15/11/2011

Asus Bamboo disassembly

I don't want to try this until I absolutely have to, but I found a short disassembly guide for my Asus U43jc hidden in an insanely long forum thread (page 188, user tenchi71):
[some remarks about changing WiFi adapters] To get to the card I removed the battery, dvd-drive, hard drive, and ram. I then needed to remove all screws visible from the bottom, as well as screws under the two rubber feet. Make sure you keep the screws organized after removal, they are not all the same size. Next, I flipped the machine over, opened it as wide as it would go, and carefully pried the entire top portion of the laptop off using a plastic pry tool. Use a plastic tool, you'll be prying all along where the chrome parts meet the bottom plastic. A screwdriver will mar this very easily. Most of the prying was all along the front, right where the LEDs are located, so be careful not to harm those. Once the front pries away, the rest lifts up easily, the entire top portion is one piece (palm rest/mouse-pad/keyboard/buttons). Be careful, there are 4 thin and relatively short ribbon cables connecting the keyboard/mouse/buttons to the motherboard. To be able to get to and remove the wifi card, I needed to disconnect the first two ribbon cables going from right to left. Be easy on them. They have little black levers that you lift up to unlock the cables. Next, carefully disconnect the two antennae cables, and then remove the two screws holding the wifi card into place. The card then pops up and comes right out.
Someone even took pictures.

Note:
I had to open it up in the end, because a bit of rough handling and Asus' flimsy case design were too much for the screws holding the left screen hinge. High strength epoxy more or less fixed it.
Update: Due to persistent screen problems, I also removed the LCD screen today, following this Youtube video. My comments: the video author mentions only 2 screws holding the bezel, it's in fact 4 (one in each corner under the rubber nibs). The plastic bezel clamps are extremely fragile - I was careful and still broke 2 out of ca. 20. All in all, I'm definitely unimpressed by the quality of the plastic parts in this laptop - the metal and wood parts are holding up fine, as well as the electronics, but the flimsiness of the case means this machine needs to be replaced after barely 2 1/2 years of use.

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