W3V Disassembly Guide - Bottom Casing

ASUS W3V/W3N/W3A/Z63A Disassembly Guide - Top Case Removal

INTRODUCTION
This guide is for people with more technical background and want get right down to the board level or part replacement other than the more accessible parts ie; HDD, CPU or RAM. Enthusiasts that has had experience taking apart computer equipment and building their own computers is recommended, anything less should proceed with caution.

This guide is to show you how to take off the Top Case of the W3V(click link if you don't know what I mean), which is the palm rest part of the keyboard along with the Touchpad and the Keyboard frame. Removal of this part will allow you to access the mainboard of the system for repair, replacement, or cleaning. This guide will show you how to dismantle the W3V with all the screw locations and procedure to properly take it apart without damaging any of the components, reversing this procedure will allow you to put this back all together.

This may apply to newer ASUS or other similar notebooks(W3J), the methodology is the same for most notebooks, but of course the screw locations will very different and you will be entirely on your own.

WHAT YOU NEED
1. First to start, you would need a quality precision screwdriver kit that includes 2-3 sizes of Philips and 1 small flat head. I do not recommend dollar store quality as those are made of very soft metal that could damage the screw pattern and possibly not allowing you to remove that screw forever.

2. Some masking tape or electrical tape; to hold down wires or cables, labelling , and even protecting surfaces from damage from your tools.
3. Time. You will need plenty of time here, never do any of these repairs if you are in a hurry.
4. A brain. Try to keep focus and do everything carefully, always trace back your steps and place all the removed parts in an orderly fashion. Take extra care handling screws, as they are easily lost or confused since there are longer screws, shorter screws, bigger screws for different purposes so take notes if you can't remember which goes where. Be mentally prepared!

METHOD
Step 1. Bottom Case - Panels and Screws


First take off all the doors and panels from the bottom case. I'm sure most of you have done this, but for thorough information, I've included it here. Simply use the philips screwdriver and take the 6 screws off the CPU & RAM door, 2 Screws for the WIFI door and the single one off the HDD door. While doing this, you have also conveniently released the keyboard. More on this later. Remove all the doors, HDD, Battery, and the modular unit from the notebook.

After your done, proceed in taking off all the screws around the bottom case of notebook. Note the 2 screws near the battery are actually for LCD panel hinges and if you've noticed, they are larger screws. On to Step 2.

Step 2. Bottom Case - Interior screws and HDD removal

There are only 3 screws needed to be removed in this step. There are 2 screws located in the chamber of the optical/modular drive bay, remove those and take note that these are much shorter screws. I believe the shortest two, so do not lose these.

Remove the final screw located inside the HDD chamber.
We will not be removing the RAM or CPU in this scenario, however to remove the Top Case we will need to remove the CPU Fan from the unit *more on this in Step 3.


Detach the 2 Antenna cables from the WIFI card, these are small gold plated couplings (orinco mini-smp connector) just gently use your fingers and pull them off the card, don't pull the wire! The following procedures will require you to detach the LCD Panel from the casing so now is the time to do it. Just leave them dangling when your done.

Finally, Detach the HDD from the Notebook as well.

Step 3. CPU Fan Removal

The main reason why you would need to remove the CPU Fan is that the fan housing is screwed directly onto the bottom side of the Top Case, without removing it, it would be impossible to detach it from the bottom portion of the casing. There are 2 screws located diagonally to one another, see pic above. Remember to gently remove the fan header, DO NOT be lazy and directly pull the wire! Use your finger nails to grasp the plastic clips on the sides and pull gently.

Step 4. Keyboard Removal

We have already removed all the screws from the bottom, so all we have to do now is unclip the keyboard. There are 4 clips holding it down along the top edge of the keyboard. Use a small flat head screwdriver and gently push each of the clips upward, only a small amount of force is needed to loosen up the keyboard. See image below.

There is a large ribbon cable for the keyboard held down by a large wide clip on the left side(very obvious), this is somewhat challenging to un-clip as the keyboard cable is very short. Fold the keyboard upward facing yourself while the bottom edge is still lodged on the keyboard frame(sort of like opening a book). Use one hand to hold the cable, while the other to loosen up the clip on both sides of the cable connector. Once it's loosened, the cable pops right out.

