How to disassemble G74Sx and reduce speaker vibrations (Photos)

An easy notebook to open up for someone with experience. (But only do this if you have experiance like I do. I have opened and repasted about 12 notebooks before)

Not recommend for people that have never opened up a notebook and dealt with flex cables and their fiddly connectors. I dont recommend opening your G74 if your not 110% confident. I'm not responsible for any damages you may cause. You open your notebook, its your risk in voiding your warranty or killing your machine.

Steps: Remove the battery, remove the optical drive and remove all 26 screws underneath on the underside. Dont forget under the Blu ray/ DVD drive. Tehre are 2 small ones there. Flip it over remove the screen bracket plastic and then remove the screen. There are two long screws per screen brace.

The whole top comes off. Just pull the middle top up and then unclip the edges from top to bottom. I can easily change the CPU or repaste if needed. Not too hard. Hell my G53sx and Acer 3820TG was much harder than this.

My fan noise issue. Asus assembly line guys really messed up. Big time. They left a huge piece of plastic in side on top of my left cooling fan. Never seen such a big slip up before. Not cool at all!



What a disaster leaving that in there! Explains my fan noise.

Many of the internal screws where loose too. Not torked up as they should be.

I've fixed my issue and reduced speaker vibrations from the left side. Not much can be done with the right side.

Design flaw: The left speaker vibrates so much because its basically plastic on top of plastic. Which will vibrate. Asus placed no pad between the two plastics. I used a few strips of insulation take to fix the vibrations. I can honestly say that I have removed most of the problem. I can now listen to sound abouve 50% and it only vibrates with alot of bass at max volume. Now thats much better than vibrating liek hell at 50% volume.

Photo's:




Sorry I didn't have time to do a full disassemble guide with photos. Maybe if I add a 2720qm I will do a full guide. Also if the laptop gets hot I know what I have to do to remove the dust.

This is what my fan sound like before I opened my G74 up to see what the issue was. New Asus g74 fan noise - YouTube

This is quite. Before I removed the plastic. It was about 4 times louder than the video.

 

You should make a tear down video for youtube sometime. lot of people post asking about taking the g74 apart.

 

Isn't that right speaker placement ridiculous??? I couldn't believe it when I saw how it was kinda tucked under like that.

Just out of curiosity, Hendrickson, what do you think of that all-in-one top cover design? I've never seen it before in a laptop, and I can't help but question whether it somehow relates to the keyboard/touchpad issues some people are having. Maybe the entire component, for example, depends on a common ground which, if it isn't stable, wreaks havoc on the various electrical contacts. (If you have ever seen these issues and how random they are, they definitely suggest some weird external cause like that, as opposed to the usual culprit- software.)

I actually have a lot of photos and have started to write up disassembly directions. (I usually do this with new notebooks, just so I always have that reference.) If you think written directions would be useful, I could certainly try to polish that up a bit and post a pdf or something.

 

Yes the right speaker placement is just plan bad. And even the left is bad. That's where most of my vibrations came from.

I think after a year or two of use, there will be heat and dust issues as with all notebooks. But these ROG ones have it worse when it comes to cleaning dust out. (Unlike the Sager units)

I think the all in one top isn't a smart move. I prefer they way they had it for the G53. A lot of people like to change the keyboard. Its easier to fix too if you had a faulty key or wanted to change the keyboard to another language. Just remove and replace. My old Gateway FX i sold, made it like new with a new keyboard but with this Asus G74 its going to be,

A: More costly to replace. B: More hassle.

I should have taken more photos for a better write up. But honestly with my guide its not hard. If you need to go further its straight forward. Once you remove the 5 ribbons that connect notification LED's, keyboard, touch pad and power button etc you can access the mainboard. Remove it. Flip it and then repaste (Not needed!) or swap CPU to an extreme one.

Honestly I liked my G53sx apart from the heat. This G74 is better, so cool. 2-3 degrees less now on the GPU without that plastic in my GPU fan lol . But this assembley line plastic issue in my fan issue, speaker placement, sound quality and the all in one touchpad and keyboard makes me think Asus is heading in the wrong direction.

 

I think that's true for people (like you and me) who've disassembled quite a few notebooks. For the novice, though, I'd add the caveat that removing the top cover is definitely not as easy/straightforward as, say, removing a keyboard. You have to have something of a feel for how plastic retaining clips work in these situations, so you release them in the right sequence and use the right amount of "persuasion" to avoid breaking them. And if you're not comfortable getting your hands into tight spots for delicate work, reattaching those ribbon cables could be a little daunting.

All that said, it's not, as you say, especially hard. I just wouldn't want the casual user to think it's a cakewalk, start tearing it down, and find themselves in over their heads.

 

Its no easy task for a novice at this, but the G53sx for example its much harder than this. I've added a warning. Thanks

 

Hi,

I am experiencing some left speaker vibration. I want to fix it, but I have never disassembled a laptop before to this extent. I'm having a lot of difficulty following your pictures. I want to make sure I can follow your instructions before taking the laptop apart...

* What tools do I need? -- besides something to unscrew everything, of course. What kind of insulation tape? (Brand name, size....?) Anything I should specifically know if I don't have small fingers? (I found the secondary hard drive tape ribbon installation extremely difficult)

* The pictures are all very dark and it's hard to see details. Can you maybe make the pictures with daylight...?

* I noticed you have "RIGHT SPEAKER" in one of the photos, but what about left? Where exactly is the left speaker? Can you outline it?

* You have "Insulation tape HERE", but where is HERE?

* I can't really tell what I am looking at in some of the pictures... a cabinet for parts in one? It would be nice if every shot had the parts laying flat with the camera angle the same.

Thanks!

 

FYI there is now a G74 disassembly guide linked from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/122632-asus-info-booth-read-before-posting.html#disassembly

 

That's.... a lot of steps. :| I assume re-assembly is just going backwards, with no magic required? What I mean is that sometimes things easily pop out or slide out, but to put them back in is sometimes harder -- the basic example I'm referencing here is the bottom lid - you gotta know where the "clips" (?) are or you'll break everything trying to close it back up..

Edit: just read through more carefully. I do see the tips about not breaking the various clips. Hopefully that won't be an issue.

 

Sorry its all back together so no photos till I update the CPU and if I do. The insulation tape is placed either side of the left speaker. You'll see where some dust is in a grill pattern. That's where plastic meets plastic and vibrates.

Note: You dont need to unplug the cables or remove ram, unscrew hdd's if your only going to remove the top cover/keyboard to access the speakers or to clean dust from the fans.