The plastic coating on the notebook's mainboard...-What is it for?

Recently, I disassembled my notebook for a total cleanup and one thing I didn't understand is the purpose of the plastic coating thing sticked on the mainboard. For me, it doesn't sound great while thinking of a plastic material touching directly to the notebook's mainboard. I don't know exactly what is the purpose of putting such a coating, but I think it affects the overall heat of the notebook. I'm really wondering about its aim, if someone knows the answer, I'd appreciate hearing it.

 

I dont know what it is for--But I wouldnt take it out! It might be vital to other equipment in it. If you still have warranty, dont ask tech support! They will probably void your warranty for opening it. Hope i helped

 

Sure I also wouldn't take it out, but almost a year passed from the 2-year warranty.

Thanks.

 

The plastic might be keeping any part of the mainboard from touching the case or other components and shorting out. That's my theory.

 

May we see a picture?

 

As I need to open the notebook again, I can only give example pictures from the net.

Here, see the black coating of a notebook I've just found:

The difference is, the whole pcb of my notebook is covered by this thing, without any holes (see chipsets) like this one.

 

This would be correct, IMO. Asus puts this kind of thing between their HDD's and the outer case as well.

 

That's really weird, I've opened up 3-4 notebooks so far, never seen that before...

 

I would stick to my original theory. Alex?

 

Is this that OLD m2 series Asus you're talking about in another thread? That might explain why no one has seen this in more recent models.

 

Now that I think about it, I have a old Libretto 50CT (?) that had thick plastic separating pieces. Got it for free because my boss then took it apart and couldn't get it back together.

 

@ClearSkies: Yes it's the same notebook.

 

both my A6 and W5 have a little of this inside them. not a huge big sheet like that, but they do have small pieces here and there, eg, under the ram modules.

 

ohhh, that, I thought you meant it was like, laminated. Yea, it protects from dust and things hitting it. I don't know how it prevents shorts, but it may. it also gives them somewhere to tape the wires that need to travel around (see pic) and serves as an extra barrier against breaking the warranty. In addition, it protects against hacking and in some cases reverse engineering by destroying the board if it is tampered with.

 

I've seen pieces like that in Z63A, Z71V, Z70VA, M3N and my V1. You'll see it in places which are typically open user compartments where there are distinct removable modules (ie: under DIMM sockets, HDD if it's not the slide-in tray type, possibly around the wireless card, etc.) or where components don't clear quite as much as they would've liked.

It's quite evident they put it in to protect the board from accidental scratches and modules shorting against each other by accident, since that's the only rationale to have a piece of plastic in there that would actually insulate the heat. -_-