Dell Inspiron 5558 is really similar with the more affordable Inspiron 5551 when it comes to upgrade options and disassembly. Overall the upgrade options are not much, but they are pretty easy to perform, as nearly everything you can upgrade is hidden under the surface cover. Unfortunately when it comes to cleaning the internals from dust, opening the notebook can be quite a hassle.

1. Removing the service cover

There are only two screws that keep the main service cover down. Underneath we have pretty standard upgrade options for HDD and RAM. We have two RAM slots for up to 8GB in each, or a total of 16GB DDR3 memory. There is also a Wi-Fi module available – Intel’s Wireless-AC 3160 and a BIOS/UEFI battery. In the 2.5” HDD bay we have a 2TB Samsung SpinPoint drive.

We did not find any M.2 SSD slot during the disassembly, but you can always replace your optical device with a caddy for an additional 2.5” HDD or SSD.

2. Removing the keyboard

In order to access the complete internals of the device, you will have to remove the keyboard. Using a thin plastic tool (or a credit card for example) pop the pins in the clips in the small holes on the top edge of the keyboard and lift it. Beneath the keyboard are several bolts that need to be unscrewed and a few cables to be detached.

3. Removing the bottom part of the chassis

After you have removed the keyboard turn the device around and continue with the back panel. There are a total of 16 bolts that need to be unscrewed – two of them are holding the optical drive, remove them first and remove the optical drive, as there are 3 bolts hidden underneath it and continue with the rest of the screws. The next step is popping out the entire bottom part of the case, again with the help of the plastic tool. When lifting the bottom part, be careful, as there are two very stiff pins on the two sides of the battery compartment, which can be quite hard to pop off. After that, you can proceed with cleaning the fan from dust.