I need to change my little netbook's fan 'cause it sounds like a Monster Truck after 5 years of crunching pretty much 24/7. Poor thing :)

Anyway, here's what I need to do (I don't really expect you to watch the video but here it is just in case):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-1QtWMpcs

OK, so I've obviously got the replacement fan. And I got a little tube of Arctic Silver so that's crossed out of the to-do list.

First question: It looks to me like I'll only be needing one type of screwdriver. Is that usually the case?

But my real phobia and therefor my real question is:

How delicate are the ribbon connectors? Are they easy to ruin when getting yanked out? And more importantly, are they easy to reconnect?

Any other advice/tips/achtungs! ? :)

Thanx!

I've taken apart several Lenovo laptops and put them back together again without issues.

Main warning is that you need to have a hardware manual or video or description of the procedure, so you'll know exactly what to do.

But my real phobia and therefor my real question is:

How delicate are the ribbon connectors? Are they easy to ruin when getting yanked out? And more importantly, are they easy to reconnect?

Ribbon connectors tend to have a small plastic lever or locking mechanism, so you don't need to pull so hard, instead you open the locking mechanism and pull relatively easy. Same thing when reconnecting; put it in place and lock the locking lever. This may of course be quite different on your Asus.

Good luck!

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I need to change my little netbook's fan 'cause it sounds like a Monster Truck after 5 years of crunching pretty much 24/7. Poor thing :)

Anyway, here's what I need to do (I don't really expect you to watch the video but here it is just in case):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-1QtWMpcs

OK, so I've obviously got the replacement fan. And I got a little tube of Arctic Silver so that's crossed out of the to-do list.

First question: It looks to me like I'll only be needing one type of screwdriver. Is that usually the case?

But my real phobia and therefor my real question is:

How delicate are the ribbon connectors? Are they easy to ruin when getting yanked out? And more importantly, are they easy to reconnect?

Any other advice/tips/achtungs! ? :)

Thanx!

I've taken a few notebooks apart for various reasons. The first time I took my old Pentium M apart I pulled a furry mat of dust out of the heatsink. I think I did have to use a different size screwdriver to dismount the heatsink, but I would expect all or most of the case screw to be the same size.

Unless you are literally ripping the notebook open the ribbon cables should not be a problem. The connectors for them will probably be slide locking connectors. Which once released allow the ribbon cable to be removed or inserted with little to no effort. The ribbon cables also tend to be fairly sturdy. If you wanted to rip one in half it would take more effort they tearing up a sheet of paper. However you don't want to pinch or kink them.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
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My first thought is after looking at the video is ... this is not a simple task.

If you are not sure about ribbon cables, you are a novice, and I would think you should be thinking about getting someone else to do it.

If you do attempt it, one thing I will suggest ... make note pads for all those little screws ... case, keyboard, motherboard, hard drive, etc, etc, and put the screws for each on the note. Easier for reassembly.

Mandatory watching - Clean the fan song

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Well said Grey

Hope that helps.

It sure does!

The first time I took my old Pentium M apart I pulled a furry mat of dust out of the heatsink.

Yeah, Ivan here posted a picture once of one of those and it's been giving me nightmares ever since ;)

Unless you are literally ripping the notebook open the ribbon cables should not be a problem.

Awesome. If the ribbons aren't delicate then the worst case scenario is I end up with a bruised ego from dumping it on someone else to finish the job for me. I can live with that.

Thanx everybody. Video was awesome too. Feel free to place bets on how many screws I'll have left over after reassembly :P

Hope that helps.

It sure does!

The first time I took my old Pentium M apart I pulled a furry mat of dust out of the heatsink.

Yeah, Ivan here posted a picture once of one of those and it's been giving me nightmares ever since ;)

Unless you are literally ripping the notebook open the ribbon cables should not be a problem.

Awesome. If the ribbons aren't delicate then the worst case scenario is I end up with a bruised ego from dumping it on someone else to finish the job for me. I can live with that.

Thanx everybody. Video was awesome too. Feel free to place bets on how many screws I'll have left over after reassembly :P

Well after several of the screws roll away, never to be found again, you will probably end up with exactly the right amount.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

"Let's see what we can see... everybody online? Looking good..."

