Getting to the 1520's CPU.......

Good luck to anyone trying to get to their Dell Inspiron 1520's CPU. I tried and after about an hour and a screw lost later, I found out you have to practically take apart your whole computer and will probably need special tools. The CPU is right under the keyboard and covered by a metal sheet. If you can get passed that, you're good. I tried going in from the back but that was fruitless; I could only remotely get one side 'loose'. To get under the metal plate, you probably have to take apart and remove a serial cable and you'll probably need some manufacturing tools (star shaped screw driver). Unless I'm missing some complex, yet easy step, many of you probably won't be able to get to the cpu.

 

Generally speaking, you pretty much have to completely disassemble a laptop to get to the CPU.....regardless of manufacturer.

I've replaced a few on the Latitidue D 600 series, and you have to pull them right apart.

 

On my ThinkPad T43 i just needed to take off the keyboard and cover around it, then I could take the cooling system off and get the cpu out from the socket with the lever.

 

And at that point, you pretty much have the whole thing apart.

 

i have had the dell technicians take my 1520 apart... they had to replace my palmrest... all the screws can b taken out by a standard star screwdriver.... no special tools needed anywhere...

 

i don't understand. they are not difficult to do. maybe if you have never opened up a laptop before, but if you have, they are quite a cake walk.

 

Vostro 1400 and Inspiron 1420 have the CPU at the bottom. remove the cover and there it is. Same wit xps m1330

 

Here are the instructions:
http://support2.jp.dell.com/docs/systems/ins1520/en/sm/cpu.htm#wp1179976

It does seem quite involved.

 

ahahaha! i hope that was sarcasm!

 

You fruit..

I take my 1520 apart all the time with a stupid Philips screw driver... Just to recheck the thermal paste is still evenly spread across the CPU head, and it's not hard, nor a great amazingly complicated endeavor!

The palm rest, and everything else that goes around the keyboard, excluding the hinge cover, is one piece, the palm rest, and yes including the metal piece under the keyboard is part of it. take out all the screws, lift from the left side to the right and ta-da EVERYTHING inside the computer. Hardly taking everything apart.

Why the hell would someone that can't even take the easiest laptop apart, with printed,illustrated instructions on how to do it; would wanna get at a CPU in the first place?! It's like putting the carriage before the horse know what I mean?

Do some research before you start ripping apart things, would have been nice if you opened something you didn't know much about (other then this laptop) and touched a component that holds a charge and got you're self a nice shock, wouldn't it?

BTW, good luck not getting hassled if you're machine has troubles down the road, when Dell finds out that it's missing a screw.

 

Dell wont care about it missing a screw...while we do all of our repairs that are out of warranty, if it is in warranty, we let dell do them. (its covered so why should we spend out time doing it?) Anyways, they have extra screws all the time, well as do we too , so i don't think dell will care.

 

I didn't think that myself either, A co-worker in the office has a xps m1330, he took it apart just for kicks, lost a screw. A week later he had stupid troubles with the hard drive partitions (he's not to technical, but he'd kick everyones ass at illustration lol)..

And the rep said his warranty is in threat of being voided due to consumer damage - lemon rep or valid procedure, what ever the issue not good eh...

 

OH SWEET! I've been looking for this.......!

BTW, I don't remember this part included in me manual......

 

Well, found the screw so it doesn't matter...... And if they did hassle, I'd claim shoddy workmanship on/of their products.......

ANYWAYS, I wanted to reapply the thermal paste on CPU with would would probably be a better application. The reason I had trouble with it was because I've always down it on a desktop (I could probably assemble a desktop with em eyes closed.......) but this was my first lappy and I didn't want to f*&% anything up. I tried looking for directions but, obviously, I didn't look hard enough........

Not really........ but you gotta learn somehow...? First time I took apart a puter, all the parts (including mobo) were sprawled out on the carpet....... luckily, it still worked after assembling it back together but there's nothing like the feeling you get from zapping your first part...... and then the smell.......... You learn and become more cautious and careful around computers, especially learning not to fish out a loose screw in your tower with a screw driver........

 

haha i did that on my first computer! i killed that hard drive so fast...

 

Took me an hour but I eventual got to the CPU and applied some new thermal paste. Max temps already dropped a few degrees and should get a few lower by the end of the week.