How to Install a solid state drive (SSD) in an ASUS Zenbook UX32VD-DB71 

So I got the single Corsair Vengeance 8gb 1600MHz ram installed and it does run at 1600MHz, very fast (now 10GB total). Also installed OCZ's Vertex 3 LP (7mm) 240GB SSD and it goes straight in without the need for any modification. Re-installed OS, tuned it up a bit, deleted all the ASUS junk and installed all the automatic self-maintenance programs. This thing is good to go, thx again for the awesome instruction video!!

Nice. Very well done. Thanks for the detailed tutorial. I'm most likely going to pull the trigger on a UX32VD-DB71 next week.

I own this machine, and it really isn't as bad as people say it is. it is truly the result of people nitpicking

Good point, when I did the video I misread NewEgg's measurements of the Patriot drive and though it was less then 7mm. However, it turned out to be 9.3mm. So it seems like 7mm drive would in fact fit unmodified.

Hey guys, I just installed a crucial m4 and I think it was much easier than using an OCZ. By taking apart the M4 you can make it into 7mm by borrowing some screws from the 512gb hard drive and using the original M4 cover. You still have to void your warranty though. Thanks for the video.

Thanks a lot for this guide, was more or less what made me get this laptop! :) I would however suggest A Intel SSD 5xx series, they only require you to remove 4 screws and a plastic frame, no drilling needed, so the warranty is still intact.

@Jaminbird: Thanks for the video! Both this and the unboxing videos were very helpful. Just a quick question. Did you have any problems with BIOS recognizing the drivers for the SSD? I've heard that the OCZ Agility Drives have had BSOD issues. Did you have any issues with that?

Good detailed instructions and information. Were you grounded when you did this? And how did you put back or installed windows on your SSD? Ignore this question if you use linux...

Thanks you very much ! Thanks to you, my Zenbook have a SSD vertex 4. Very nice video dude ;-)

yes it just has one slot for memory that can be changed. you can put 8gb in but the 1600 ram might go to 1333 but i think its possible to change that back up to 1600

Officially, you need a T5 torx screwdriver, although as I explained in the video I was luckily able to use an eyeglass sized flat head screwdriver I had laying around which fit perfectly into the Torx head from top to bottom.

The Samsung 830 is 7mm thick and is designed to sit inside ultrabooks and super thin notebooks. The OCZ Agility is 9mm thick.

You can also get a Samsung 830 SSD that are on sale. They come Slimmer so the warranty doesn't have to be voided. I did similar mods on an acer aspire S3

Hey Man, thanks for this great tut. is very useful!

I am still running the original BIOS that shipped with the laptop (there's an upgrade available) and the BIOS recognized the Agility without any problem

Thank you so much for your video. I am just wondering about what kind of interface that your SSD does have. Is that SATAIII ?

Can you please add a video of the computer being on? How is light bleeding issue?

First of all, ux31's ssd is slow compared to what you can get out there. Ux32vd fixes a lot of the little issues that ux31 had, and it also has a dedicated 620M graphic chip on top of the onboard. I think overall ux32vd is definitely worth it. Only advantage I'd give to ux31 is that its a few mm thinner. Btw, ux32vd's Ram and SSD replacement is really easy as long as you take you're time and be careful. OCZ Vertex III's low profile 7mm SSD will fit without any modification.

I set this computer up for a friend. When you first turn it on, you'll need to find this ASUS recovery program and just burn the iso file to dvds, its very simple to use and you'll need 4 blank dvd discs if I remember correctly. External 8x dvd burner is only $30 bucks, so just get one.

Its on the chipset. I think if you get the 7mm vertex III SSD or better, that mssd cache is only gonna slow you down.

ATTENTION!!! His statement about the cover not getting off because of the adhesive stripes does NOT apply to 15" models of the zenbook! There ARE two additional screws under the black rubber parts which also have to be removed. I nearly broke the cover because of that..

