Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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FlyingPenguin
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Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by FlyingPenguin »

I have since replaced this trusty 2015 Surface Pro 3 tablet with a new Surface Pro 7 8 months ago because the older one was getting very slow, due to a failing SSD.

I still use this old Surface Pro 3 in the car for web browsing at the cigar store, or when traveling, and I've bought some time by running a full defrag on it occasionally, which has revived the weak sectors for now, but it's only a matter of time before it totally dies on me.

IFixit has instructions on how to replace it by un-gluing the screen, but it's so difficult (they rate it VERY difficult) that even they cracked the screen in the process: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Microsoft+ ... ment/51878

So when it fails, I'm going to try this crazy guerilla method of cutting the case out over the SSD with a dremel. Lot's of people have done it successfully, so there's that. And hey, I'll have nothing to lose. I can buy a replacement drive on Amazon for just $30. Replace the drive if I don't cut through something critical, and slap a sticker over it (it's also hidden behind the kick stand, and I mainly use this as a tablet not a laptop).

There's photos on the Net that people have posted showing the exact location where to cut, with dimensions.

The battery is still pretty good - easily runs 4 or 5 hours with normal web browsing.



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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by Executioner »

Don't know why mfg's have to be such dicks to design stuff like this. Yeah I know, they want you to buy a new one, but all it does is create more electronic waste. A simple access port would have been so simple.
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Well I replaced the SSD on my old 6 year old Surface Pro 3... WITH A DREMEL

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Well the Surface Pro 3 has been running miserably slow, to the point it's almost useless, so I ordered a replacement Transcend TS128GMSA230S 128GB mSATA SSD a few days ago from Amazon for $35: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GMD5R7M

I also bought this mSATA to 2.5" SATA enclosure for $10 that lets me plug an mSATA drive into a regular SATA port: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MS6669V

I used that to restore an image I made of the drive 4 months ago to the new drive, while connected to my bench PC, and I also used it to run Spinrite level 2 on the new drive to test it and exercise it, before installing it. I could not directly clone the old drive to the new one because of the number of bad sectors, and the OS install was already becoming corrupt from it.

Got my Dremel out and using a cutting wheel, I did the dirty deed today, and used the Dremel to cut a hole in the back of the Surface following the instructions and diagrams posted in YouTube videos I've seen. I got VERY lucky as I did nick the battery and exposed a battery wire (see photo below), but it worked, and I salvaged a 2-in-1 laptop/tablet that cost me $950 in 2015, and would have cost me more than that to replace today, not to mention keeping it from becoming e-waste.

It's still an excellent unit (Core i5 4300 1.9GHz, 2.5 GHz boost). Only 4GB RAM because it originally came with Win8, but it's always run Win10 very snappy in tablet mode, and it feels like a brand new PC now with the new SSD. Very fast and responsive, as fast as my newer Surface Pro 7.

The cutting diagrams I found online were accurate, I just got a bit sloppy cutting away a bit more area near the battery to expose enough of the SSD to remove it, which actually turned out to be unnecessary.

Despite the near disaster, I feel very proud of myself. I have some cringe worthy video I recorded that I'll post later. It was a bit challenging because the case is made of some kind of metal impregnated resin - probably mylar foil to keep the weight down. But the dust and particles are all conductive so I had to keep vacuuming everything up and be very careful about it.


These are the cutting lines drawn in with pencil. All measurements, for anyone who cares, are from the inside beveled edge NOT the edge of the case:
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The hole's been cut. New drive installed. Old drive on the right. The drive is upside down, which is why the screws holding it down, and the bracket for one of the screws, has to be cut. When originally manufactured, the drive was installed from the other side:
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Closeup showing the two nicks in the battery wire. They're either bridge wires between cells, or the main power lead leading out of the battery to the motherboard. Not sure. Yeah, I was VERY concerned I was going to cut into the battery, and possibly have a Lion battery fire/explosion, so I had a chemical fire extinguisher at the ready, and I setup my work table near the garage door so I could toss it outside if something happened. All the instructions I read made it very clear that the battery was right there against the right side of the SSD and there was no room for error, and they were quite right:
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I covered the exposed wires with nail polish and, to make sure they didn't touch the cut conductive case material above them, I inserted a piece of business card paper between the case and the wires as additional insulation. I carefully pried the case away from the battery with a plastic guitar pick, to make room for the paper insulator.
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I made a shim to fill in the space of the missing case cutout to brace the SSD, by using more business card paper, and then put some blue painters tape over it for now. I'll find a vinyl sticker to put over the hole later.
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You really can't see the hole very well anyway since it's behind the kick stand, and when I use the Surface as a tablet (which I do most of the time), the kick stand is closed over the hole, completely hiding it.
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View of the hole barely visible with the kickstand open in laptop mode:
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Tablet mode is the way I normally use my Surface:
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:party
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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The cringe worthy video I promised. I had screwed up and turned off the camera before doing the initial cuts, so I missed recording that.

I cut the case until I could just barely see through it, and then pried it open with some plastic picks. The problem is that one of the screws that holds the mSATA drive down is screwed into the case. That's the small piece still attached at the bottom. The other screw on the top side was screwed into a metal tab, and I had to cut that off with the dremel.

