Dell Vostro 5460 Disassembly and RAM, HDD Upgrade Options

In this article, I will explain how to disassemble the Dell Vostro 5460 to remove the battery, hard drive, SSD, wireless card, RAM, heat sink, cooling fan, and motherboard.

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Remove the ten screws from the bottom cover. Insert a thin plastic prying tool between the bottom cover and the palm rest, as there are some clips on the bottom cover to secure it to the palm rest. You need to release all the clips to completely remove the bottom cover.

Under the bottom cover, you can access the battery, hard drive, wireless card, RAM, speakers, CMOS battery, heat sink, cooling fan, and motherboard.

Disconnect the battery connector from the motherboard. You can remove the battery.

The Dell Vostro 5460 features a 51.1Wh Li-ion battery. Its Dell part number is VH748.

Disconnect two wireless antenna cables and remove the screw. You can remove the wireless card.

The Dell Vostro 5460 features a Realtek RTL8723ae wireless card.

Remove the screw securing the SSD and remove it from the mSATA slot.

Remove all screws securing the heat sink and cooling fan, and disconnect the fan cables from the motherboard.
Use your nails to gently separate the clips on both sides of the memory module, and it will pop out automatically.

The laptop comes with an SK Hynix 4GB DDR3 1600MHz memory module. If you need to upgrade your memory, you will need to replace the existing memory module.

Close-up of the cooling fan

Heatsink

The cooling system of the Dell Vostro 5460 consists of two fans and a heat pipe. This heat pipe simultaneously covers the graphics card and the processor.

Remove the screws securing the hard drive, then slide the drive to the left to remove it.

It features a Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

Remove the screws securing the motherboard and disconnect all ribbon cables attached to it.
Lift the motherboard from one side with your hand and gently wiggle it to separate it from the laptop.

The graphics card and processor of the Dell Vostro 5460 are directly soldered to the motherboard, making them non-upgradable.

Dell Vostro 5460 internal parts