Surface Book is very hard to repair as processor, RAM are soldered to motherboard

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,284   +192
Staff member

Some would argue that Microsoft’s new Surface Book is an engineering marvel; the perfect hybrid, if you will. While that may very well be the case, Microsoft had to make some compromises in terms of design to do so as iFixit recently found out.

The teardown specialists ripped into the new Surface Book intent on determining just how easy or difficult it would be to repair. Things got off to a pretty slow start as the Surface Book is just as difficult to open as other products in the Surface line, first requiring careful removal of the display.

Once past the first line of defense, iFixit discovered that the motherboard is positioned upside-down, a situation described as a “nightmare.” Nevertheless, the team pressed on only to find that the processor and RAM are soldered directly to the motherboard. Microsoft’s liberal use of adhesive to hold many of the Book’s components in place didn’t sit well with the crew, either.

All said and done, the Surface Book earned a repairability score of 1 out of 10 (with 10 being the easiest to repair). So in other words, the Surface Book got the worst possible score from iFixit. Not all hope is lost, however, as it is possible to replace the solid state drive and battery – but only after going through hell to get them out.

Permalink to story.

 
It's not surprising really. These things aren't meant to be taken apart and upgraded. Once it's obsolete and it's useful life is over (which could be before dinner tomorrow) you either take what you can get for it or bin it. That said, I still do like this gadget but I have no use for it.
 
Could someone clarify me if socketed CPUs are the norm in mobile? 'Cause as far as I know, all laptops had it soldered anyway.
 
Could someone clarify me if socketed CPUs are the norm in mobile? 'Cause as far as I know, all laptops had it soldered anyway.
Sometimes. This is more tablet than laptop and I have not found a tablet that has a CPU and ram that isn't soldered to the motherboard. Hell,n I'm surprised that the storage is lnt soldered on aswell.
 
I upgraded my SP2 on Monday to the Book, very impressed with what MS has in this product.

On the topic of upgrades, I would be interested to see if MS release an upgrade keyboard / GPU in the future for the Book - thinking nVidias Pascal in 2016 maybe ?

The i7, 16G RAM and 512 SSD behind the screen make for a very powerful device with quite a few years of use before you would want to upgrade for performance reasons. MS should just release an upgraded GPU section as a stand-alone product.

I also wonder if some 3rd party comes along with a massively upgraded keyboard / GPU section. Think a much larger version with 980 on board. You keep your 940m keyboard at work and have your 980 keyboard at home for gaming. Why not hey!
 
Sure! It will come bundled with a new tablet.[/QUOTE]

AND we'll give you $50 off the MSRP OR FREE Shipping when you send in your old one!
 
Back