Asus LaptopAsus UX501
Asus UX501 Disassembly and SSD, RAM upgrade options
In this guide, I’ll explain how to disassemble the Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 to remove the bottom case, battery, SSD, RAM, wireless card, cooling fan, and motherboard.
Follow us on Facebook for the latest updates from MyFixGuide.com.
Remove all screws securing the bottom case.
Remove the rubber mat. You can find the hidden screw.
Remove four hidden screws.
Pry up and remove the bottom case.
When the bottom case is removed, you can get access to the internal components, including battery, SSD, RAM, speaker, wireless card, heat sink, and cooling fan.
To protect the hardware, we should remove the battery first.
Disconnect the battery power cable from the motherboard.
Remove all screws securing the battery.
Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 has an 11.4v 96wh Li-ion battery, and the Asus model is C32N1415.
In the next step, we will remove the SSD, RAM, and wireless card.
Remove one screw securing the SSD and takes it out from the M.2 slot.
The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 features a Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 SSD.
Separate two clips and the RAM will pop up.
The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 comes with a Samsung 8GB PC3L 12800S RAM.
Remove one screw.
Disconnect two wireless antenna cables.
Azurewave AR5B22-SB wireless card
Remove the yellow cable. The cable is used to connect the motherboard and USB board.
Remove all screws securing the heat sink and cooling fan.
Disconnect two cables from the motherboard.
The yellow label is the Asus warranty label. If you damage it, you may avoid the warranty.
Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 comes with a dual copper pipe heat sink and dual cooling fan.
Remove all cables connecting the motherboard, including LCD cable, touchpad cable, keyboard cable, and speaker cable.
Remove all screws securing the motherboard.
Remove all screws securing the LCD hinges (left and right LCD hinges).
Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ 2.6 GHz processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz) with Intel® HD Graphics 4600
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics card
SK Hynix graphics memory onboard
When the motherboard is removed, you can access the touchpad and keyboard.
USB board
Nice. I am glad it is relatively easy to take apart. So it can be good to buy used, get a new battery for it, get a 4TB SSD for cheap (years from now), and max out the RAM.
Does it just have 1 RAM module slot, so I’d need one 16GB DDR3 module?
I found a really good sale on this laptop (30% off an already discounted price). I didn’t open mine up (it needs a Torx 5 screwdriver), but from all the pics, there’s only one RAM module slot and one M.2 SSD drive slot.
The USB 3.0 ports will be handy for an external drive. USB 3.0 tops out at 5Gbps vs SATA III at 6Gbps. An SSD external drive over USB 3.0 can read/write at 200-300 MBps, according to this 2014 video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJaYCTDaBQ
Really, the only letdown so far is the 1MP webcam. Not even full HD!
I hear that it has a glossy display, how is it outside on a sunny day?
Also with some laptops, when the screen brightness is set to full on battery power and on wall power, even then, when you unplug the laptop, the screen brightness goes down a bit. Is that true for this laptop?
The display is very glossy. It’s bright enough to be used outside but the reflections will make it very difficult. Probably not the best choice for outdoor use.
By default, the display brightness is lower for battery power. But when I set brightness to max for both battery and wall power, I couldn’t notice any difference when switching from one to the other.
In my opinion, the screen looks very nice. The colors are very sharp and I like that it’s a touchscreen. But I know that some people don’t like glossy screens like this.
Thanks. Probably better outdoors than my crappy CCFL backlit Asus G50VT laptop glossy display. How far back does the lid go? Can it hinge back towards parallel? Thx
A bit disappointing that it can’t lay flat. There are a lot of interesting things to do with a touchscreen that lays flat. It can fold back about 30 degrees. If you look at the first image in this article, the screen is almost as far back as it will go. Nonetheless it is a big upgrade from what I had before.
I would rather have a decent internal 2TB SSD than lugging along an external one. My version only has a 256GB SSD, so it is really small. I will upgrade to a larger SSD as soon as the price is attractive enough.
The question is, how do you transfer/clone the content of the existing SSD to a new one via the USB 3 with an adapter? That was the way I upgraded my 2.5″ HDD on my MSI notebook using Seagate software (only works on Seagate HD)
Hi, San,
I recently updated the Microm M600 256 GB M.2 to the Samsung EVO 850 SSD M.2 that my version had. To clone the content of my previous SSD, I needed a box for SSD M.2 with USB 3.1. In your case, if it is a normal SSD, you could buy a USB 3 adapter for It. After that, I cloned the content using Samsung’s migration tool, and when this finished, I only had to replace the old SSD M. 2 with the new one.
After that, you can use the SSD m.2 as an external SSD or, in your case, it is a normal SSD.
I hope that this will be useful for you.
Thanks. I think mine has an M.2 too. I will have to get an M.2 USB 3 adapter. Currently, a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2 SSD costs $AUD225, and the 1GB version 960EVO costs $AUD629, so I may have to wait a bit more time.
I just opened mine today, and it only has one (1) slot for an 8GB single DDR3 1.5 volt SODIMM. I am not sure the system will support a single DDR3 16GB. There are plenty of single DDR4 16GB, but not many DDR3 16GB. Also, confirm that my version comes with a Micron 256GB M600 M.2 SATA SSD.
You must confirm it supports 16GB RAM.
I bought this months ago for professional purposes in photo archiving optimization and editing. I noticed immediately the BIG issue of the yellow color shifting to green. There is no way to get a normal yellow, even after changing the display, cable, and motherboard from the Asus service.
Even worse, the service returned my Zenbook with 2 new defects: the memory card and keyboard backlit were no longer working.
What can I do to fix these two problems myself? I opened the case and noticed that the cables seemed to be properly connected to related cards.
Thanks for the answers
Is the Wi-Fi card upgradable?
Hi, has someone already tried to get the 4K display working in the full HD version of the ux501? I think the system board is quite the same. The question is, will the cable connecting from the mainboard work with the 4K panel as well? Has someone tried it out? Thanks for your answers.
What size are the Philips screws under the rubber feet?
You only need a common flat-head screwdriver.
I have the UX501JW, seems I can’t go higher the 16RAM and 512GB HDD, not sure why?, I saw a video on upgrading the RAM to 24GB RAM with no problem. BIOS sees the 24GB, however, Windows 10 only sees the onboard 8GB. Same with the HDD external 1TB clones perfectly, however not being picked up in the BIOS.
Hi,
I have the UX501V Notebook PC. I wanted to know how high I can upgrade the Internal SSD. I know there’s only one slot, so I suppose I have to buy a bigger SSD for replacement.
Same for RAM. I see there is just 1 slot. Do you know what the highest this machine supports is?
Thanks in advance
AIDA says the motherboard supports up to 32GB memory DDR3-1600. So 16GB in one accessible slot must be fine. Including 8GB of integrated memory, it will be 24GB,
Can you replace a UX501J motherboard with a UX501VW motherboard?