Studio 14z 1440 Disassembly and Bluetooth

Hi all, I thought I'd post this in a new thread instead of replying to my other one since the disassembly pictures could be helpful to people.

Right off, in my other thread I mentioned that Dell told me there were 2 rev's of motherboards (one if you order through the Home portal and a different one if you order through the Small Biz portal), and that the Home rev doesn't support Bluetooth (or WWAN, which is why these things didn't show up for me as options when ordering the laptop). So this morning I took the thing apart to see for myself.

Conclusion - From what I can tell, it appears that any 14z has a full size mini-PCI slot (for WWAN), a half-height mini-PCI slot (for wireless networking), and the mini plug necessary to install the Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth mini-card. Dell support is a bunch of morons.

Steps to disassemble:

1) Remove battery. Here is what the computer looks like with the batter removed.


2) Remove keyboard trim ring. This is totally held in by plastic snaps (yuk...I seem to have an easy time breaking these if not careful). If you flip the laptop upside down and look under where the battery goes, you can see a could of little tabs that show through. You can use a small flathead screwdriver to pop these loose from the backside.

Then flip the laptop keyboard up and carefully work your way around the rest of the trim ring until you have it totally loose.


3) Remove keyboard. This is just a couple of SHORT screws at the top of the keyboard. Then the keyboard rotates towards you, nice and easy. Only thing to be careful of is where the keyboard backlight plugs into the motherboard...this is a goofy little latch that will come apart very easy. just rotate the black piece up and the plug should slide out. Worst case, if the black part comes loose, get the keyboard out of the way and get the black piece snapped back in while its fresh in your mind (notice the black piece is missing in my picture...I waited until reassembly and forgot which way the black piece was oriented...had to do trial and error...a bit of a pain).


4) Remove harddrive. Again, simple. Just remove the four MEDIUM screws around the harddrive and use the little plastic puller to rotate the harddrive cage up and out.


5) Remove palmrest. Now, flip the laptop over and remove ALL visible screws from the bottom of the laptop. These will all be MEDIUM screws, except for two which are LONG screws (in the back corners closest to the LCD). Once you have all these removed, flip the laptop over and remove the four MEDIUM screws visible that are situated under the keyboard. Once all the screws are out, the palmrest is still held in by a ton of plastic snaps. I found it easiest to start close to the trackpad on the keyboard side and just work your way around, being patient. Once this is out of the way, you can get to the BT slot of PCI slots right under the palmrest. You probably can't make it out very well in the picture, but the slot circled is the BT slot.


To reassemble, just reverse the steps.

Hopefully this helps some people!!

 

Awesome!! Thank you so much, this is really helpful. I got the bt card in the mail today it's tiny about the size of my pinky nail x 2. Wired thing is they sent me 2. If they don't want it back you can have it.

Thanks a lot,
Rich

 

So I followed your instructions, installed the BT module rebooted, installed the Dell BT software (you need this)

And everything looks great...

After a clean install, I do have 1 unknown device, a coprocessor, but I have no idea what it is... any ideas?

Uknown Device: Coprocessor is handled by installing the nForce drivers...

-Rich

 

where can i get one of these bluetooth modules?

 

Easiest/cheapest is Ebay. Search for dell wireless 365. Should come up right away.

 

Thanks dude!

I never figured out how to make it, thanks!

 

Unfortunately, when I tried remove the keyboard I did not read your post and instead used the official guide from dell which failed to indicate that the black and tan latches pulled up to release the keyboard. As a result the flimsy tan latch broke when I tried to pull it. Do you know if there is anyway of getting this piece replaced??? Is this a standard piece? Can I order it online? Without the latch I cannot secure the keyboard connection. Do you have any advice?

Thanks