Help upgrading/repairing older laptop

Lounge Linux lounge
1

Hi All!

Been a while since I have been on here. I am guessing a year or two ago at this point. My old laptop, an ASUS ROG GL752VW I purchased at Costco, started to have issues (keyboard buttons started not working unless pushed hard, the SSD started failing, and the battery was giving out). I was getting into music production, and since I felt I spent more time trying to get sound to work than I spent making music, I ended up purchasing a Macbook Pro M1. Its been a great computer and the battery life is amazing.

I will be passing the Macbook to someone else in the household, and will need another laptop. I was highly considering getting another M1 Macbook, but I think my old laptop will work perfectly fine with a few repairs and it will save a lot of money.

It looks like I will need to replace the following components. I need help choosing the best ones as I am not up to date on hardware at all. I’m looking for the best overall value (performance for dollars) not just the fastest overall. I’m not sure what the limitations are of the hardware so don’t want to purchase something that has faster speeds than the system can even run (but would be okay purchasing something that was backwards compatible that I could put in a newer system in a couple of years).

  1. M.2 drive- This works, but is only 128GB. Would like to upgrade to 1TB

  2. SSD drive- Is this even worth replacing? If I upgrade the M.2 drive to 1 TB, that should be more than I need. Will it cause errors if I leave the slot empty?

  3. Ram- I have 16GB and seems to be fine. Would it be worth upgrading to 32GB or faster speed…if it can handle it?

  4. Updated wifi card- I believe the current one is 802.11 AC

  5. Keyboard and battery- Not a lot of options here, but please recommend if you know of something better than what is offered on Amazon

Really appreciate everyone’s help. Excited to get this thing up and running again!

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  1. Do you have a budget for this? If you are looking for good bang for your buck, I would recommend going for the P3 by Crucial. Decent speeds overall, plus it boots quickly.

  2. It won’t cause problems with having an empty slot.

  3. I would only recommend going for 32gb of ram if you are looking at doing virtual machines and/or do other demanding tasks. If you can’t think of it, just stick with your current set or upgrade to a faster set.

  4. Look into the AX210 by Intel. It comes with WiFi 6E speeds and is what I used in a previous build and had a great time with no problems.

  5. Assuming this is a ROG laptop, there is a couple of options on eBay. Although I would only aim for sellers with over 750 reviews and a return policy. They go for around the same price as amazon, so go with your gut.

3

Thank you, WiFiBills.

Yes, it is an ROG. Ideally I would like to keep the entire budget under $150. I think that is doable. Since I have to take the the laptop apart anyways, I think I will redo the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU as well. I’m sure it needs it after nearly 10 years.

Thank you for the advice on the m.2 drive and the wifi card.

4

Redoing Thermal paste brings up a new question. What is the best thermal paste to use, or is there much of a difference?

5

There is technically the best thermal paste, but if you wanna save money just go with anything from arctic or corsair. For corsair, I would recommend the XTM50. It is 15 dollars so a bit steep but its pretty effective. If you wanna save money, go for the Arctic M-4 or M-6.

6

After a lot o research i bought Arctic mx-5. The main selling point for me, besides good thermal properties, is the fact they claim a very good stability for a lot of years (8yrs), meaning you won’t have to repaste it too soon.

7

Western Digital Black SN770

It shouldn’t.

16 GB is the sweat spot. I rerally don’t think 32 GB is necessary.

Unless you are updating you router to an 802.11AX then no sense in updating the WiFi card. 802.11 AC isn’t that bad. It also depends on what Internet service you have.

Seems Best Buy has this keyboard.

Battery
Dr. Battery has a replacement for this laptop.

Highly doubt you can even if you are buying used parts or really cheap stuff. :person_shrugging:

8

This might be a good option as I don’t see myself doing this again.

9

Thank you. Good to find a reputable battery supplier and their price seems very reasonable at $30. You are probably also right on the Wifi card.

It seems the hard drive is the big budget decider. The crucial mentioned in the first post of around $70 or the WD Black SN770 at around double that. I guess need to think about their future use after this laptop.