Disassembling a Laptop help.

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
Posts
25,253
Location
Chadderton, Oldham
Hi.

I'm trying to take the back cover off, I need to find this PLL number to allow me to clock the CPU. Anyway, I maaged to take the bay covers off, I then took all the screws out, but the cover would still not come off, seemed to be on pretty solid, also I'm not sure but I seen what appeared to be the bottom of a screw in where the battery goes, which means this must be unscrewed from the other side, thing is, can't get to the other side as their is no screw holes.

Any ideas? Can't be that hard surely?
 
Have you tried taking the keyboard out and looking for the screw head? The keyboard is usually held in place by ridges along the top and side gap between the kb and case.
 
Yea I notices at each side of the laptop there is 2 clips, I can get the keyboard above those, but at the top there is abit of covering that is over the edge of the keyboard, same for the bottom, this covering goes around the speakers and the buttons to the left and all that. Can't see how to remove that too.
 
It might be worth mentioning the exact make and model in case someone here has one and knows. Alternatively you may find detailed instructions in a service manual with a google.
 
If it's a Samsung, Rock, or Toshiba laptop I can probably help as I take these apart on a daily basis :)

Make and model is required though.
 
It's an Acer Aspire 7735G.

I got the keyboard off, and got all the screws out as far as I could tell, then the top part, the plastic around the keyboard, basically the top of the laptop did almost come off, just it still seemed to be held on by a screw, I could not see any screws, the place where it appeared to still be held on was where the HDD was directly under,problem is, the HDD could not be removed, there was a metal cage on the HDD, only way to remove that was pull it up, could not do that though, it'd have ripped the HDD off and caused damage :confused:
 
on most laptops you can remove the hdd easily without needing to open the case at all. e.g. a scre underneath and then slide it out, or open a trap door and slide it out.
 
Well all I need to do is unscrew a small bit and I have access to the HDD, I take the screws off for this metal cage over the HDD, but it won't come out, bottom is where the HDD connects, top is 2 clips the metal cage goes in, only way is to rive it out, which cannot be done unless I break the HDD.
 
Can you get a picture up perhaps? as Hades has said getting a hdd out of a laptop is usually one of the easier jobs.
 
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acers are a pain to take apart, u usally take the keyboard out first and then through that u can unattach the cables for speakers gpu and fans. then you can open it fully to get at the cpu
 
The hard drive including caddy will usually just slide in the opposite direction to the connector. Sometimes keeping in flat or just lifting it up at an angle so it clears the case and then pull.

If I remember correctly the caddy on these is incredibly tight for some resason, but it will come, just might need 2 people, one to hold the laptop down and the other to push the caddy out. You might need to use a flat tool to lever it out as theres not much purchase on the HD itself.
 
Ok, got some pictures:

thehub
DSC00382.jpg


DSC00380.jpg


DSC00379-1.jpg

thehub
 
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By the looks of it you've taken the screws out that hold the caddy to the hdd. Put those screws back in, and the hdd should come out along with the metal caddy as a complete unit. It does also look like you're going to have to totally disasemble the notebook to get to the cpu. Not a particulary hard job, just make sure you keep the screws in order of how they came out.

On most of the laptops I work on the first thing you need to be doing to get to the mainboard is taking the screen off (this after taking the keyboard out which you've already done) you'll need to disconnect the wires from the wireless card, these will feed through the chassis and up into the screen. Then disconnect the vga and inverter power cables to the screen, which are usually found under a plastic strip where the power buttons and activity leds are. Once all those cables are disconnected locate and remove the hinge screws and the screen should just slide off in a complete unit.

After this it's just a matter of taking out the optical drive and then locating and removing all the case screws (there will probably be a fair few!) Then the bottom part of the chassis should come away from the top part. Be carefull at this stage not to just rip both parts of the chassis apart as there will more than likely be stuff like the mouse cables, speaker cables etc that will need disconnecting first.

Once this is all done, you'll have access to the cpu, you'll need to remove the heatsink and possibly fan.
 
I really wish along with building PC's my course also did practicals on taking laptops apart, I took the keyboard out, bit above it too, unscrewed everything, it all appeared to come out except for one part it was held in, where it seemed like it was under the HDD.

Look at the pics again, see the pic with the 2 circles on, 2 pieces slotted into the black frame that is a part of the computer casing, on the other end at the bottom of the pic is the connector for the HDD, when I attempted to pull it out laast night I actually nearly snapped that off.
 
Yeah I see what you mean, seems like a very odd design, it almost appears as though the hard drive won't come out until you take the bottom half of the chassis off.
Although if there's a screw underneath the hard drive that would make it impossible.

Are you sure you haven't missed a screw on the top half of the chassis? Underneath where the keyboard was. I take it you've taken the screen off already?
 
There was indeed a screw under the HDD. I was looking at my pics and it clicked, that black piece of plastic, so I pull on that and the HDD came out, appears the HDD uses sticking out pins that slot into the back connector, something I was not familiar with.
 
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