Asus K501LX-DM028D CPU upgrade

[CsrRoli]

I recently got the mentioned notebook, but I'm totally new to notebooks. Can I replace the CPU inside? If I can, what do you suggest along with the nVidia GTX 950M 2GB and 12 GB of RAM? (just installed 8 GB of Crucial RAM)
And how can I add an SSD to the notebook?

 

[blazorthon]

Generally, the CPU in a notebook is soldered to the board and can't be replaced. The Asus K501LX-DM028D is probably not an exception to this.

Adding an SSD usually requires removing the hard drive, unless there are two slots for storage drives. The Asus K501LX-DM028D does not have two slots as far as I can tell from a Google search for its specifications. You would need to get windows onto the SSD if the computer didn't ship with the SSD installed and that can be a bit of a hassle with laptops. You'll either need to get your own copy of Windows and install it or copy the hard drive's data to the SSD with an SSD migration or partition editing program. The problem is that you need both the SSD and the hard drive connected to a computer at the same time to do this and the laptop has no eSATA ports, so you'd either need to get a SATA to USB adapter or plug both the laptop hard drive and the new SSD into a desktop computer and run the copy on that computer.

Some SSDs ship with the adapter, some do not. If not, then it's not very expensive and would be the easiest way to do this because the other option still requires buying SATA cables and opening up a desktop computer to plug in the drives.

Getting an SSD would probably be the only upgrade you can do since you've already got the memory maxed out. The CPU probably isn't replaceable and the graphics probably isn't either.

 

[CsrRoli]

Generally, the CPU in a notebook is soldered to the board and can't be replaced. The Asus K501LX-DM028D is probably not an exception to this.

Adding an SSD usually requires removing the hard drive, unless there are two slots for storage drives. The Asus K501LX-DM028D does not have two slots as far as I can tell from a Google search for its specifications. You would need to get windows onto the SSD if the computer didn't ship with the SSD installed and that can be a bit of a hassle with laptops. You'll either need to get your own copy of Windows and install it or copy the hard drive's data to the SSD with an SSD migration or partition editing program. The problem is that you need both the SSD and the hard drive connected to a computer at the same time to do this and the laptop has no eSATA ports, so you'd either need to get a SATA to USB adapter or plug both the laptop hard drive and the new SSD into a desktop computer and run the copy on that computer.

Some SSDs ship with the adapter, some do not. If not, then it's not very expensive and would be the easiest way to do this because the other option still requires buying SATA cables and opening up a desktop computer to plug in the drives.

Getting an SSD would probably be the only upgrade you can do since you've already got the memory maxed out. The CPU probably isn't replaceable and the graphics probably isn't either.

The one I got has an M.2 SSD socket inside according to the shop assistant. I don't know if it helps. About the CPU, what about soldering it out, and then soldering in another one? (for example an I5-5200U)

 

[blazorthon]

You can't remove the chip and solder a new one by hand. There are hundreds of extremely small, very close-together solder balls (hence the name BGA socket, Ball Grid Array) and not even the best surgeon can work with that using a handheld soldering iron. Also, I'm not aware of any Intel BGA CPUs being sold individually.

Good to know on the M.2 socket. If the laptop has the socket and the drive is made for it, then M.2 will allow you to keep the hard drive. Did the SSD come with a disc or something to get migration software? If so, the this should be easy and the software will guide you through moving Windows to the SSD in the safest manner. I would recommend contacting the manufacturer of the SSD because they usually give the best advice on installing their products in a safer manner.

If all else fails, then the other option is a little riskier. A partition manager like Minitools partition editor free edition will do the trick. However, this requires that the used space on the hard drive be considerably lower than the maximum capacity of the SSD. Assuming this is the case, you would start with remove as much unnecessary fluff as you can (IE emptying the recycling bin if it isn't empty, deleting unused files and uninstalling unused programs) to get your partition as small as reasonably possible.

Next, you'd use the partition manager to copy the main system over to the SSD (you must use a partition manager, simply copying in windows explorer will not work for various reasons). If you get an error like saying the partition is too big and it won't let you copy, then here comes the slightly riskier part. What you need to do is resize the partition and shrink it until it will fit in the SSD. Attempting to do this when the used storage space is greater than the SSD can hold will delete things you don't want deleted and possibly break things, so you need to be sure you aren't shrinking past the the used storage space.

Please note that I wouldn't accept responsibility for something going wrong with the latter option- it is risky, especially if you aren't careful about watching the used storage capacity. I have done the above method many times without any issues, but I'm stubborn like that.


Sorry about the late reply; I was out of town for a week.