U43JC keyboard replacement? Repair manual?

Can't go without it long enough to ship it back--using it with an external keyboard at present. Got the replacement keyboard, Asus was happy to sell it to me. But called and they won't send me the repair manual or tell me how to remove the cover to get to the keyboard. Does anybody have the repair/service manual? Or has anyone figured out how to open this up in general? I've done lots of work on laptops, have all the tools, etc, but after stripping it as far as I could get it, there were still no visible screws or catches which would detach the metal cover. Have enough experience with this to know that much of the time, it's a matter of something non-obvious snapping off with sufficient pressure applied to it, or needing to trip a latch in a particular place, I just need to know where it is.

Thanks!

 

In general, ASUS models can have one or two screws on the bottom that are labeled 'K' for keyboard, unscrew these first, and then move on to the tabs. Some models don't have keyboard screws.

The tabs should be around ESC, F5, F11, and Delete (and the End key on numpad equipped models). You can use a thin guitar pick, a plastic spudger or prytool, or a thin flathead screwdriver at the risk of scraping off the black paint. What I tend to do is poke the first tab, stick a guitar pick between the tab and the case to keep it separated, and then move to the next one, and eventually I can get my hand or the tool in there to keep it from going back and locking into place. For example:

Spoiler

Then you'll have a keyboard ribbon cable, you can unlock it by VERY gently pushing up on the connector sides. Do this extremely carefully! For example:

Spoiler

Examples taken from http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/475907-asus-g73-series-disassembly-guide.html

 

This is the model I'm looking at:

As you can kind of see there, there's a metallic cover that goes over and between all of the chiclet keys. This is the part that baffles me, I've never seen a laptop put together like this before. So there are no tabs at least noticeable around any of the keys. And no keyboard screws that I can find.

 

Oh brother. Ignore my generic advice, sorry. I see what you mean... but not from that pic. I found a large pic (below), the keyboard basically looks like it's mounted from inside the case. You can probably email your retailer, as long as it's not a big box retail store, and they should be able to at least give you directions if not the disassembly guide itself.

Are there any screws labeled K, if you open up the bottom panel?

 

Okay. Today, I earned my nerd cred. There is no 'K' screw and, for future reference for anybody looking at this model, the keyboard is *not* a simple repair, so avoid this model if you happen to be prone to spills.

I had to do a complete disassemble. I wish I could have taken pictures, but I didn't have a camera handy and I am now way too tired to take the whole thing apart just to do it again. The top and bottom not only have to have all the screws removed, but there are tabs between the metal and the plastic on the bottom half that have to be gotten at very carefully with a flathead screwdriver or something, all the way around.

In the end, I have one screw left over (the plate covering the keyboard from the bottom had quite a few and I'm pretty sure it was from there so I'm not worried) and my power light no longer works, but on the up side, working keyboard!

Thanks for the help anyway, at least this way I could figure out that I wasn't missing something totally obvious, and I hope this helps anyone who runs into this in the future!