User:Barbs/SSD Maintenance & Dual Booting: Difference between revisions
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Prying open the laptop felt pretty scary. After unscrewing everything I had to pry open like 10 latches, for which I didn’t have the proper tools. A card was too thick so in the end I used a guitar pick which did the job! | Prying open the laptop felt pretty scary. After unscrewing everything I had to pry open like 10 latches, for which I didn’t have the proper tools. A card was too thick so in the end I used a guitar pick which did the job! | ||
[[File:Dust free fans!.jpg|thumb|Before (left) & after (right) of making my laptop fans dust-free]] | [[File:Dust free fans!.jpg|thumb|Before (left) & after (right) of making my laptop fans dust-free]] | ||
Once inside the first thing I did was unplug the battery. I didn’t have the tools the ifixit article describes and it took some force to wiggle it out of the socket, so I used a Nintendo 3DS stylus as a tool which sufficed perfectly! | Once inside the first thing I did was '''unplug the battery'''. I didn’t have the tools the ifixit article describes and it took some force to wiggle it out of the socket, so I used a Nintendo 3DS stylus as a tool which sufficed perfectly! | ||
I noticed she was sooooo dusty! I used a makeup brush to clean away all the dust. The fans were completely clogged up by dust, and I hope cleaning them out will help the '''overheating issue''' I also wanted to fix. This process was super satisfying and relaxing. | I noticed she was sooooo dusty! I used a makeup brush to '''clean away all the dust'''. The fans were completely clogged up by dust, and I hope cleaning them out will help the '''overheating issue''' I also wanted to fix. This process was super satisfying and relaxing. | ||
Next it was time to swap the SSD’s! This process was fairly straightforward. Unscrew the old one, take it out, place the new one and screw it back in. I also replaced the original heatpad with a new one that came with my external ssd enclosure. | Next it was time to '''swap the SSD’s'''! This process was fairly straightforward. Unscrew the old one, take it out, place the new one and screw it back in. I also replaced the original heatpad with a new one that came with my external ssd enclosure. | ||
After that I closed | After that I plugged in the battery again, closed the laptop back up, tested if it would still power on (it did!), before screwing back on all the screws! | ||
Upon booting into Windows, everything looked the exact same as I left it on the previous SSD, but with double the storage! I made sure to '''update the SSD's drivers''' too. | |||
==Dualbooting Windows & Linux== | ==Dualbooting Windows & Linux== | ||
Revision as of 12:34, 15 February 2026
Welcome to my liveblog on taking care of my 5,5 year old laptop!!
I own a Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 which I bought in 2020 and somehow still runs really well. For the past few months I've been thinking about running some maintenance on her to make her last even longer. Things I want to do:
- Install a new 1 TB SSD. My current one is 500GB, which is too little space for me.
- Dual boot Linux next to Windows. Sadly I can't let go of Windows completely as I need it for drawing software, but I would really love to switch to Linux for all other work I do!
- If all goes well, repurpose the original SSD into additional storage, maybe one that I can access through both OS’es?
- Fix overheating problems. Sometimes when I game my graphics card overheats I think ? and everything starts lagging. So I want to see if I can clean her insides and check if the cooling paste needs replacing.
Upgrading the SSD
Cloning the original SSD to a larger new one
To do this I'm using:
- My laptop with the old SSD still inside
- The new SSD
- An M.2 SSD enclosure so I can connect the new SSD externally using USB-C
- The trial version of Macrium Reflext X Home
First I installed the new SSD inside of the external enclosure. It took me a while to figure out how to do it as I had never handled an SSD before, but watching a video helped me realize I had to press the SSD into the socket from an angle ??? which felt so wrong and scary who thought this was a good idea. I then connected the enclosure to my laptop through a USB-C cable and launched Macrium.
From here on out I'm following this tutorial specifically.
Before starting the cloning process in Macrium (following the tutorial's instructions), one of the comments suggested changing the advanced settings from making an "intelligent copy" to a "forensic copy", which makes sure it will clone every single thing stored on the source SSD instead of picking and choosing things. I think. It sounds better anyways.
Opening up my laptop for the first time!
Shoutout to this iFixIt article which details exactly what I need to do for my specific laptop model! I recommend searching for the maintenance manual of your laptop as well.
Prying open the laptop felt pretty scary. After unscrewing everything I had to pry open like 10 latches, for which I didn’t have the proper tools. A card was too thick so in the end I used a guitar pick which did the job!
Once inside the first thing I did was unplug the battery. I didn’t have the tools the ifixit article describes and it took some force to wiggle it out of the socket, so I used a Nintendo 3DS stylus as a tool which sufficed perfectly!
I noticed she was sooooo dusty! I used a makeup brush to clean away all the dust. The fans were completely clogged up by dust, and I hope cleaning them out will help the overheating issue I also wanted to fix. This process was super satisfying and relaxing.
Next it was time to swap the SSD’s! This process was fairly straightforward. Unscrew the old one, take it out, place the new one and screw it back in. I also replaced the original heatpad with a new one that came with my external ssd enclosure.
After that I plugged in the battery again, closed the laptop back up, tested if it would still power on (it did!), before screwing back on all the screws!
Upon booting into Windows, everything looked the exact same as I left it on the previous SSD, but with double the storage! I made sure to update the SSD's drivers too.
Dualbooting Windows & Linux
After pondering this for a while and also talking with Tommi, I decided on Fedora KDE as my distro.
For this section I mainly referenced tutorial. I had previously done a clean install of Linux Mint on an old laptop, so a lot of the installation steps were already familiar to me. The only thing I had to figure out was the dual booting, which I was quite nervous about as I’d heard some horror story gossips around the studio.