Samsung NP-N130 Netbook Upgrade and Repair

When the netbook craze was hitting the US by storm, my parents decided to pick up a Samsung NP-N130 netbook from Costco. I gotta admit when they first got it, it was SLOW and youtube video playback was tolerable. Fast forward to today and it's just a pain. It's slow as molasses. Resolution is too low. youtube video playback is passable and far from good.

Specifications

• Intel Atom Processor N270 (512K Cache, 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB)
• 1GB memory, max 2GB
• Intel GMA 950 chipset
• 128MB shared video memory
• 160GB HDD
• 10.1" WSVGA 1024x600 LCD display
• Windows 7 Starter edition
• 0.3 megapixel web cam
• 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN

I remembered seeing a post on a Samsung netbook enthusiast forum about Samsung netbooks having trace for an extra mini PCI-E connector. I decided that what the heck, let's find out if the Samsung NP-N130 netbook has the extra trace for the mini PCI-E connector and if so, put in the extra mini PCI-E connector.

On to the disassembly. Start by taking out the battery and removing the memory bay cover. Remove all the screws from the bottom case.

If you're planning on FULLY disassembling the Samsung NP-N130, flip the notebook computer over and remove the keyboard.

Flip the notebook computer back over and remove the bottom case. The HDD can be swapped out with a SATA SSD. It helps, but the processor is the real bottleneck here.

On the lower left hand side of the motherboard, see the trace for the extra mini PCI-E connector.

On the upper right hand corner of the motherboard, there is trace for a SIM card holder. I didn't get an extra SIM card holder, so I'll have to pick another one these up next. ARGH!

Here I've added in the extra mini PCI-E connector. I have screw posts on the way for the mini PCI-E connector so I'll solder that in when I get it.

While disassembling the Samsung NP-N130 netbook, I noticed that one of the top case screw mounts had come off because the plastic molding around the screw mount had broken. Using J-B Weld cold weld epoxy, I reseated the screw mount and we'll see the next day if it's strong.

NOTE: I placed a small square of polyimide tape on the bottom of the screw mount so that epoxy wouldn't get in the screw mount so I didn't have the same issue as when I tried to repair the screw mount of the HP Pavilion dv7-4180us where epoxy got into the screw mount and now the screw doesn't go all the way down...OOPS.

2017-02-01 Update

Here's a photo of the dried J-B Weld cold weld epoxy on the screw mount and plastic molding. It's not pretty, but it's strong and it's not going anywhere. Also the little bit of polyimide tape on the bottom of the screw mount protected the inside of the screw mount from being goo'ed up by epoxy.

Would you know it, as soon as I fix one part of the Samsung NP-N130 netbook, there's another part that's broken! So the screw mounts for the hinge on the left side of the netbook had broken off from the plastic molding. Here's a picture of the screw mounts with the polyimide tape to shield it from the epoxy.

Place the screw mounts back in their respective plastic housing and cover in epoxy for added strength. I'll check in on it about 24 hours later to verify integrity. Unfortunately, i'm missing one of the screw mounts. Here's a moment for a good lesson. If ever you hear something rattling around your notebook computer, it's probably some part of the plastic molding that broke off and should be saved to be fixed at another point in time.