSATA SSD for backup. Considering the Sansung SSDs, whats should fit? Thanks!

  2. Could anyone help me to explain which one is the board of the led lights? all of the RGB lights not working except the mousepad and the keyboard

  3. Absolutely no need to remove the nameplate, no point. Its 3 screws to remove the entire bottom and the nameplate is only attached to the bottom cover. Pointless step

  4. What are good upgrade options in 22 NOT using it to game mostly edit but I do game once and a while 2013 model base options I believe

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