Anyone dreaming about disassembling their brand

[AndyK]

Anyone dreaming about disassembling their brand new TC1100?
Well, here we go! ... I had to do so last night.

Prelude: I received my tablet last thursday and soon found out that the fan was making mechanical noices, depending on how I held the tablet (lose bearing, probably).
So I filed the issue at hp.com, asking them wether I could replace the fan myself without loosing warranty (didn't wanna give the tablet away that soon, of course, and as I have several years of experience as computer technician...).

When I started to open the tablet, I quickly ran into a problem: all screws removed, the tablet still wouldn't open easily, it was still stuck in two places. And those of you who ever tried to open any device with plastic casing by force know why I hesitated to just go on that way with my tablet! To easily you break something you cannot repair afterwards.
Luckily I remembered having seen a picture of an open HP tablet somewhere around, and on tc-one-thousand.com I finally found it. I already had sent an email to Christopher, when I saw that the pics were from "Master_O_Mayhem" over here, what finally lead me to his post and the precious TC1000 Maintenance and Service guide over at compaq.com:
(http://wwss1pro.compaq.com/support/r...13&docid=13131).

"OK, that's it". Or so I thought...
The TC 1100 is not exactly the TC1000, so it didn't work right away - in the end I found that the case was stuck at the soundcard connectors (no big deal once you know it).
The other problem zone was at the jog dial, but in the end I only had to lift the edge of the silver case with a tiny screwdriver to release it. NEVER had I thought that such a tiny plastic part (the black "rim" between jog dial and the first tablet key) could hold back the cover that strong!

The part where I got stuck with:

28.85Â*KB

Yeah - now it was open (TAKE CARE not to damage the digitizer cable when you drop half of the unit!!!).

But the TC1000 Maintenance Guide told me I also had to remove the mainboard in order to access the fan. It prooved true - stupid cramped interiors!

23.03Â*KB
I had to remove the primarey RAM, WiFi card, Keyboard Release Assembly, 4 cables and the EMI shield first, steer the mainboard arount the edges of the harddisk compartment, then it was free at last.
Three more screws and I held the defective fan unit in my hands, Yeah!

Interesting to find out that the long white cable is the BlueTooth antenna, so we should rename the part to "heatsink fan / BlueTooth antenna assembly". Weird!
They really seem to use every cubic millimeter. The screw that fixes the pen holder goes through the mainboard also, thus eliminating the need of another screw in that area. So in the end you litterally have disassembled your whole tablet!
If you're gonna do the same, be shure to have a lot of empty space on your table to assort screws and parts (see below...).

Fan assembly with antenna cable, screw holes marked:

38.42Â*KB

Well, reassembling should be a piece of cake once you got that far.
I admit I still had to do it TWICE, as I too late realized that one of the wireless antenna cables had been nasty enough to hide behind the mainboard instead of reaching to the wireless compartment when I
fixed the board, so I had to completely decompose the unit again when there was only one cover left to fix. Having fun... :-P OK, no real problem anymore, only it was 2am in the meantime.

After reassembling the second time I found that I had used one of the short cover screws in place of a longer one to fix the mainboard, so I now have a left over the longer one that won't go into the whole. completely - I'll have to either cut the screw that's left, or... ok, maybe I'll get back out the right one again...

Not what I intended - won't stay that way for long:

23.54Â*KB

But now, best of all, the miracle: the unit STILL works (!) after this adventure!!! And the fan is QUIET now :-D

To make the long story short:

• it's quite cramped in there,
• you'll need some courage,
• quite a bit of PC assembling/disassembling experience and a LOT of patience (besides a torx driver, of course!),

[*]but it can be done.
TC1100 disassembling is very similiar to the TC1000, until you get to the mainboard part.
I guess there must be a TC1100 Maintenance Quide somewhere, but I don't know if (now) HP makes them freely accessible over the net like compaq did.

This pic is from TC1000 Maintenance Guide, but the TC1100 is VERY similiar, maybe the outer shell is even identical:


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[WNewquay]

Andy - thanks for the amazing post.



Now I guess I missed it
... exactly what did HP say about you opening the case?
... how did you fix the nasty, noisy, busted bearing, fan?

Hats off to a braver person than I !

[hizz]

wow... respect :D

[AndyK]

WNewquay,
- HP didn't tell me anything, they just sent the replacement fan.
They assumed I just had to know, obviously...
- I didn't fix the fan, I replaced it.
You just can't fix bad bearings, the fan would break if you opened it.

To bad I didn't think of making some photos as long as the tablet was open.
But there are some nice pics of a disassembled TC1000 at tc-one-thousand.com, under "tweaks". The 1100 looks almost the same inside.

[WNewquay]

Andy,

If anything else goes wrong with the unit, (that you can't fix), then when they ask you if you are the guy who tore it down to bare metal to replace a fan... Deny, deny!, deny!!

You must be one of those people who has some sixth sense to diagnose a problem, and to know where the invisible clips are. Not a common skill by any means.


[edit - fixed a typo]

[AndyK]

quote:You must be one of those people who has some sixth sense to diagnose a problem, and to know where the invisible clips are. Not a common skill by any means.

Well, I have to admit, it took me about to to find the "invisible clips" - and I guess the only sixth sense I have was not to apply force to the plastic. I tried that once before with some other divice (don't know anymore what it was, but it was definitely cheaper...), so I had some experience about what not to do.

Well, knowing HP I suspected that it was just a little clip, but still I didn't want to break it. Pulling at the top resultet in the screen bending at that place so I feared to damage it.
I was going to give up until receiving further advice when my wife came in and saw it and said that can't be that complicated. She actually encouraged me to try again (!). So I thought if the outer shell is allmost identical to the TC1000, it only could be a very small thing. It actually was only a small groove in the cover, about 5mm long and maybe 0.5mm deep!

[adsmeenk]

I have used the same 'procedure' [8D] to repair the 'screech from hell' I think it is called??

I disconnected the speakers/microphone, I have the impression from looking at the layout (e.g. the flatcable connecting the speaker assembly to the rest of the board) that the folds in it might create shorts, which might be an explenation for that it occurs when you pickup the unit (or press on the back)

Alfred

[rylos]

hi andyk, could you do me a favour and tell me about the voltage and the amperage of the fan? it should be printed on the sticker, but i can't read it from your photo (resolution is too low).
if i know these voltage an amperage i could solder a fitting resistor in the fans power cable to make my TC1000 more quiet (and unfortunately more hot).

thanks, rylos

[AndyK]

Hi Rylos, I'm sorry but the old fan is already on it's way back to HP.
But should I have to open the tablet again (you never know...), I'll have a look and tell you!

[OpenBox]

How would a resistor make the fan quieter? Are you talking about fooling the fan into thinking it is not hot, so the fan won't come on as quick
This does not sound like a good idea