In this case, I'll have to see the computer in person to figure it out. If you have another computer or an external 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure, you'll be able to test the SSD as an external drive to see if its faulty. Go ahead and do that first. You can buy the 2.5" SATA external enclosure for 9.5mm/7mm HDD on ebay.

Is it possible to do SSD Upgrade for Model UX32VD-DS72? According to spec this has internal two 128 SSD

Can you upgrade the msata onboard cache to a 250gb msta drive?

That was very useful, thanks!

What part of this modification voids your warranty? Does it have any void-if-seal-is-broken stickers inside? If not, I guess warranty can be validated again by changing the storage back, right?

I used, and I think it might be better, asus backtracker which is included on the laptop. It makes a recovery usb for you. Put in your new SSD and use the USB. Make sure you have set your BIOS to boot on USB which there are other guides for. After that just use the new Windows 8 reinstall feature to get a fresh install without any bloatware you don't want. Or just be happy with the factory restore.

Finally after playing around with the BIOS settings, I managed to unlock the USB Boot option, as it is locked by the BIOS BOOT securty lock.... Now I can try to boot with USB for installing windows but I get an error of having an image in the 24 GB SSD drive on board...how do I disable that...or disable the onboard SSD so I can install windows and my laptop gets back to normal

i did the same thing on my own computer. i tried using asus's own disk drive backup program to create the 4 disks, plugged in my new ssd (corsair neutron gtx 7mm), booted from the disks in the external dvd burner, and loaded all the files/went through the disks. when it finished and was attempting to finish the partition and everything in the asus command prompt, i got the blue screen of death. repeated and got the death screen again. any suggestions/ am i doing anything wrong?

after you changed the HDD for a SDD you of course had to reinstall Windows do you really have to download and install the the drivers (for e.g. the touchpad) one by one from the asus website or is there an easier way? also: is it possible, if you transfer all your data with a program like acronis, that you can just go on using your current installation?

i add and ocz ssd into my zernbook today . did you note a better battery life or not ?

sorry if I misunderstood it: if you use the a patriot drive you can get around opening up the SSD?

Hello Benjamin Bjurstrom, Thank you very much for the video, I have asus S400CA and I have upgraded the Harddrive to 1 TB, But I cant boot up to USB now and cant install Windows 8 on it. What is the Solution. Also the onboard 24 GB SSD was divided in to two parts 6 GB was dedicated windows cache and rest was empty...can I dedicate the entire other partition to windows cache...Thanks...Mukul

Could you install a SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD??? And do you half to re download windows 7?

What about the rams? How many slots does ux32 have? If its one, can you run a single 8gb @ 1600?

Very nice guide! You definitely used the SSD case backwards, that is why you had to bend it. Still a great video though!

Hi, did you use a USB stick to reinstall windows since it doesn't have a dvd rom? where can I download windows from?

I have tried all the BIOS settings for Asus S44CA but there is no option to USB boot...also the 24GB is onboard of motherboard.

how is the battery life since you added an ss drive?, how many hours added

now aday which sdd model will fit UX32DV?

On another youtube video, it shows the Samsung 830 fit perfectly without drilling. Anyone know why?

the video is nice but unnececary work and voiding the warranty if you get a fitting 7 mm ssd from the start

do you have to reinstall windows 7 via a restore disk/ usb

can the 24/32 gig cache-drive also be removed?

@jaminbird Is the OS loaded on the 32 gig cache?

what kind of drivers would i have to install after i install my ssd?

what screwdriver type/size do i need to remove the back cover?

i am also going to replace the hhd with a new ssd, but what happeneds with the inbuilt 32GB ssd? also i am planning on putting linux onto it.

Just a side note, you can purchase a 7mm SSD to avoid taking apart the SSD and possibly voiding the warranty.

