Even if it’s silver or blue on the outside, to most folks, a laptop PC looks like an impenetrable black box on the inside—you wouldn’t dream of cracking it open. Some notebooks, indeed, do their best to keep you out. But if you can remove your laptop’s bottom panel, chances are good that there’s something inside—or maybe several somethings—that you can upgrade.
Notebooks, of course, aren’t nearly as flexible as your typical desktop PC when it comes to hardware swaps. But upgrading your laptop, within the confines of what it will allow, can be a great way to get more life out of it. Depending on the model, you might be able to add more system memory (RAM) to make it more responsive, upgrade the storage drive for a capacity and performance boost, or replace the battery to rejuvenate the charge-holding that the machine had when it was new.
What you can actually do yourself varies from laptop model to laptop model, however. This guide helps you identify which laptop components you can (and can’t) upgrade, and how to replace them. We’ll even discuss items like the Wi-Fi radio and the graphics processor (GPU), and how to handle any warranty issues that might come up if you perform upgrades.
Can Upgrades Void Your Laptop Warranty?
First off: Let’s discuss warranties before diving into upgrades. To cut to the chase, engaging in the process of upgrading or replacing parts in your laptop will not void its warranty in and of itself. The FTC has plainly stated that you can’t void a warranty by breaking a seal, and more recently, the agency announced plans to crack down on companies that try to prevent their customers from repairing products.
That’s not a license, however, to dive in willy-nilly with screwdriver and pliers. The warranty won’t cover damage that might occur from your upgrade efforts. If you don’t feel confident you can do an upgrade on your own, seek a qualified repair shop or a computer-savvy friend or relative to do the job.
So, What Exactly Can I Upgrade?
This is a general guide for laptops produced from the early 2010s onward—that is, in the last decade. It won’t cover every configuration, but it should get pretty close. You will definitely run across exceptions, though.
Early Microsoft Surface Laptop models and their fabric-coated keyboard decks, for example, are largely glued together and near-impossible to open without damage. Or, a different limitation: Some Apple MacBooks use soldered-down instead of removable components.
The bottom cover off, …….
Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-upgrade-your-laptop-a-part-by-part-guide