A little while back, I revived my old, dead laptop by putting Linux on it. I went so far as reinstalling Windows completely back in the day and never got it to load outside of safemode. No idea why it now works fine (as fine as a laptop from 2011 can work) with Linux, but it does. In my excitement for having a working laptop again I've decided to start upgrading it as much as I can. On this page, I'll try to document the upgrade process, explaining what I upgrade and how I do it. In my quest to upgrade it so far, I've found my way to many dead ends on various forums and quora posts where people were convinced of certain impossibilities or failed to get a response at all. For others seeking answers like me, I'd like to provide as comprehensive of a guide for each of these upgrades as I can.
Note: This page documents my work with my Lenovo ideapad Z570 only! Much of what you find in here may apply or can be adapted to apply to other laptops, Lenovo in particular, however there are always risks involved in upgrading a computer, particularly when upgrading outside of its factory recommendations as I've done here. Please use caution and if you have any doubts when modifying your own laptop, ask around the web for advice.
Operating System and Hardware Specifications
The first thing I did when starting this was to install Linux Mint on it. I've been wanting to give Linux a try for quite a long time now and I'd heard that Linux compatibility has come a long way in recent years, especially with the Steam Deck running a version of Linux. A mutual on tumblr suggested I give Linux Mint a try since it's designed very similar to Windows and thus is an easy transition, so I took that advice. I wanted to try it by running it off of a USB drive at first to see if that worked for me, but unfortunately I didn't find This Thread explaining a bug in the Ubuntu installer with UEFI systems, so I failed to get it to work. As I still wanted to try Linux and nothing seemed to be working, I got the idea to see what would happen if I tried to install it on my old laptop from 2011 that I thought was long-dead. I naturally had tried everything within typical Windows troubleshooting to get that laptop working again back when I first had problems with it, going so far as to wipe the HDD and reinstall Win10 to no avail, but it would still only boot in Safe Mode. With all of the old important files already transferred off and wiped, I knew it wouldn't hurt anything to try to install Linux. Lo and behold, I installed Mint from a very slow installation DVD (I was out of blank USBs) and it launched the first time. It didn't run very well, though that's probably to be expected from a low-end "gaming" laptop from 2011.
From the factory it came with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, a second generation Intel Core i5 (Sandy Bridge) processor, an NVIDIA GF119M [GeForce GT 520M] GPU, Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics, and an Intel Wireless-N 1000 wifi adapter, and a 750GB HDD (Western Digital WD7500BPVT-24HXZT1). For now, these are all the parts I feel most important to replace if possible for the time being, as I don't think there's much if any improvement to be made elsewhere.
Disassembly Tutorial
Below is a youtube video showcasing the disassembly of this laptop that I used as a reference when initially taking it apart. At a later date, I may edit this with photos of my own disassembly of my own laptop in the event this video is ever removed or the link ever breaks due to changes in YouTube's design.
Be very careful unscrewing the bottom plate as the screws are unfortunately quite soft and prone to stripping. I ended up having to use a screwdriver with a particularly sharp point that was able to dig into the screw a little bit. Do your best to avoid screwing and unscrewing this as well and be sure to only partially reattach it (avoiding any problem screws especially) when testing it after upgrades, only fully reattaching and securing the plate when you're confident the upgrade works as intended. This will preserve the lifespan of your laptop's screws.
Upgrading the WLAN (WiFi) Adapter
My first goal was to replace the WLAN adapter. The Wireless-N 1000 was exceedingly limited, only supporting 2.4GHz connections and no bluetooth capability, not to mention the 13 year age of this individual adapter. Trying to just install Steam was unbearably slow over a wifi connection, taking over an hour, maybe more, to install and update. I spent a while looking into better WLAN adapters, having never actually installed one since I primarily use a desktop with a wired connection. I found several posts that indicated the possibility of replacing the original Wireless-N 1000 with a Wireless-AC 7260 (screenshot of listing below for posterity). This adapter has the same half mini PCIe form factor of the Wireless-N 1000, meaning as far as physical compatibility it should work fine. As for its capabilities, the Wireless-AC 7260 is capable of connecting to 5.0GHz wifi routers (as well as 2.4GHz) and can connect to bluetooth devices. After seeing this come up several times when looking for alternatives to the Wireless-N 1000, I decided to give it a shot and ordered one from Amazon.
Initially, the seller I ordered this WLAN adapter from sent me a Wireless-N 7260, which notably does not feature 5.0GHz capabilities, though it does include bluetooth. A new card is also still generally better than a 13 year old card. After contacting the seller, I was able to get a refund (plus an extra $10 in compensation for sending the wrong card). I then chose to buy one from a different listing and finally received my coveted Wireless-AC 7260. Attempting to actually swap the cards out, however, yielded an unfortunate road block. A whitelist in the BIOS.
