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2ndLife: Refurbishing Acer Swift 5 - SF515-51T (2018)

Image from notebookcheck.net

    I just dumpster dived 2 big sceen laptops (15.6 inch and 17.3 inch) so this is one was the first I tried to refurbish to see if it will work. Initially I thought that this laptop is screwed since the back cover seems to be exposed to moisture and looks like it will peel off the back cover. However, after I tried to remove the back cover, I noticed that the laptop interior looks pretty clean and also I noticed that the NVMe SSD (storage) is missing. I just found a NVMe SSD but unsure about its capacity so I decided to put into this laptop to see if the laptop works and the capacity of the NVMe SSD. Well, the laptop actually works and also the NVMe SSD is actually 512GB. Wow! I was delighted!

    This laptop is actually a 15.6 inch laptop but is actually less than 1Kg. So it feels light. I was impressed by this laptop for its weight based on its size. As usual, I installed Linux Lite 7.6, the latest Linux Lite that was released on 31 Aug 2025. 

    After installing the Linux Lite, I noticed that the laptop has number lock on and I have issues typing characters instead of symbols. I need to press Fn to get the characters out until I found the solution to fix this issue.

  • Set the function key to function key instead of media keys
  • Press Fn+NumLk to disable number lock 

    This also happens to my other Acer laptop as well but I forgot the fix until now. This laptop now looks like a good potential for a daily driver since it is light and especially its big screen size as well. The only cons is that the 2 x USB ports are all located on the left side of the laptop so putting a wired mouse feels funny but got used to it after a while. 




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