Notebook : HP Pavilion x360 Convertible [P/N : 13-u113TU] (Disassembly)

A friend of mine recently found his laptop to be either very slow or will sometimes freezes, he asked my help to upgrade it or to make it fast (whatever it takes)...

Well you know me, I can't reject a friend :D

To be on the safe side, I need to ensure the part's number is correct and whether it supports any kind of upgrade such as RAM & SSD. Thus taking it apart is a must, well kinda as I also need to refresh the thermal compound of the CPU.... here it goes.

At first glance, the first thing that came into my mind was.... WOW! only 4 hidden screws ?? Then I realized there's more hidden beneath the rubber strip (as shown below).

As always, opening any plastic cover take patience, slow, steady and skills. After removing those rubbers it reveals all the screws.

Trying my best to remove the cover doesn't seems to work, after figuring out what went wrong then it just hit me that there's another hidden screw in the middle. Who would have thought that is a screw hidden in there.

Now after removing the middle screw, I thought this is simple but to my surprise I need to flip over to remove the keyboard instead. Carefully I removed the entire keyboard panel as not to damaged the keyboard & touchpad ribbon cables.

Flipping over the keyboard panel after its been removed. Nothing much here but just to shows you how it looks like.

The below picture is the mainboard revealed, just like normal the HDD, battery and other stuffs is visible, but I can't seems to find the RAM's slot(s). Now it hits me again, the RAM slot(s) might be underneath the mainboard and just to be sure I need to remove the mainboard.... ugghhh !! This have disassembly tasks have become from normal to extreme. 

There are 6 screws to remove the battery, be careful on the connectors as its directly connected to the mainboard thus you need to tilt it up abit before sliding out.

How it looks after removing the battery.

Now to remove the HDD, you need to first disconnect the ribbon cable then only remove the 4 screws.

This is how it looks like after removing the HDD.

Before removing the mainboard, you will need to first disconnect all those ribbon cables (as shown below).

Now its time to remove the screws, location as show below. Take note that there's CMOS battery attached to the mainboard and need a little bit of prying on the battery as its glued to the case.

After removing the mainboard, this is how it looks like.

This is the mainboard's view.

Now flip it over, you now able to see the RAM's slots. There are 2 DIMMs available.

Upon checking the RAM's specification, its a DDR4-2400 type. Now I have compared it with HP's PartSurfer website (just for double confirmation). It shows SPS-MEM 4GB 2133MHz 1.2v DDR4 SHARED (P/N : 820569-005).

Sadly upon checking with Kingston & Transcend website, they no longer supports or manufacturer RAM upgrade for this model. Hence I will need to look for an almost similar specifications but un-tested for this notebook thus I'm also not sure of the stability of it.

I've yet to check with HP for the parts availability but I'm doubtful they will have it too. Its kinda sucks for this model to have 2 DIMMs slots yet we need to remove almost everything just for a RAM upgrade.

I still like those models where its just as simple as removing part of the bottom cover to reveal on the RAM or HDD parts. Well I think those days are gone now for sure.

!!! HAPPY COMPUTING !!!