Step 5. Keyboard Bezel(Clips) & Top Case screws

Remove the 2 screws for the Keyboard bezel and disconnect the ribbon cable for the LED Lights on the left connector. The bezel is now held together by snap on plastic, if you turn it around from the backside of the battery compartment you see some plastic tabs which hold this bezel onto the Top Case. Just your fingers or a screwdriver to loosen these tabs. Now push the LCD panel all the way open and make sure the rounded part of the bezel is dislodged. You have now removed the Keyboard Bezel.
Remove the RAM plate/door in the middle, this simply slides out.
Remove the rest of the 5 silver screws on the Top case displayed in the diagram above.

Step 6. LCD Panel - Cables & Hinges



Now that you removed the Keyboard Bezel, you will notice all the cables and wires. On the left side, will have the Video Cable, Inverter cable and another Unknown cable(edit: it's the built-in Microphone!). The latter 2 cables are quite easy and I recommend at least loosening them from the connector first. The Video cable you would need to be more careful, on the cable itself you will notice a black fabric wrapped around it, just grab the fabric flap and gently wiggle it side to side until the cable is loosened. Unhook all the cables from it's "wells". See pictures below.

On the right side, remember the loosened antenna cables that you left dangling? Just pull them through the hole and you will need to pull out the antenna cables from the "tracks". After you done there is one more header for the power button. Loosen that, and your on to the next step.


After all the cables are out of the way, you notice the hinges. There are 2 screws for each hinge remaining, again these are the larger sized screws. Simply unscrew these and make sure that you are holding the LCD Panel as it will fall over once all the screws are out. You have successfully removed the LCD panel from the notebook! Onto step 7...

Step 7. Top Case Removal



With all the screws removed, what left that is holding down the Top Case are the ribbon cables from the side buttons & the Touchpad as well as the plastic retentions along the front edge(along the speakers). First disconnect all the ribbon cables, by now you should know how to disconnect these. There is a total of three of them including the Touchpad ribbon cable(white).


With the cables out of the way, you basically lift the Top Case and pull until you have around a 45 degree angle. There will be quite a bit of force while your doing this, don't worry that's just the plastic holding it, and all you need to do is either use your finger nails and run it along the gap at the front of the case and it will
snap right off(it will sound like a crack but it's not breaking). The other way I found was just pull the Top Case towards you until it's almost 90 degrees and it should snap off the same way, although I don't know if this will damage anything if your doing it the first time. Once it's off, there is one final Speaker cable to remove.

Well, if you got this far you probably know that You are DONE!

Congratulations, you have successfully disassembled your notebook!


This last image is for reference only for those that want to know more about the board or actually replacing it. The Bluetooth module is on the backside, right where the cable slips under the left side of the board near the keyboard ribbon connector. If those of you are replacing the motherboard, there are only 2 screws holding the board down, make sure you have the CPU Heatpipe removed first. Then simply use your finger and bend the plastic casing around the VGA Connector area and pull on the board. There is a daughter board connected (for the modular drive) and you will need a little force to get this off. After that your pretty much done at removing all the parts from the casing.


You may or may not have noticed that there are somethings different on my W3V:
1. The HDD compartment was modified by myself by removing significant amount of the plastic frame to allow better airflow around the harddrive without sacrificing structural integrity.
2. I've also removed some pieces of foam from the heatpipe I didn't see the purpose of that, rather it covered the surface area of the heatsink.
3. The metal RAM plate in the middle, to me it served no purpose but to take up more weight.
4. The bluetooth cable looks different, well I basically ran it along the board through the fuses and resisters, there is absolutely no slack. Of course, it originally didn't look like this and was taped down rather loosely with yellow ASUS tape.
5. If those of you noticed, the Top Case on my W3V is of the darker color from the W3N which looks better IMHO. I ordered this off the estore to replace my old beat up one, basically the exact same thing for the W3J! And I got this for $25 as the W3N piece compared to $35 for the W3J. I also ordered the exact matching color Keyboard bezel from the W3J for $8.
6. I have removed all the stickers and labels off my W3V, the serial number faded long ago and since my warranty long expired it served no purpose. My Windows CD-Key sticker started peeling so I took it off permanently and stuck onto the backside of my 2nd HDD kit completely out of view. The last thing I removed(recently) was the Business card holder, which was more of an eyesore collecting dust inside it as I never used it. So basically the bottom case is completely clean except for the Model number

All these mods/changes are completely optional from your standpoint.

If you want to know more about any of these I can post it! For those of you interested in the overclocking process of the W3V, I can definately post a guide.

Finally, just as a disclaimer: I am not physically responsible for any damages you do to your notebook, this guide is used as a reference only. Details may differ slightly on certain notebook revisions.

 

Great guide, D3X! This will come in handy if I ever decide to disassemble my old Z63A...

 

Thank you, D3X. Rep up (if I can). Edit: I could.

