Asus Vivobook X515E RAM and SSD upgrade

Asus Vivobook X515EA-BQ371TS is lovely mid-range laptop with many great features: Bright 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) led screen, lightweight, fast to boot and operate. Defiantly a budget laptop but with many great upgrade options which is pleasant surprise because many new laptops are not upgradable, all that means that You are able to get additional usage years out of your machine, considering that new Windows editions are getting heavier on RAM, SSD and CPU and of course if you are planning to use this laptop for some photo editing or even MS Office then you would definitely need more RAM etc.

How to open Asus Vivobook X515E

To open Asus Vivobook you will need standard Phillips screwdriver and bit of patience.

Remove all the screws from the back panel, see image below:

NOTE: There's a 3 different length screws on this back panel so keep them organized and remember where they came out of!

Once screws are removed, lift back panel using something made out of plastic, don't recommend using knife or anything made out of metal because you can easily damage laptop or your fingers. See video how to remove back panel.

Upgrade options for Asus Vivobook X515EA

As you see there's a several upgrade options for this laptop:

• One DDR4 RAM upgrade slot, see note below
• M.2 nVME SSD slot, currently 128GB fitted
• 2.5 Hard Drive bay, requires additional ribbon

NOTE: 4GB DDR4 ram is soldered to the motherboard so additionally you can install: 4GB / 8GB / 16GB ram stick to this laptop.

How to install additional RAM to Asus Vivobook X515

As mentioned earlier there's a 4GB DDR4 ram already soldered to the MB, im going to install additional 4GB ram stick, before removing any of the components from the motherboard i do recommend  disconnect battery cable:

Once battery is disconnected from motherboard you can proceed with RAM and SSD upgrade, image below shows you ram im going to fit into this laptop:

4GB DDR4 1Rx16 PC4-2400T-SC0-11 / HMA851S6AFR6N-UH N0 AC 1736, in total this Vivobook will have 8GB RAM after upgrade.

Upgrading Asus Vivobook m.2 nVME SSD

Follow steps above to disconnect battery if you have not done it yet. To remove SSD drive you will have to remove 1 screw holding ssd in the place, see image below:

When screw removed, gently remove SSD from its bay and you are ready to fit new and possibly faster m.2 nVME solid state drive.

See image below of the new SSD (Kingston A2000 250GB) to be installed:

Final look after upgrading Asus Vivobook X515EA-BQ371TS

Don't forget to connect battery cable back to the motherboard or you will have to open laptop again:), believe it or not but happened to me several times.

Asus Vivobook X515 specs:

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i3-1115G4 Processor
• RAM: 8GB DDR4
• SSD: m.2 nVME Kingston A2000 250GB
• Screen: 15.6" Full HD Led 1920x1080
• 1 x Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 / 1 x Type-C / 2 x Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64-bit with Office 2021
• Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics
• Wireless Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n Dual Band with Bluetooth

NOTE: After installing new SSD you will need to install Windows again and it's not as straight forward as normal Windows installation.

Problem: Windows will not be able to detect SSD during installation so You will need to follow tutorial  below to fix this issue.

Fix drive not found during Windows 10 or Windows 11 installation:

Click Here