So doing this frustrated the crap out of me, mainly because I lacked some info from the video, so here is a quick highlight of what I did: 1. Unscrew all bottom screws, like said in the video there are two wads of glue at the top, slowly nudge the bottom cover off. 2. Unscrew all screws around the battery (huge black thing with speakers glue to it). 3. Unplug the tiny speaker cables. 4. (This is where it where I had issues) Lift up the battery at an angle, the cable should stretch a bit, now do soft tugs upwards from it to lurch it off. 5. Unscrew the 4 hard drive case screws. 6. Pull the hard drive away from the connectors. 7. Screw the case off the hard drive(really only two rails). 8. Do everything in reverse to put it back together. So the tricky part now is installing windows again, easiest way is to get an ISO of windows 7 or 8 and use this: www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool to make a bootable usb. But now the damn usb won't boot, cos that stuff was made for Windows 7, which is legacy at this point, so what you need to do is change a settings in your bios. Under the boot tab, you need to enable Launch CSM, which will allow you to use "legacy" boot code. Once you are done installing, remember to restart your pc, press f2 to enter the BIOS and disable CSM and re-enable Fast Boot. What does fast boot do? Makes sure your pc will boot in like 5-6 seconds. Hope this helps. :)

7mm is exactly the same size as the HDD that ux32vd comes with, I had them compared side by side. I haven't seen 9mm SSDs but I wouldn't recommend because the spaces are limited.

you need to use precision screw drivers the ones you use on small electronics.

I nearly got this laptop. What held me back was the lack of a solid state drive and touch screen. I already have a desktop for max performance and I wanted I lightweight one I could take to uni. The problem is to buy this model with the touch screen option and to buy a solid state drive somewhere else I would have to pay $2000 (at the time). I bought the touch screen model without a graphics card instead. It cost $900 and was defiantly worth it. But for $100 more I could have gotten the lower end Macbook pro with a graphics card. Engineering of course demands I use windows however.

People seriously need to check out the Gigabyte U2442N Ultrabook. My one has a GT640M, 1TB HDD AND 128GB SSD.

Very Very Good !!!! Alessio SOS Computer Roma

You probably need to change your BIOS settings so that the computer tries to boot off the USB instead of your blank hard drive. On my laptop to get into the BIOS you press delete immediately after powering on the machine. Different computers use a different keystrokes so do a google if that doesn't work.

link herramientas for open ssd

How is the SSD connected? Will it actually run in full 500 mb/s?

ok thanks im thinking of picking up one soon for school

My understanding is that it's soldered in.

There is also Torx 4

You cannot upgrade the UX31a because of its unibody design

No, the OS comes loaded on the 500gb drive.

I installed the Transcend SSD720 256gb in my UX32VD, but it doesn't load it , getting a black screen when I turn the laptop on ... What is wrong? (tryed to clone the original HD) also I tryed the Transcend ssd in my acer aspire laptop and it works fine , installed windows 7 on it , installed back in UX32VD and still black screen...

It's beyond me there isn't more 7mm SSD drives out there. There would be a huge marked for them plus there's nothing on the PCB actually using the extra 2 mm of space. Also fitting a 7 mm drive in a bay accepting 9 mm drives is usually no deal at and I've seen no machines requiring a spacer on order to do so. To my knowledge many of the Intel drives are actually 7mm high with an attached spacer. Remove the spacer and fit some shorter screws. How also voids warranty even no sticker and reversable

Hi, by any change do you know how to reset the bios from the motherboard?... someone put a bios password on mine and i cant reset it =/

ARAA91: this is because no operating system such as windows is installed on the sad yet. apply a windows 7 .ISO image on a USB stick, boot from it and install windows

Why do people buy 9mm SSD instead of 7mm to put in this laptop ? The Samsung 830 is 7mm... You will maybe pay a little more but you don't void your warranty.

OR u can get a samsung 820 low profile hd and just plug it ^^

Never heard it called Ass-Use!

oh, bugger, but thanks anyway!

assoos.

Don't listen to this guy, find another tutorial