Ok so it’s not really retro, but my three+ year old work Asus ROG Strix GL703 Scar is due a little TLC. I already put Windows 11 on it over the Christmas holidays, but I wanted to max out its memory and improve on the slow hybrid hard drive it has. Fortunately, this particular Asus laptop upgrade is particularly easy to achieve.
The RAM for this laptop comes in the form of two DDR4 SODIMMS, in two slots. There’s one 8GB SODIMM already fitted, and an empty slot for one more, giving the maximum system configuration of 32GB. An access panel on the underside can be opened by removing one small Philips head screw, and popping the clips. Then it’s simply a matter of inserting the memory module (it’s keyed, so it can’t go in the wrong way round), and pressing it down. Only one SODIMM can be accessed this way; to access the other will require removing the entire back cover.
The ASUS has two internal drives. The first is an NVmE SSD (1TB in my case), and the second is a hybrid drive (basically a regular mechanical HDD with a small SSD bolted to the front as a kind of cache. This is supposed to make it faster, but in practice, not so much. Mine is also 1TB. Both these drives are accessible from within the quick access panel.
I’m going to leave the NVmE drive as is: it’s plenty big and fast enough for me, so I don’t see the need to replace it. The HDD has a regular 2.5″ SATA form factor. There are four screws holding it in, and four more holding the drive in its little caddy. Unscrew, swap, put back Job done.
That was the fast part. I already spent an entire day creating a backup of the drive on an external USB. Restoring that to the new drive is going to be much quicker, but it’ll still take a couple of hours. Just time to make a coffee and watch a movie…