how to open a laptop?

[Swafe]

CD drive is dead, and simply, it need sorting

Now here comes the problem

Toshiba Satellite 1640, Ive undone EVERY screw on the back, yet, its still hard shut, how do i open it to get the cd rom out?

[MD]

I take it you have removed the battery etc etc to get the screws out from under there and maybe alos out of the rubberised feet as screws are normally hidden there....

m@

[Swafe]

Yup, took out all 9 screws I could find

No rubber feet, so none there, opened the RAM slot and found one hiding in there, but its still jammed shut, seems to be glued down, but why would they glue it down, and put screws on it for you to open it ? Must be possible someway to open it to fix or upgrade it tho.

I've tried google to no avail - there does seem to be 3 holes with a capital K by them, which look like long screw holes, but theres no screws in them, so either theyve been taken out already or there not meant to be there

[ywouldi]

You might need to remove the keyboard? Normally pretty easy to do

[Timmy!!!]

The holes with the K on them correspond to the screws that are holding the keyboard in place. Is there a latch or something? It should just slide out (sorry if this sounds really stupid). Is there a screw on the actual cd drive?

[Kumagoro]

you have removed the bit of plastic above the keyboard yes? you need to pop that off.
then undo the keyboard and see what you can see.

[Swafe]

I cant get the keyboard off

Ive taken a piece of plastic off, but i cant shift it, tried poking a knife down the side and prising it off, but it feels like the circuit board underneath might snap?

[Timmy!!!]

How about you take some pictures, see if we can spot something you didnt perhaps.

[alexander]

I had the same problem when i was trying to extract the HD from my 3 year old dell.

The hammer was the only option. Now lying in my room in many,many,many pieces.

[rajagra]

Sometimes you need a soft plastic "wedge" to slide into the seams to split the case open, but you shouldn't need that just to take the keyboard out.
Trouble with laptops is you need to use a little force to get certain parts off. But you need to know how much force to apply in what direction, otherwise you break them. Once you have it open and can see how it goes together, it's "ah, I see, that's how it works." But by then you may have done the damage.
Can you download a maintenance manual? That would be a BIG help. I've worked on a few Toshibas and they were the worst laptops I ever had to work on. All the screws were different sizes and it's NOT obvious which screws go back where.

[noah]

Once you have it open and can see how it goes together, it's "ah, I see, that's how it works." But by then you may have done the damage.

i did that to an old p3 toshiba a month ago, wont turn on now ah well, will turn it in to a mini itx i think

[scottyman]

there will be about 5 plastic clips holding the bit of plastic in the top, the underneath you should be able to level the keyboard up at an angle and disonnect it

[edavies87]

When I took my Samsung X05 apart, i had to use a screwdriver to pry the drive out but it still works fine now! Albeit with some screwdriver marks! Is there not a guide somewhere online there was for my previous dell latitude! Just a thought!

Ed

[rc55]

I've took apart a number of Tosh 4600 Sat Pro's, basically you need to remove the strip above the keyboard, then unscrew the two keyboard screws that are revealed by removing the strip, when you've removed the keyboard (gently! - Watch out for the connecting strips / data cable), there are a number of large screws which secure the chassis together.

Ruairi

[Stevo]

I replaced the cd drive with a dvd drive in my old HP laptop, took ages to figure out how to get it apart, jut turned out that parts of it just clipped together and had to be gently forced. At one point I had every single piece of it lying on my bed like a big jigsaw puzzle. Took ages putting it back together and im still left with four spare screws that i couldnt find anywere they coulda came from.
So ive got a black laptop with a silver dvd drive that had to be trimmed down to size with a penknife. Also had to take a soldering iron to the power connector.