Unforunately, Lenovo likes (or at least used to like) to put whitelists in the BIOS of their laptops restricting which parts you can replace. The WLAN adapter is one of those parts. I spent a very long time attempting to figure out how to modify the BIOS safely and it seemed like there was no easy way to do it. As I am very much not comfortable with modifying the BIOS directly, I almost thought it would be hopeless and I'd wasted my money on a new adapter. Fortunately I found this thread from bios-mods.com. The thread is pretty old and many links are dead, however the most important link is still available: a collection of general BIOS mods for various different BIOS. To find the mod that will remove the whitelist, I went to the whitelist directory and searched for the one matching my particular BIOS and downloaded the whitelist removal mod for both my exiting BIOS version as well as the one for the final updated version of the BIOS. [NOTE: I WILL UPDATE THIS AT A LATER TIME WITH DETAILS ON FINDING OUT THE RELEVANT INFO ON YOUR BIOS. UNTIL THEN, YOU WILL NEED TO SEARCH FOR IT YOURSELF.]
WARNING: MODIFYING YOUR BIOS CAN BRICK YOUR PC IF DONE INCORRECTLY! PROCEED WITH CAUTION, BACKUP ANY IMPORTANT FILES, AND ASK AROUND THE WEB FOR HELP IF YOU AREN'T CONFIDENT IN YOUR ABILITY OR COMFORTABLE WITH THE RISK!
Downloading the BIOS mod was one thing, but actually using it was a totally different matter. The BIOS mod is a .exe file which notably cannot run natively in Linux. I saw various suggestions to create a DOS boot drive with the modded file in it, which ultimately felt rather complicated especially given how overwhelmed I already was. A different solution I came across was the idea of using Hiren's Boot CD, an old diagnostic and maintenance tool that includes a simplified version of Windows XP which is more than capable of running the required .exe file. (Please note that there is a new version of Hiren's Boot CD inspired by the outdated original that includes a simplified version of Windows 11 instead of Windows XP. I don't know if it works, I haven't tried it.) I burned Hiren's Boot CD to a physical CD (you should be able to also put it on a USB drive) and restarted the laptop, pressing F12 (specific key varries between computer models) as it started up to enter the boot selection menu where I chose to boot from CD. I booted into Mini XP and first attempted to run a BIOS update I had also downloaded to attempt to update my BIOS to the latest version, however that didn't work for some reason, so I just ran the mod for the version of the BIOS I had at the time. Running the mod .exe, I had to stick with all default settings as attempting to modify anything I was doing prevented it from running. In theory, the .exe is supposed to create a backup of your BIOS to use for recovery, though the process of recovering a broken BIOS is complicated and I have no experience to advise on this task. If you are following this guide, I highly recommend tripple checking to make sure that you are using the correct mod file before making any attempts. If you break it, you're on your own in figuring out how to fix it, if it's even possible.
For me, this ended up going very smoothly. It took the better part of a day to figure it all out and find the confidence to actually try it, but in the end it all turned out okay. I turned off the laptop, swapped the WLAN cards, and it booted up normally with full access to 5.0GHz networks and bluetooth capabilities. Or, to be completely accurate to my order of events, I installed the incorrect Wireless-N 7260, it worked with bluetooth support as well, and that's how I discoverd I'd been sent the wrong adapter which I hadn't even thought to check on the label beforehand. Fortunately, when the correct Wireless-AC 7260 arrived, the whitelist had already been removed previously and it was as simple as just swapping the cards and starting it up with full 5.0GHz and bluetooth capabilities. Wireless internet speeds are significantly better and Steam downloads at fairly normal speeds for the internet in my home.
Upgrading the Memory (RAM)
[RAM HAS ALREADY BEEN UPGRADED, DETAILED INFO TO BE ADDED AT A LATER TIME] One thing to note in case anyone ends up here before I edit this: The maximum amount of RAM usable with otherwise stock hardware is 16GB of DDR3. This is a limitation of the processor.
Upgrading the Processor (CPU)
This is one of the next things I'm looking into upgrading as a second generation i5 processor is miserable to use. All I know currently is that the CPU must use Sandy Bridge microarchitecture or possibly the subsequent generation which might be compatible with Sandy Bridge, limiting upgrades to only a few generations of Intel processors, as well as the fact that the CPU is also on a whitelist. I'm not sure if the above guide for removing the whitelist for upgrading WLAN adapters also removes the whitelist on CPUs.
Upgrading the HDD (Hard Drive/Storage Space)
I have yet to look too deeply into this, though it appears to be a fairly simple, albeit pricey, task to swap the existing 750GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive) with a 1TB SSD (Solid State Drive). Links to be added later and discussion to follow the upgrade.
Upgrading the Graphics Card (GPU)
This one in particular scares the hell out of me. The GPU is unfortunately soldered into the board. If it's possible to replace, it will require desoldering and resoldering, a very uncomfy task. Unfortunately, I feel like I ought to anyways since a recent kernel update in my Linux distro appears to no longer support the third-party drivers for the existing GPU so my laptop currently only runs on integrated graphics. Soon I'll be asking around about whether it's possible to get those drivers working anyway, but that's a discussion for later.
Miscellaneous Upgrades
I've replaced the battery as the old one doesn't hold a charge for very long anymore (it never held a charge for very long, but it's much worse now). The replacement battery has issues to be discussed later. Links to be added later.