 

Great guide D3X. I really look forward to seeing it completed. My W3V is in pieces LOL and I need to open it up further before I even attempt to put it back together again.

Brilliant work - Rep added

 

Well it's finally done! I think, if any of you spot typos or grammar issues. Let me know! If a MOD can actually change the title for me to include all the other related models (W3N/W3A/Z63A) and change "Bottom Casing" to "Top Case Removal", that would be great!

EDIT: Actually just change the title to what I have at the top of my post. Thanks!

 

My W3V is now completely stripped! I can't believe I've done it LOL. This is my first laptop strip down and I'm well chuffed. Thanks for the guide mate. A few questions

I was going to just spread some artic silver compound over the GPU and leave it at that. Do you think this will be sufficient for extra cooling?

You mentioned that some people may strip it down to replace the motherboard. Since my GPU is potentially screwed, are these motherboards available to buy anywhere and do you know what model it is?

Thanks

edit - LOL figured out its a 915PM chipset. Now to see how much they cost..

 

Try asus estore for the motherboard. I'm not sure where you want to put the thermal paste, but it needs to be in-between the GPU and the heatsink; make sure there is not thermal pad as the thermal paste will have little effect in that case.

Also, the old thermal paste should be cleaned up before you apply the new one.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but the Asus estore doesn't carry the mainboard anymore. I've spent the last hour or so trying to find the mainboard with no joy. Hopefully the extra cooling with the artic silver along with a good clean up should do the trick.

 

That's unfortunate. I could have sworn I saw it still on estore like 2-3 months ago. On the GPU, there a blue thermal pad? It's like a thick piece of light blue plastic.

 

I finally managed to get my W3V back together

I used some artic silver compound glue with the thermal pad that you mentioned. Unfortunately after cleaning it all out and putting it all back together it still suffered from the same problem. I guess the GPU is totally screwed

Never mind. I enjoyed putting it back together much more than opening it up LOL. I haven't attempted an old skool repair like this in years and never on a laptop.

D3X - Thanks for taking the time to write your excellent guide. There is no chance I would have opened the laptop up without it. Cheers

I'm stuck with what to do with it. I'll keep an eye out for that MB just in case one comes up in the coming weeks. Seems such a shame to strip it for the HD and memory and scrap the rest. Its such a nice screen, I wonder if there is a wiring diagram for it somewhere...?

 

Doh! Well at least you tried! I'm glad my guide was use to you, and I hope yuo can eventually get your W3V fixed or get whatever for what it's worth. Let me know if you decide to sell it for parts, I may be interested in the LCD screen and bottom casing, depending on your location

 

Like I said if you have a thermal pad, the paste will do little good (if any). It might actually be worse.

 

Hey no problem, if I decide to scrap it for parts I'll drop you a PM.

 

Great guide indeed! I wonder if the W3V speakers cable header looks like this one, since on my V6 is broken (not the one on the motherboard) and the only way to fix it is to replace the whole speakers set, problem is on estore only for W3V there is such thing, no picture though
Anybody thinks it will match my motherboard?
Thanks!

 

That does look to be the same speaker header, although I would need to confirm this. the problem is that the W3V speakers look proprietary to the design of the W3 series, I can take pictures of it so that you can have a visual comparison to your V6.

BTW, Speakers usually come with the TOP Case assembly, if you are in need to replace your scratched or fading palmrest, I would suggest this to fix both your speakers and top case.

 

Very nice guide! I don't own an Asus but after taking my M1530 apart I like looking at what other people are doing to their laptops. Well done.

 

Well, so far both my notebooks top cases are in very good condition, I would consider to buy a new one only for future replacement along with keyboard and some other parts (since it's EOL ). It bothers me that I can't find that header, don't even know how to ID it and I did a lot of search on Google and some online retailers without any luck, there are speakers replacement for other models, although online pictures are low quality some of them looks very close to what I need, but than again I'm not 100% sure that will match the motherboard connection.
It will be great to have a picture of your W3V header for a comparison but I guess it involves a lot of disassembly, unless you have the manual and take the picture from there like I did.

 

Matisse, I have the (still fully functional) speaker set that goes with the V6 top case I replaced.

I do think it is a good idea for you to buy one of the estore's V6 top cases for the speaker set now and for the case itself for the future, though. The price is very good on that case.

 

Do you know if there is a guide to opening the LCD screen? I want to change the inverter board and cable.

 

Please stop posting the same question in multiple threads. If someone has the answer to your question, they'll answer it the first time .

 

Yes, I already answered on the other thread.