I'm back! :D

I think it worked!!!

Ain't got access to my camera but I'll try and upload a pic of the old fan in the next couple of days.

I couldn't have done it without a push, I really couldn't. So thanx!

There's a slight funky smell @the exhaust... Is that from dislodging all the grime or is it the Arctic Silver heating up? Never used the stuff before...

You need to sit down at a table with about 3 hours to spare....

Smart-ass that I am I thought, "Naaah. 2hrs should be more than enough"

And of course it took me exactly 3hrs :D

I've taken apart quite a few laptops.

I named this one "Frankenbeast"

It was pieces and parts from three different Toshiba Satellite A10s and A15s back in 2006 to make one that worked.

And this one was a family friend's that they asked me to look at because "it quit working."

Moral of the story: this is why you don't smoke indoors when you have pets as well. It couldn't breathe, and it fried the CPU (for whatever reason, the laptop didn't shut down when it got to the shutdown temp).

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

These two sites is of great help:

https://www.ifixit.com/

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/

find your laptop/notebook and you'll get a step-by-step instruction with photos to guide you.

Mandatory watching - Clean the fan song

Mandatory indeed. Just sent this to a friend who didn't understand why I could just replace the bad CMOS battery on his Toshiba.

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Laptops......head'acke

To many screws ribbon cable fiddly

Parts that can't be replaced without big money aka Toshiba H/D $450 generic h/d $120 for same size

Screens that cost heaps to fix

And that's why I don't like pads ....throw away tech ! ,and haven't we learnt about that sort of thing by now

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I have also repaired many laptops. One thing to carefully watch for is exact routing of the wires, in addition to the ribbon cables. On one laptop, I was rerouting the power/sata cable to a DVD drive, and missed a tiny peg to hold it. The cable was thinner than a pencil lead, and I ended up putting one of the tiny screws right through the cable. As soon as I tried to power it up, I fried the motherboard. I was unable to put the smoke back in.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

I found that one of the most usual tools for disasembling notebooks is a plectrum (aka guitar-pick). Many cheaper consumer notebooks use less screws and are clipped together :-(

__W__

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Anybody have a clue what this little plug is for?
https://youtu.be/-P-1QtWMpcs?t=225
The plastic that was housing a black and red wire (I'm thinking maybe for the speakers) turned a bit buttery over the years and I completely ruined it. Shoved the two leftover (and naked) pins in the slot, covered the mess with duct tape... er, electrical tape and everything appears to working fine ;)

Damn thing didn't wanna unplug. Like it was locked in or something. Same thing happened later on with the old fan's plug but that's getting binned anyway so no real drama there.



And that's the old fan right there.

A bit anti-climactic, I know. After 5 years of getting smoked, crunching non-stop, getting dragged around everywhere, and even playing around with a couple of cats... You'd think I'd deserve a little gunky felt-pad of my own but nooooo... I guess the ball-bearings just gave up or something. There was hardly anything blocking the vents too... I almost feel cheated ;)

After watching the vid I would say YES your right it looks like the speakers and the white and black wires are for the Wi-Fi aerial Alex

Do you still have sound through the speakers built into it if not to check your sound does work plug some headphones in as that should still work so long as you taped each wire separately so they won't short anything out .

The plugs can degrade if the plastic that is being used is not the best quality , always be very careful when trying to unplug them pulling the wires like in the vid does not always work as the tolerance for the manufacturer of the plastic part may not be up to standard or may have bad quality controls .

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I'm pretty sure that connector is for the BIOS battery.
If you pop out the main battery and leave the AC line disconnected you can see if the BIOS loses all of its settings. Most notably should be the clock.

EDIT: I found this image and it looks like the connector is labeled BAT.

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...and it looks like the connector is labeled BAT.

Wow thanx HAL.

So if my ghetto-fix falls apart and considering I hardly ever have the main battery attached... what's the worst case scenario? I'll have to set the clock each time I unplug obviously but... anything else that I should be aware of?

Any chance I can solder the wires to the PCB if I have to?

BTW. and purely out of curiosity, those disc batteries aren't rechargeable are they? Is there such a thing as a rechargeable coin-batt?