After Intel launched the 8th generation Core processors in April this year, Dell quickly updated its Precision mobile workstation line and officially launched a new generation of mobile workstation products at the end of May – Precision 3530. This workstation has not changed much compared with the previous generation Precision 3520. The workstation adopts a 15.6-inch full HD high color gamut screen, equipped with the eighth generation Core Coffee Lake-H processor and NVIDIA Quadro P600 professional graphics card. It features a richer port design and officially introduces the M. 2 2230 SSD solution.
In this guide, I will remove the Precision 3530 bottom case to access the battery, M.2 SSD, RAM, CMOS battery, cooling fan, heatsink, hard drive, Wi-Fi card, and motherboard.
This laptop comes with a 2230 SSD. Currently, there are fewer SSDs in this market. It is recommended that you choose a large-capacity SSD when purchasing a laptop.
1. Remove the bottom case
The bottom of the laptop has a large area of dust-proof mesh opening and some dedicated cooling holes for the M.2 2280 SSD. The E-Port has been canceled since the previous generation’s products to make more room for the motherboard and other components.
The bottom case can be removed by loosening the eight fixing screws. Because there is no snap in the bottom case, you can easily remove it.
2. RAM and HDD upgrade options
Its bottom case is made of plastic material. As a high-end mobile workstation, the plastic body is too low-end.
This is the internal structure after the removal of the back cover. The notebook is equipped with a solid-state hard disk and a mechanical hard disk. The battery can only choose 4-core 68Wh. The M.2230 SSD is installed in the WWAN slot, but the WWAN antenna is still reserved. If you choose a large-capacity battery, a 2280 SSD can be installed in the hard drive bay.
The laptop has two RAM slots and comes with 8GB RAM. I have installed an 8GB RAM module on the free RAM slot.
It uses a single fan, dual copper tube heat sink, and two copper tubes that cover both the Intel i7-8750H processor and the QUADRO P600 graphics card.
3. Remove the M.2 SSD
Now, let us unveil the M.2 2230 SSD step by step. Remove two screws and take out the SSD heatsink. The bottom of the picture is the M.2-2280 slot. Since the laptop has a mechanical hard disk occupying the M.2 2280 slot, it is impossible to install another SSD here.
After removing the heatsink, it was found to be a 2230 SSD. Since the WWAN slot is 2242, Dell made a special bracket for it. The laptop comes with a 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD from Samsung. The model is PM971.