Physical Teardown

There are four screws on the bottom of the ECS LIVA X² that need to be removed in order to get to the insides, which you will have to do to add storage to the ECS LIVA X². Doing so exposes the heatsink, which is also held in place by four srews.


With those gone, the Braswell SoC is exposed, a mess of thermal paste on it. You will need to remove two more screws and the bolts around the D-Sub port to take the PCB out.


Don't forget to unplug the Wi-Fi cables! They tie into the metal cover that acts as an antenna. The metal cover screws into the plastic top and the heatsink screws into the metal, so you really do have to remove everything to get to the additional storage.


You need to slide out this little guy before pulling out the PCB. A close examination reveals it to be a stereo mic array. This enables Windows 10 Cortana support without having to plug in a mic, a huge improvement compared to past iterations for ECS's LIVA hardware. You'll find it easier to remove the mainboard after it's out and has been unplugged from its 4-pin header.


The heatsink is a large mass of aluminum with four heatpipes traveling through it. The Braswell SoC and a couple memory chips make contact with it using different materials; a paste for the Braswell chip and a pad for the memory chips. Two of these heatpipes reach out to the opposite side of the heatsink through a cut-out in the aluminum.