How to open loudspeaker area of a P170em in order to replace hinge?

As title says, I cant figure out how to take out my broken hinge and put a new one.

I havent actually dismantled the screen yet, because the replacement hasnt arrived, but I wanted to get ahead. From what I can peek from the open part of the bezel, and from taking the LED cover out, the hinge is nested inside the small mound of the loudspeaker area, but from what I can tell, this part cannot be pryed open.

Am I mistaken? Is it simple to replace the hinge?

Now, I have read the service manual but it only contains a schematic of the LCD parts.

 

have a look at this

 

Unfortunately this isn't relevant to me. As I said, I already lifted the cover of the LEDs, and the screen hinges are nested inside the same small mound where the loudspeakers are (or whatever the mound above the LEDS is).

 

The speaker mesh can be unclipped from the top. Unfortunately, the speaker bar is part and parcel of the top cover. However, looking at the hinge's construction, it appears all its screws should be accessible without removing the top cover, even though the hinge extends partially underneath the speaker bar.

So remove the front bezel + led bar and check whether the screws are indeed reachable. If so, then the the hinge itself might be removed sideways. If not, then all that's left is removing the top cover.

 

Unfortunately, the screw that holds the hinge in place is indeed under speaker bar.... How would I go into disassembling the top cover then?

 

A poor design choice, then. If lucky you can get away with removing the keyboard and every screw accessible from the bottom (and any found underneath the kb). If so, then the top cover can be unclipped from the base (using a flat screwdriver). Try that first and if it's still hooked somewhere then it's likely there's a screw underneath one (or more) of the heatsink assemblies. The metallic-looking plastic where the keyboard rests atop of is part of the top cover, so that will give some indication as to its extents.

One positive thing about this; you'll get to know a lot more about the innards of this laptop ...

 

Well it took me around 4 hours, never managed to fully release the top cover (guess I couldn't find all the screws that hold it in place), but did manage to loosen it up enought to get the screwdriver in and get the broken hinge out. I also had to take keyboard, fans, heatsinks, and the LCD out....

Casualties: One of the nuts of one of the screws that hold the base fell out, no idea how to get to that spot, so I cant put that screw back. Not a big deal I guess.
I also discovered that I stripped one of the screws that hold the upper heatsink of the video card, which is bad new because I want to replace it in a couple of months....

 

If you mean one the X-spreader screws then that is indeed unfortunate. These have a rather uncommon thread size; 1.6 mm. There's a few cheap sets available, but you'll have some spares.

 

The problem is that it is stripped INSIDE, cant get a grip to take it out... and no, not the X spreader, the I mean the upper heat sink plate, the one that covers all the mini components of the GPU

 

Not sure which screw you mean, the 2.5mm? Anyway, a micro bolt extractor might just do. Otherwise; use a dremel at a 90° angle and carve out a new, flat screw head incision. It'll be tricky, considering there'll be little meat to go around.

 

I'm not clear on which screw we're talking about here either. If the head is stripped, though, a dremel really does work well to carve a small slit to allow a flat head to grip it. A metal file might work, even.

 

I've even used an old (but sharp) serated kitchen knife when it it was in a really tight spot to get enough purchase.