Im trying to take appart my laptop to get access to my fan

I'm not familiar with HP laptops in particular, but I can give you some advice that's good for most laptops: Try looking for screws hidden under stickers. You can usually find them by running a fingernail back & forth over any stickers. Another standard trick is internal plastic 'hook' catches, which are undone by

Many laptops have additional screws under the keyboard. You will probably find screws at the back of the keyboard, maybe under a clipped-in trim, which allow the keyboard to be lifted up and then hooked out from the front edge, and unplugged. Once the keyboard is out, you might well find several additional screws going downwards into the bottom pan. There might also be screws in any of the 'compartments' on the underside - that's HDD bay, battery bay, memory bay, etc. When you do get it coming apart, be especially careful of the two *very* thin coax cables that go up to the two antennas located in the screen. They usually unplug, but the gold connectors are so tiny that you won't immediately recognise them as being plugs. Golden rule with dismantling laptops, is to work slowly and carefully. It is so easy to get just a little bit enthusiastic with separating a couple of parts that seem to be slightly resisting coming apart, only to find that you've torn a cable ... A small pwerful light such a a Maglight is useful for looking inside to see what is holding it.

Also, the lengths and types of some screws are critical. You will have quite a lot by the time you get it apart, and I would *strongly* recommend that you find something to keep them in, that you can label. An old egg carton is good for this. Trust me, it takes only one overnight sleep for the carefully remembered plan of where they all came from, to go right out of your head ... d;~}

Arfa

Maintenace and service guide here

Trust me, you don't want to dismantle it just to get at the fan ! Your first idea was the better one and if you look carefully you will see that forcing air back through the heatsink and out through the fan will clear most if not all the dust bunnies. But do it outside where the dust can disperse downwind.

What about causing fan/fans to spin up too fast from the blast of air?

Have you ever broken one ? I haven't !

I haven't, but I know of two people who have. It didn't hurt the blades, but the bearings became real noisy. I always put a finger or something like a loop of wire against the blades just to be sure. Why not, it's easy to do?

Breeyon,

I had to do this some months back to replace a fan that had gone all noisy. The only way I got through it was to download a service manual for my particular laptop from some page online (mine is a dv9000). I can tell you that there were so many layered, interconnecting things in the laptop, that trying to disassemble and reassemble without the instructions would have been horrifying. As it was, following the instructions, I had to almost completely disassemble the laptop to get the fan and heatsink out and replace it. Not for the faint of heart - and pay careful attention as you go, perhaps even taking digital snaps as you go - otherwise you'll end up with 'extra' screws, etc. when you're all done.

Good luck

-Mr. INTJ San Diego, CA

I've never had it cause a problem, & I used to regularly blow dust off fans with an air-compressor.

Quite probably because the dust clinging to the blades and hub got blown away. This probably would allow the fan to rotate a little more quickly. There is no real reason other than normal wear for a fan to be noisy.

Jamming the fan blades in the way you describe is likely to do real damage to the blades causing a major problem ! Definitely not to be recommended.

But in response to the original poster, I've seen more damage done by people taking their laptop apart than ever I have seen done by carefully air blasting dust bunnies out ! The trick is blowing the dust out in the opposite direction to the way it got in !

It wasn't noisy until after the blades were spun overly fast by a blast of air far stronger than the fan itself could ever create. This is especially bad to do if the fan motor uses sleeve-type bearings rather than ball-type.

I don't 'jam' anything. I simply prevent the blades from spinning.

Very true. It takes a fair amount of practice to really become good at reassembling laptops. (Any fool can pull one apart. ;^)

Yup. Air-gunning the main outlet vent works on many models.

(snip)

I am one that have seen several laptops literally burn up because of all the dirt that collects on the radiator fins connected to the heat pipe for cooling the CPU. This is mostly seen where the fan intake is on the bottom of the case. The CPU usually protects itself but everything else in the case gets very hot. The best solution is the air compressor air gun into the main outlet. Most of the dirt just blows out of the intake vent on the bottom. What is left inside really does not cause any problem and I have never seen a fan damaged by using this procedure.

David

Yes I agree and have a couple of scrap laptops to show for it !

In the above the some of the solder holding several chips melted and one fell off into the case.

I sorted one this afternoon. There was so much fluff in there it had actually stopped the fan from spinning.

All true. Fixing laptops is nothing like fixing PCs. The only thing I can think of that is more of a pain to work on is cameras.