Envy 15 repair experiences

Just wanted to post a quick note detailing the repairs I recently made to my HP Envy 15t so hopefully people can avoid the pitfalls I experienced.

I absentmindedly stepped on the laptop slightly a couple of months ago (with it in its case), but it was enough to cause extensive damage. The metallic lid cover was cracked, as well as the antiglare LCD panel itself. After disassembling the laptop, I found a few of the front fan grills cracked on the left side. I probably could have gotten away with reusing it, but that's not how I do things. I replaced the LCD panel, the top cover and the main chassis.

Disassembling the laptop is fairly straightforward, but when removing the keyboard/top cover, the keyboard connector needs to be unlocked (the keyboard ribbon will come out easily after this is done). The touchpad ribbon is a different kettle of fish...it's a LIF socket with no locking mechanism. Just pull the ribbon straight out by the blue tab. Reinstall is a pain, but is done by pushing the same blue tab (not the cable itself) into the connector. The ribbon connecting the power button to the motherboard is the same, but doesn't need to be disconnected for top cover removal. Having extra rubber feet on hand is a good thing. I would have ordered the service kit, but the chassis item description said that new rubber feet came with it. They did not.

One thing that is prevalent is HP's use of blue thread locker on most screws. I had some that was very similar and redabbed the screws lightly in a puddle of threadlocker before reusing them.

The lid is held on by four screws and has the display cable, WiFi antenna leads, Bluetooth cable and light sensor cable all coming out of the lid. These are wedged in between the battery compartment and the heatsink fans (on both sides), but I was able to get them to come free with a little coaxing. The replacement lid cover itself comes with new hinges already installed. It also comes with most of the cables, including the WiFi ones, but the LCD panel cable needs to be removed and reused, along with the cable for the camera. Removal of the LCD panel cable is not difficult, but reconnection is kind of a pain as the connector is quite small and fragile and you need to be certain it's aligned properly before pushing it in. The tape used to secure the cable on the original panel is quite sticky, but I used some clear packing tape to reinforce it. Properly routing the cables from the display lid is essential, as an improperly routed cable may not let the top cover sit properly.

One note about the LCD itself...it has four screw holes on each side of it and small brackets screw into the holes on the corners, with another screw holding the bracket to the lid itself. I was looking into the service manual of the Elitebook 8540w, wondering about swapping in the Dreamcolor panel. The panel in the Envy 15 has the same mounting screws as referenced in the Elitebook's service manual, so it may just be possible to swap in the Dreamcolor panel into the Envy 15. I think the Dreamcolor panel is a bit of a power hog though, as all configuration of the 8540w with the Dreamcolor panel requires 150W power. Also, the ~$2000 price of a bare Dreamcolor panel made that option much less appealing.

Replacement if the chassis itself was straightforward, and HP was nice enough to include some parts preinstalled, like latches, the plug in for the AC adapter, and the power switch w/ribbon cable.

Laptop is all back together and working perfectly. Just waiting on the i7-620m that'll be replacing the ultra toasty i7-720qm quad core and I'll be set.

The hardest part of the whole exercise was getting a hold of the damn parts. HP, why don't you ship service parts to Canada?!?


Anyhow, some pics of the carnage for your viewing pleasure...