Pics inside the GL702VM

[larry0071]

I took the back cover off to look at the board as I plan to swap out to a 512 GB M.2 drive and a 512GB SSD drive in place of the factory 128GB SSD/1TB HD.

The cover has 10 address that are all exposed (nothing hidden under a warranty seal sticker), then use a credit card to work into the slot and start popping the small and delicate plastic hook latches. Ones these are gently released, the back cover is free.

Inside you see 2x 8GB RAM chips, 1x old school 7200 RPM hard drive and the 128GB solid state drive.

So, nothing tricky or unusual.

The 512GB M.2 that I'm looking at is here:
Samsung 950 PRO Series - 512GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V5P512BW) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01639694M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ujCAybNDNM2Q7

And the 512GB SSD is located here:
Samsung 850 PRO - 512GB - 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-7KE512BW) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LF10KTO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_AmCAybKZDFG3R

Also need will be the USB 3 to SATA adapter:
Anker USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter Converter Cable for 2.5-inch Hard Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD), Supports UASP SATA I II III [Power Adapter Not Included] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014OSN2VW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_LnCAyb3S916ZV

So this spring I'll collect the parts and migrate the GL702 into a set of overall faster drives. And with the USB 3.0 I'll have fast access to an external drive for video production/storage.



















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[U2Desire]

According to http://edgeup.asus.com/2016/09/21/hands-rog-strix-gl702-gaming-laptop-pascal-goes-thinner-lighter/ the 16GB is suppose to be 1 sodimm leaving 1 free for expansion. I hope that is the case with the one I ordered. I plan to max out the ram after CC is paid off.

[larry0071]

I had read that as well, but it's not what I'm seeing.

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[TobyG]

My guess is you have the same GL702VM version I have, which I bought from Best Buy. It comes with 12GB of RAM, 1 8GB and 1 4GB stick.

If you buy the model with 16GB I believe it does come with 1 DIMM.

Also you need to be careful taking the bottom cover off. I snapped quite a few of the clips on mine. Although I don't know how useful they are, since the screws seem to hold everything together just fine.

[larry0071]

TobyG wrote:
My guess is you have the same GL702VM version I have, which I bought from Best Buy. It comes with 12GB of RAM, 1 8GB and 1 4GB stick.

If you buy the model with 16GB I believe it does come with 1 DIMM.

Also you need to be careful taking the bottom cover off. I snapped quite a few of the clips on mine. Although I don't know how useful they are, since the screws seem to hold everything together just fine.

Correct, mine is from Best Buy. I verified on the link from the email I got after ordering it, and you are correct on the 12 GB RAM.

I did break 1 clip, and I was trying to finesse it off. Did you ever develop a better procedure to remove the rear cover, or is the clip issue something that can not really be avoided?

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[Appuru]

There's already been an upgrade guide around showing all the important pieces https://rog.asus.com/articles/guides/upgrade-guide-rog-strix-gl702/

Also I bought the 16gb Version where there's only one slot taken.
When opening the bottom cover I also did break quite a few of the clips, but as already been said: the screws hold it tightly enough for them to be almost useless ^^.

[TobyG]

larry0071 wrote:
Correct, mine is from Best Buy. I verified on the link from the email I got after ordering it, and you are correct on the 12 GB RAM.

I did break 1 clip, and I was trying to finesse it off. Did you ever develop a better procedure to remove the rear cover, or is the clip issue something that can not really be avoided?

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This may not help anyone, or it may, but here is what I wrote myself to remind myself the best way to open it. Seems like I'm opening it every other day for some reason or another (switching hard drives, upgrading ram, working on trying to figure out fan control using Notebook Fan Control, etc)

On the sides, while the notebook is upside down (bottom up) put a card in the sides and pry the card up so the bottom of the laptop goes in towards the center and the top pushes out.
On the front and back, with the notebook upside down (bottom up) put a card in between the top and bottom (bottom is up) and pry the card down so you're pulling outward on the bottom panel and pushing the top towards the center (inward).


Basically the sides and front/back are different. You have to pry differently. If you pry wrong, you put more pressure on the clips and they will snap. I'm not terribly worried but I'd like to try to not break more going forward. I already broke about 6 or 7 of them unfortunately. But with the screws in (who wouldn't put the screws in?) it's perfectly solid.

Slightly OT but I've found in order to get good performance out of this notebook I have to manually crank the fans to full speed and undervolt the CPU. I was playing Watch Dogs 2 and getting huge stuttering without undervolting. And without increasing the fan speed to max I was getting some GPU throttling. All of this has been discussed in other threads too.