A laptop user has a lot of occasions when he is forced to take his precious laptop apart, especially when he needs to do some repairs to an internal component of the laptop. Luckily, this situation doesn’t happen too often when you buy a computer, in the first year or two of functioning. Nowadays the machines are not what they used to be a few years ago and when an internal component is making you problems, it’s hard to say what component gives you the hard times. You need to know how to disassemble a computer in order to repair the internal elements inside it. But how to do it? Is it ok to repair the computer by yourself or you need a technician to do this?
The easiest part to upgrade and also to remove or to install is the hard drive. But there are cases in which the hard drive cannot be upgrated. I know that there are Sony VAIO computers, for example, that cannot be upgrated in this segment. But you can also check out the processor chips or the memory chips. It is easier to upgrade an internal component, when you know how to do this or when you did this already. Those who are less experience in troubleshooting a computer should not perform these operations. You are the only responsible if you fail to upgrade your computer properly.
No matter what are you planning to upgrade, you have to open your computer, exactly like a surgeon does. If you don’t know how to disassemble it, address to a technician, which is better prepared and has the approval of the manufacturer of your computer. There are technicians, which are not approved to perform this kind of operations on certain computers. For example, Apple wants that only the technicians trained at Apple to perform the disassembling and assembling of the computer. Open the case of the computer, if you do this operation by yourself and try not to damage the computer.
You can damage the computer, when it is no longer under the warranty period, but if you perfom an upgrade and you fail, you will lose not only the computer, but also the possibility of repairing it without any cost from your part, if the computer can be still repaired. Make sure you ground yourself when you work with computer components, because they can be permanently damaged, if a single touch of electric power gets to them. If in your case, you may feel something fade, when the electric current reaches you (here I am talking of low voltages, of course), a chip can be killed because of the same electric current.
Before disassembling a computer, you have to read the manual and the instructions related to that operation that you are going to perform. If you perform this kind of operations by yourself, you may harm the computer and lose the warranty, as I said before. The risk is only taken by you and no one else. This happens when you watch videos on YouTube. You can’t blame the person who made the video, if you were the person who did not ground himself when started the operation. It is your computer and your own life. I said many times before that it is pointless to mention again and again that you are yourself in danger if you work unprotected.
The first component that needs to be replaced from its initial location is the battery, if we are talking about laptop computers and we are. If you talk about desktop computers, make sure you don’t have the computer plugged. The computer when it is plugged, might attract electric current into one of its circuits and then burn all the others, including you. I can assure you that this is not pleasant. I saw people on YouTube, speaking of YouTube, which performed operations like these and if the videos were real, they got really hurt.
When you remove the battery, don’t use sharp objects to pry it off. It is obvious that you will not start using knifes in order to get the battery out of its location. Your fingernails are enough. After removing the battery, you have to remove the screws that hold the computer in position. Now, it’s the time when you will work very closely to motherboard, to which all the other components are connected. If you screw this up, you will finish the existence of your computer.
Lift the keyboard about an inch from its initial location and find the cable that is running from the trackpad to the mainboard. The cable has at one end a little connector, that at its turn has a latch, which needs to be removed, if you want to disassemble the entire computer. You don’t need to remove everything you encounter on the computer and on the motherboard, because not all the internal components stay in your way to getting to the processor or the other component to which you’re heading to. After this it is the hard drive’s turn to be disassembled. Only after you have disassebled the hard drive, you can go to the mainboard. The whole operation should take place in a safe environment.
The persons which are passionate about technology can find in disassembling a laptop something very relaxing and fun. Well, this is not my case. I can work hours and hours wondering how a computer program was made, but not how an internal component was made. I am not at all attracted to the hardware part. But it’s not only that. You have to be very careful with the internal components, when you disasseble a computer. I said in one of my previous articles that the components have never seen another face, except the manufacturer’s face, so make sure that you will be friendly to them. Try to get friendly and everything you want will happen. If you simply want to find out how to disassemble a laptop or you need to replace a broken component, you must performs all the steps which I mentioned earlier, with one eye in the user’s manual, which is very important. Don’t forget to disconnect the peripherals which are connected to your laptop. I guess i don’t have to mention anymore that these operations have to be performed while the computer is unplugged.
You must not perform any single operation of disassembling the computer, when it is plugged. Not a single one! Don’t get yourself in trouble even before of enterring in the computer properly. You have all the time in the world to do this while you are inside. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever happen with your computer.
