CF-53 Bottom Case Removal for Internal Ceaning

Hello, I want to clean the inside of my dads CF-53 and I can't for the life of me figure out how to open her up. I searched for videos, or maybe some kind of picture and I could not find anything. I'm usually good at figuring this stuff out but this one has sooooo many screws I'm lost. Thanks for any help in advance!:thumbsup:

 

Ha Ha Welcome to the world of Toughbooks. Yes these do have lots of screws holding them together . I have never had mine apart and would like to have a service manual before I do. I don't think you will need to take the bottom off, you should be able to just pull off the keyboard to get at most of it...at least that is what I have done in the past with my CF-50, 51 and 52

Looks like 3 screws that hold the power button on but the keyboard might have double face tape on the underside of it so take your time...good luck

 

That "good luck" makes me even more afraid! lol I actually just put it back together and was the thinking the same thing, it looked (atleast to me it did with everything off that I could remove visually) that I would have to go in from the keyboard, the temps just seem a bit high to me (package core temps hit 85c in HWMonitor just using google chrome) but maybe its because I'm used to my personal gaming rig where low temps are a must. Do these have fan controllers anywhere? Where do these pull the air in from, are higher temps even an issue for these beasts? lol

 

None that I know of, just a "Fan Diagnostics" in the BIOS that test the fan. The only vent I see is the one in the back unless it pulls air in by the keyboard...wish I could find a service manual somewhere

 

Well, I called up tech support and the gentlemen I spoke to told me that little vent is the intake and outlet, ridiculous cooling setup on this thing. I can't remove the keyboard without voiding the warranty, they said they will take it under warranty and clean and re-paste for me, I hit 90c while watching netflix which is ridiculous and the fan is so tiny lol. I removed that panel where the power button is and it looked clean, I needed a flashlight but not much dust on the fan. Oh well, I'll have to let my dad decide its his comp after all.

 

I just did a test on mine...check it out . My 53 is about 5-6 months old with 2440 hours showing in the BIOS.

 

yeah mines idling between 51-56 then it goes to 60-75 when I open google chrome then jumps up to 85-95c when I open a video or something, and it hit 102c when I opened a game. Seems like the fan just never increases for increased temps, I thought all computer fans increased speed at higher temps, I guess these don't? If they are suppose to this one def is not working the way its suppose to lol

 

When I ran the test I was playing a video , surfing the net and downloading stuff . If there is a problem with his I would return it because Panasonic is good on getting it back to you fast...I have heard some members say they have had there's back in a week.

 

yeah, the tech I spoke to said the turn around is 4-5 days which is impressive.

 

Let us know what you find out if you send it away..good luck

 

Hi ShadowGearX

Before sending to Heartland it MUST have OEM ram...no Crucial, Kingston or any other non OEM ram. Heartland will gladly put OEM ram in it. It cost me $135.00 for one CF-WMBA802G on a CF-30 MK3.

-Nick

 

really? why is that? I ordered it with upgraded ram from tigerdirect.com.....

 

Was this new when you got it ? That is the way most companys are. It must have the same OEM parts....like the way it left the factory. I know Dell is that way too. Last year I sent my girlfriends dell away and the guy told me to remove the upgraded memory chip in it if it did not come from dell

 

They can reimage it to original, but they can't waste the time to try and figure out and drivers etc.. for ANY aftermarket items. It can take hours to try and figure out oddball hardware. So to eliminate any issues they make a blanket policy of nothing other than original.
If that odd hardware happens to go bad while they have it, they have to spend a lot of effort to replace it. Instead of pulling a stock item off the shelf.
They don't need the responsibility of some custom expensive hardware item.
Oddball (cheap)ram can be unpredictable.
They know the specs of what they sell, they know how it should perform.
Customers can argue Panasonic ruined my aftermarket ram worth $XXX.00 dollars. When they can replace original parts for pennies with no possible arguments.
It makes it easy to diagnose problems. If the laptop is 100% original then they can drop in a caddy with an original image and know exactly how the laptop should perform.

 

makes sense. thanks shawn.

 

Your CPU needs new thermal paste.

Here in Bulgaria there is no such policy... Repair centers accept any devices despite original or manually upgraded. But there is always one "but" - if your repair will cost much money to them and you did upgrade, they can say "sorry, your warranty is off because your device is not original". They even want the original packaging... And everything is written with small letters in the bottom of the contracts