Pretty sure Satan himself crawled out from the depths of hell to design plastic tabs and went back down again. Literally the worst part of taking apart any device with a plastic cover.
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that you made this video. I would never have thought of a guitar pick, and I completely missed that the front edge was actually wrapping around. I’d read how much of a struggle people had with opening this up, and I really didn’t want to be one of them. It was still a bit of a pain, but not the struggle it would have been. So, thank you. RIP my last guitar pick. You sacrificed yourself to a noble cause. 😆
Ryan, thank you so much for the video, it was immensely helpful! I just got my GP66 2 days ago (i7-11800H w/ RTX 3080 140w) and I was dreading opening it, but the included 1tb SSD just wasn't going to be enough capacity for me. I watched your video and another by EdgeOfTheEarth and felt confident enough to take a crack at it. It ended up being a lot easier than I thought, I had it opened up and a new Sabrent 2tb drive installed in about 15 minutes. Bonus points, I didn't even break any plastic tabs, lol. Thanks a ton, much appreciated!
Nice video! I appreciate it! I just got one of these and wanted to throw another M2 in. When I started poking at the edges, I was intimated to say the least. This was not going to work for me without the guitar pick, luckily I had a bunch laying around, thanks for the tip! Also starting at the back with the back plate, was not my first intuition, so VERY glad I watched this video!
Thanks a lot! This laptop was a bitch to get into, but gotta love the performance at this price :) One thing you don't mention - there are 2 screws that are slightly shorter - these go into the "factory seal" hole and the one mirrored from that. The final front-edge did not want to come off for me at all - I'd recommend a bit of forward force as well as down (forward meaning push towards the front of the laptop and down is peeling away from the bottom of the laptop). It made a scary noise when it finally came loose, but nothing was broken and putting it back together was a breeze.
Oh I hated this so much, at the last step I broke a clip, and now the case back is just a slight hair off with a little gap at the edge. I'll live with it though, it'll be 2 years before we know it and then it'll be time for the next frustrating laptop upgrade
@Ryan Martin, Thanks for taking the time to record and share your experience on opening up The GP66. It seems MSI has made this particular laptop a bit of a challenge to get under the hood. I will soon be attempting the same to my new GP66 -11UH-32 to upgrade from 16 to 32 GB Ram and a second Gen 4 - 2 TB SSD. It seems that MSI, to cut some costs, provided two slots but only one is gen 4 which they installed a Gen 3 SSD in. it's going to get messy switching things up to where they should be. Great Laptop though so far. I am using mine for work and fun. CAD3D modeling and heavily modded Skyrim VR LOL. Thanks again my friend. 👍
Thanks for the amazing video. Now i had to add the 1tb ssd into my MSI GP66 and i think i can do it my self... Already subscribe your channel for the appreciate
Nice vid. Best one on this topic imo. Thank you very much. Just put a 2tb m.2 on wifes laptop. The slightly stiffer assortment of tools in a 15.00 knock off ifixit laptop tool kit made it a bit faster. Lost 1 screw of course 🧐
Happy I could help. I’ve always taken to RU-vid when I need to take things apart so I wanted to return the favour. I should probably get one of those kits soon haha
I just wanted to look at the fan situation 😭 didn't think it would take me half an hour and make my hands fall off, but here we are. I am so thankful that you made this video and so glad I found a guitar pick on the street a few weeks ago and decided to take it home. Otherwise I would have sacrificed all my nails as well 😄 But, now I feel like a strong independent woman who can disassemble her laptop herself. Yay
factory seal screw won't void your warranty. It is here to ensure you that no one was here before you. It is fine to take it out to upgrade your memory or disc space. I've spoken to a guy working in MSI's warranty service and he told me that.
@@amyshaw6657 yes it is, warranty void sticker is on the CPU and GPU cooler screws, breaking this wil void it - otherwise you are free to unscrew and modify it as you like
Well now I'm even more nervous thanks lol. Unfortunately this is for "advanced exchange program" where I opted to replace a defective SSD myself rather than ship my whole laptop and wait...
Well I took all the screws out and then decided to check out Jays2cent disassemble this but he cut the 20 min of prying out of his vid, then checked out Ryans great video here... but after watching 10min with a guitar pick I decided to put all screws back in the laptop.... I'll live with 16gb ram for now.... lol. Holy crap MSI - this is a 2min job on my Asus Strix G15
Are the hinge mounts good quality? I had a GP63 but the hinge mounts broke in 2 years just from normal use. Apparently it's a common issue with MSI laptops.
I haven't had any problem, and the way mine is setup i open and close it like 10x a day. No laptop wobble when lifting the lid either. But i always lift from the middle idk if there would be wear on the hinge if you open it from the corners or not.
@@amyshaw6657 Post Mortum disassembly shows the keyboard is not replaceable. The kb is riveted using melted plastic. Replacing kb would require an entire donor laptop with a working keyboard already installed.
I think you struggled with that upper part in the beginning because your guitar pick is too small so it doesn’t transfer enough strength and due to small surface of the pick. Its better to use credit card since it’s a larger area. And it seems you did it wrong , many videos on RU-vid shows you need to open the bottom and that last part where you started to unclip (near exhaust) is actually last part that comes off when you pull the cover from the other side All in all , it seems to be tough to open this laptop . Damn. I’m afraid to do with GP76
Yeah, I was just concerned about breaking the clips, and when i posted this video it was because nobody had posted a video yet showing the disassembly, I'm sure there is something better by now.
@@heresyourproblem9939 figured it out through hwinfo. The slot the included drive is in its the 4.0 slot, the free slot the 3.0 slot. Since the Kingston that comes with the laptop is only PCIe 3.0 I switched it to the other slot and put my Samsung drive in the 4.0 slot. It's not really glued down or anything, the rubber pads underneath are only slightly sticky.
@Anti chita I'm not sure what you mean. I'm sure you can change keyboard layout in windows settings if you google how to do that. There will likely be screenshots to help you there as well.
No, I’m not a technician or anything just an enthusiast. I would love to take this thing apart more but I don’t have the money to replace it if I mess up haha. I just made the video because I couldn’t find anything on the internet when I bought mine.
@@heresyourproblem9939 But I'm not sure how some countries get the C type port and some countries get a mini display port. Like you said a C type port is much useful to have compared to a Mini Display port
@@heresyourproblem9939 But having a display port won't let me use the type c accessories i have. But having a type c port will let me use my accessories and extend displays to another monitor
@@KarnikDew To clarify, I think it's more likely all countries get type-c port with display port signal. I don't think it's very common at all to have the actual physical "display port" port.
@@laptops4630 then no, mine doesn't make any weird noises, but really the only moving parts are the fans so maybe check to see if anything is obstructing them should you choose to open the laptop up. Opening the laptop voids your warranty though.
@@heresyourproblem9939 no it doesn't, I spoke with MSI customer service this morning, and also read how it is illegal for them to void it or say it would be. Mine has a sticker that says "Factory Seal" but nothing about warranty
Absolutely, it is reasonable to assume that a user buying a gaming laptop would be enthusiast level and desire to clean the laptop of dust regularly. Try not breaking any of these clips when you have to open it like twice a year lol. I did not know about this difficulty when purchasing, but do find the laptop to be pretty good. Although I should have waited for 11th gen but you can say that at any time in the tech market haha.
