Of course, the idea of buying a laptop in the hope that you will upgrade its hardware in the future would be a very bad idea. It may be best to buy the hardware you need right away so that you do not have to spend more time and money to find the version you want in the future.
Obstacles to upgrading a laptop hardware
Design: Many laptops are basically not designed to open. Take Microsoft Surface Pro 2, for example. You have to melt the obstacles around the screen with a special heater so that you can open it. But the main problem is still in your way. After opening the Surface Pro 2, you will encounter a pile of pieces that are perfectly compact and nested together. The battery is somehow attached to the case and it will not be easy to replace it. Apple MacBooks can also be opened with a screwdriver (although they use dedicated screws). But in this laptop, too, you will encounter a large volume of small and large and compact parts; In addition, the battery is fixed in place with glue!Opening it: Even if it is possible to open the laptop, it may not be a pleasant experience to try. Laptops are made up of many components that are carefully and compactly put together; So you may have to move several pieces to access a particular piece. For example, there are more than 90 screws inside the Surface Pro 2!
Soldered parts: Many machines come with soldered parts. The MacBook, for example, comes with a soldered CPU, GPU, and Ram on the main board (something like a motherboard on a desktop computer). So you can not easily remove a part and install a new part. (Soldering is the process by which two more pieces are joined together by melting a metal material at high temperature). In the MacBook, for example, laptop RAM is soldered to the motherboard using solder. The process of separating the items that are connected in this way is specialized, difficult and time consuming.
Common upgrades that are possible for laptop hardware
Install more RAM: If your laptop motherboard has an empty slot for RAM, adding RAM will make it easy to buy it and place it in the same empty slot. If the RAM slots on your laptop are not empty, it may be possible to remove the current RAM and replace it with RAM with more memory and capacity. Most laptops (mostly older and larger) come with a standalone memory compartment on the back of the device (something like my old Dell Vostro 1320 laptop). You can easily squeeze a chassis, remove the guard and access the available RAM slots. However, an important point to consider before buying a new RAM is the maximum supported volume and the appropriate frequency for each slot, such information can usually be found on the product manufacturer’s website.
Upgrading to an SSD: If you have a laptop that uses older, slower mechanical drives, you may be able to easily replace it with a faster SSD version. This requires opening the laptop, removing the old hard drive, and installing a new solid state drive. Of course, you have to back up your data and install Windows after changing the hard drive. Some large laptops may also be able to use multiple hard drives simultaneously. Note that the minimum requirement for this is that your laptop supports SATA connections.
Replacing a CD drive with an SSD drive: If you want to keep your current hard drive and add an SSD drive to your laptop, you may be able to replace your CD drive (CD or DVD or Blu-ray) with an SSD drive. . Of course, you need a suitable compartment to insert the new SSD drive in your laptop instead of the previous CD drive.
CPU and GPU upgrades may also be possible on some laptops; But it is certainly not an easy task. Before buying and installing any component, you should do enough research about your laptop and its BIOS support for new components. On the other hand, different computing and graphics processors produce different amounts of heat; Therefore, new components may generate more heat than the fan and cooling system installed for your laptop and may eventually become a nuisance in this regard. These are all obstacles and problems that you should think about before making any decision.
How to know about upgradable parts of the system
There is a free and interesting tool for knowing the upgradeable parts of the system, which you can see useful information by specifying the model of the laptop. To use the services of this site, follow the steps below:
- Visit www.crucial.com/usa/en/advisor.
- In the first box, select your laptop brand.
- In the second box, enter your laptop series. For example elitebook or thinkPad! Then search and enter your exact model in the third box.
- Finally, click Find my computer. Then, as shown below, this program will tell you what kind of RAM and SDD hard drive your laptop can support. Also, if the laptop is not upgradeable, the site will notify you.
In the lower left corner, the app shows you how much RAM your laptop can support and how many DIMM RAM slots it has. Some laptops have only one slot that you can only replace instead of adding RAM.
This site also offers some suitable parts for your laptop to buy from your site, which of course is not useful for us.
Conclusion
However, it is better to repeat the fact mentioned at the beginning of the article. You should never buy a laptop in the hope that you will upgrade its components in the future. Ideas like “My laptop RAM may be low right now; But “I will upgrade it in the future” or “I will use an SSD drive in the future to speed up” may be responsible for a PC; But with laptops, you can not always be optimistic about the future. Changing technologies, the impossibility of some upgrades, the scarcity and the high cost of parts can all be considered as some pessimistic possibilities for the future.
Do your research without considering the time and possibilities in the future. Even if some things can be done in the future, buying a better laptop with better, newer parts may be more justified than buying old but expensive parts and adding them to your laptop. What is certain is that many laptops are still upgradeable; But we are moving towards a future where most computers are reluctant to have user service and component changes.
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