For the laptop I'm taking apart, the back panel holds easily accessible components. In this video, I review them. 

(There's way more hardware deeper inside, but we'll get to them in a later section). 

There's two types of laptops - ones that need to be accessed through the keyboard, and ones that can be accessed from the back. 

In this video, we take a look at a laptop that exposes more hardware behind the back panel. 

Fairly simple concept - removing dust. 

I go over a simple demonstration of removing dust particles. 

We remove the storage device. In this case, a 1TB HDD

I swap out the 1 TB HDD with a 256 MB SSD. 

All motherboards are going to be different. Some may offer expansion while others don't. 

Some allow an extra RAM chip. 

Some hold only 1 slot but allow you to simply upgrade the chip speed.

Some are already running the max RAM possible. 

I re-install the RAM chip I removed in the previous video. 

The first step to getting to the motherboard (in my laptop) is removing the keyboard. 

Now that the keyboard is off, I can start removing more parts of the case. 

Here, we remove the motherboard from the chassis of the case. 

REMINDER - Always have a static prevention plan! 

Anti-static gloves are perfect, but there are alternatives; 

- Stay in constant contact with metal (like with your feet)

- Wear an anti-static wristband (or around your ankles)

Here I take apart the heatsink so we can clean the old thermal paste that covers both the CPU and the heatsink. 

In this video I re-apply the surfaces of the heatsink and CPU with fresh thermal paste. 

Thermal paste is available on amazon. 

Now that we're finished with the CPU / heatsink, the motherboard goes back into the chassis. 

The keyboard and the rest of the case are put back together. 

A few tips for increasing laptop lifespan and optimizing for performance.