DIY Asus ROG Ally mod nearly doubles the battery capacity without leaving anything exposed

The Asus ROG Ally features a 40 Wh battery, which typically results in about two hours of runtime. On the Ally X, however, Asus upgraded the battery to 80 Wh, pushing the battery life to around four hours, depending on the TDP. iFixit came up with a solution for the non-X variant in August, and that mod utilizes an 88 Wh battery.

However, the iFixit mod requires you to secure the 88 Wh battery outside the back housing, leaving it exposed. A YouTuber named Ksrnate has come up with a middle-of-the-line solution to get more playtime out of the non-X ROG Ally when on battery.

Of course, compared to iFixit’s mod, the one demonstrated by Ksrnate seems to require a bit more extensive soldering skills and work. This DIY mod utilizes a battery pack for the Asus ZenBook 13. This lithium-ion pack contained four cells, but the YouTuber had to first remove two of the upper cells. These two will be stacked on top of the lower ones to make the whole thing fit inside the ROG Ally.

After the removal of the two cells, this mod requires you to remove the wires from the battery pack’s PCB board and install the battery connector of ROG Ally (available on Best Buy). As Ksrnate notes, the board has reversed positive and negative terminal orientation to the connector of the gaming handheld.

Once the connector is secured, Ksrnate secures the previously removed two cells to the lower two cells with masking tape. After that, it’s just about adding some finishing touches to the modded battery pack and installing it in the ROG Ally. Speaking of which, to get it installed, you need to trim some plastics from the housing, which are there to secure the original battery.

In the end, Ksrnate mentions that the modded ROG Ally delivers over 2 hours of battery life at 15W TDP and one hour and a half of runtime at 25W. The YouTuber further adds that the DIY mod allows the battery to charge at 65W, reaching 0% to 100% in 1 hour and 45 minutes. You can check out the entire walkthrough from the video attached below.