The drive is in it's own little compartment. There's some kind of foam surrounding it, so the metal dust wasn't TOO likely to get into the mobo, but there might be some small holes, and I was trying to keep it out of the mSATA connector as well.

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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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BTW, I was able to rejuvenate the old drive once I removed it by using that mSATA to SATA enclosure to connect it to my bench PC and run Spinrite on it. A level 2 scan found 16 bad sectors and forced the drive to swap them out. Sadly, I could not do this while it was installed because the Surface does not have any legacy BIOS support, and thus can't run Spinrite 6.

A subsequent scan didn't detect any problems, but I assume the old drive is worn out anyway and would just develop some more bad sectors later on. Still, I left it in the spare parts bin anyway, with a note. Waste not, want not.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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Some tips to anyone on the Intertubes finding this post, and considering doing this themselves:

- There is no way to completely power down the computer. You can't disconnect the battery. However there should be no power going to the drive if you do a proper shutdown. Make sure you do a proper shutdown from Windows, or (if Windows won't boot), power it on, then do a force shutdown by holding the power button down for ten seconds.

- HAVE AN ABC CHEMICAL FIRE EXTINGUISHER HANDY! I'm serious here. Everyone should have one in their garage anyway. If you cut into the battery, it may burst into flames, and Lion battery fires are hot and dangerous. Try not to do this inside your home. I did it in my garage, and with the garage door open, so if it did catch fire, I would have ventilation and an escape route, and a quick way to pickup the PC and toss it outside onto the driveway. Better a scorched bit of asphalt than a burned down house.

- You have some wiggle room on the cuts on three sides, BUT the right side is adjacent to the battery and that one is very critical. Do not cut beyond 10.1 CM. You're actually better off cutting well inside the marked lines and then nibbling away at the edges with the dremel, once you have the drive exposed, to make enough room. You need less room than you think. Once the drive is loose, it will easily pry up and out, despite the connector being upside down.

- Don't cut all the way through. Cut until you just begin to see some spots that are black. That's the dark interior. The case material is a shiny metallic color so it's easy to tell. When the cuts are thin enough, you can pry them open with PLASTIC tools. I used a couple of heavy guitar picks I use for opening phones and such. Don't use metal tools. If a spot is being stubborn, lightly hit it with the dremel. Take your time. Use a vacuum to continually suck up the ground case material. It's metallic and conductive. Use eye protection and I'd recommend a mask.

- The drive is going to be upside down, and because of that, it's screwed in from the other side. One screw goes into the case itself (lower right corner). In my video and most others, you see people leave a small square of the case material attached with the screw in it. There is no reason to try to cut this screw! When the drive is no longer attached to anything on that corner, and when the drive comes out, you can just remove the screw from the other side like I did in the video.

- The top screw is a bit trickier. It's attached to a metal bracket. You'll need to cut the bracket off. It's not hard, and you can do it without damaging the old drive if that matters to you. Make sure to grind/file down the cut bracket after removing the drive so there's no chance it will short out something on the replacement drive.

- Vacuum and blow out the compartment real well when done. You want any dust completely removed.

- The new drive will just pop right in. Despite there no longer being screws to hold it, it will stay in place just fine as the compartment is a tight fit, and the connector has some grab to it. When you close it up pad the space, where the missing case is, with something so that whatever you use to close the hole (tape, a vinyl sticker) will press down on the drive to keep it from moving and keep it secured into the socket. I used some business card paper stock. A couple of sheets folded once - so four layers.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by Executioner »

I don't think I will ever own one of these units after watching that vid and instructions. IMHO - poor design considering a lot of laptops give you pretty good access to the internals.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Yeah, but the trade off is the weight and the thinness, if you use it as a tablet as I do. I've tried other 2-in-1s from HP and Dell, and they all feel like you're holding a regular laptop in your hand, which you are.

The Surface Pro 3 weighs just 28 ounces and 1/3 of an inch thick. Not much thicker than a Galaxy Tab A7 10.4", but containing a full blown Core i5 Windows computer.

Six years is a good run for any device like this. If I can buy a few more years, all the better. I agree, though, that it really would not have been difficult to put a removable hatch over the SSD. It would have added a couple of millimeters at most.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Found the perfect sticker to cover up the hole! Five bucks on Amazon, and worth every penny! :)

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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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No custom label? Does that have any particular reference to you?
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by FlyingPenguin »

You never played Portal or Portal 2?

https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Aperture_Science
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

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Ah...nope never played it.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by Losbot »

I wish they would release a Portal 3.

Bob - Did you ever play Portal 2 in co-op ?
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by FlyingPenguin »

No. Would love to. Bought a second copy for my wife in the hopes I could get her to play with me, but it never happened.
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Re: Going to go medieval on my Surface Pro 3 soon

Post by Losbot »

Oh, I started to play with Drexul (remember him) and we never got to finish. It was a blast as co-op and I'd be down to play that one. If you're interested, let me know what day(s) you're free and we can.
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