Home
In this guide I explain how to disassemble a Compaq Presario F700 notebook. The guide might work for some other Compaq and HP models. I think the disassembly steps will be very similar for Compaq Presario F500 and HP G6000 notebook PC. If this guide works for your notebook, please mention the model name in the comments below.
You’ll find tons of spare parts for Compaq Presario F700, F500 notebooks here.
In this particular guide I’m taking apart a Presario F730US notebook.
By the way, if you have a bad/dead motherboard, check out these motherboard repair offers.
Before you start, turn off the laptop, unplug the power adapter and remove the battery.
COMPAQ PRESARIO F700 DISASSEMBLY GUIDE.
STEP 1.
Remove three screws securing the memory cover and two screws securing the hard drive cover. Remove both covers.
STEP 2.
Lift up the right side of the hard drive by the plastic tab to disconnect it from the motherboard. Remove the hard drive.
STEP 3.
Remove both memory modules.
STEP 4.
Disconnect both antenna cables from the wireless card. Remove two screws securing the wireless card in the top left and right corners. Pull the wireless card from the slot and remove it.
STEP 5.
Remove one screw securing the CD/DVD drive and pull the drive from the notebook. Remove the drive.
STEP 6.
Remove all marked screws from the bottom of the notebook.
Yellow screws securing the switch cover (keyboard cover).
Green screws securing the keyboard.
STEP 7.
Start lifting up the switch cover as it shown on the picture below. You’ll have to work with your fingers to disengage small plastic latches holding the switch cover.
Be careful, there is a thin ribbon cable running from the switch cover to the motherboard.
STEP 8.
Now you can lift up the top side of the keyboard and access the connector underneath the keyboard.
The keyboard cable connector is located above the touch pad. Before you pull the cable and remove the keyboard you have to unlock the connector.
Move both sides of the locking tab about 1-2 millimeter up and release the keyboard cable. Now you can pull the cable and remove the keyboard.
STEP 9.
Disconnect the switch cover cable from the motherboard.
Remove the cover.
STEP 10.
Unplug the LCD cable from the motherboard.
Release the wireless card antenna cables. Pull them through a hole in the motherboard.
Remove four screws securing the display panel.
STEP 11.
Lift up and remove the display panel assembly.
In the next guide I will explain how to access and remove the LCD screen with inverter board.
STEP 12.
Remove four screws securing the top cover assembly.
Disconnect the power button board cable.
Disconnect the touch pad cable.
STEP 13.
Remove all screws securing the top cover assembly from the bottom of the notebook. Do not forget three (green) screws in the CD/DVD drive bay.
Remove two hex studs located close to the memory slots.
By the way, the RTC (CMOS) battery can be accessed when you remove the memory cover.
STEP 14.
Start separating the top cover assembly from the bottom assembly. You’ll have to work with your fingers to disengage plastic latches securing the top cover.
Carefully lift up and remove the top cover assembly.
STEP 15.
Now I’m going to remove the motherboard.
Remove one screw securing the motherboard. In other Compaq/HP models there could be more then one screw securing the motherboard.
STEP 16.
Lift up the right side of the motherboard as it shown on the picture below.
Before you remove the motherboard from the base assembly you have to disconnect the audio board cable.
STEP 17.
Remove the motherboard and turn it upside down. There are two more cables to disconnect.
These cables connect the motherboard to the USB/Power connector board.
Finally, the motherboard is removed. As you see on the picture below, the audio board and USB/power connector board are secured to the base assembly.
The motherboard has been removed. Now you can access and replace the cooling fan if you have to.
You can access and replace the processor if you remove the heat sink.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
February 15th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Turbo1dr,
Sorry, I cannot tell. I never removed the cable from the motherboard. I just look at the original (large) image and it’s not clear how these two wires are plugged in. The connector is covered with yellow tape.
Here’s the best picture I have: http://www.insidemylaptop.com/images/f700-mobo.JPG
I just searched though the service manual for this model: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01295900.pdf
and they don’t mention this cable at all.
February 15th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
LaptopTech,
Let me further explain… in much greater detail. I don’t have a cable…at all.
The cable was missing when I got the laptop…in pieces….from a friend….who installed a motherboard in it and it still didn’t fix the laptop.
I have managed to get the laptop back together and working but the wireless card (that was working before he replaced the motherboard) does not work after the motherboard replacement.
Since the motherboard is missing this cable, I’m going to solder some wires where the original cables connect.
The problem is….. I don’t know which of the two wires to solder to which terminal that is located on the motherboard.
In this picture —-> http://www.turbomalibu.com/misc/wireconnections.jpg —–> you will see where I drew a line from one connector to the other. And on the other picture you can see where I crossed the wires.
I am asking you…
1. Does the wires connect like the ones on the LEFT side of the picture or…
2. Do they connect like the RIGHT side of the picture?
Hopefully this explanation is simple enough to understand this time. Thank you for your time.
February 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Turbo1dr,
I don’t know that. In my case I had only one black cable on the motherboard and both ends where keyed, so I didn’t have to guess the orientation of each end.
February 14th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
i have an compaq f730us and the wireless stop working. it was on a table and i banged the table real hard. now the amber light stays on all the time. i sent it to an repair shop and they told me it was not the internal wireless card it but the motherboard. i followed ur instructions for dissasembly. my question to you is the gray and black wires lableled 1 and 2 that connect to the wireless card, also go to the lcd screen. what are these wires for. do you think there is something wrong with the inverter. does this have anything to do with the wireless not working?
February 14th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Hi there
I have a Comaq Presario F700 and the problem I am having with mines is it boots up but when it starts loading to Windows it loads very very slow now and I just end up cutting it off. Also I noticed that it started not showing all my 2GB memory, it now shows memory at 1983(It has always showed 2GB), but in bios it shows 2GB memory. Do I need to reflow the laptop or is it something else? I also checked my memory & hard drive and both are fine after running test on them, thanks in adavnce
February 12th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Well it worked. This F700 lives again =0
So if your f700 is one that when you press the power button, and it shuts off after 2 seconds, or dies as soon as you get out of text mode it’s probably worth a shot to try to reflow the solder under the GPU.
If I can figure out a way to word/take pics of a “guide” for the torch method that doesn’t induce people to light their motherboards on fire, I’ll post back. I didn’t use the “heatlamp method” linked to by mike, so I can’t attest to the long term durability of that fix, but I can at least confirm that the method and idea of it is sound.
Ironically now, I’m having a similiar “DVD drive stopped working” problem, that might be similar to jake’s. The DVD drive/burner (AD-7561A) was working fine for me (i used to to boot various utilities) but… I just noticed the drive doesn’t show up anymore. I don’t think it’s showing in the BIOS … which argh someone needs to slap HP for hiding even the basic “what’s detected” in it’s bios. argh
I’m going to check, I know the DVD drive was working fine before i flashed the BIOS. I’m pretty sure this laptop had version 05, and I updated to 07. I’m going to see if i can revert back, and if that makes a difference. I doubt it (why would HP release a bios that won’t detect) but it seems awfully coincidental.
February 12th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Thanks for your reply.
I know both ends connect to the motherboard. I’m needing to know where each of the two wires connect to which pin on each connector.
Here is a picture of what I’m talking about.
http://www.turbomalibu.com/misc/wireconnections.jpg
February 10th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Turbo1dr,
This cable doesn’t go anywhere. This cable is plugged into connectors on the motherboard on both ends. It’s like a jumper cable.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
jake zoli,
It depends. I cannot tell if this is software or hardware related problem without testing.
Find a bootable CD or DVD (restore disc, Windows installation CD, live Linux CD, etc…) and try booting the laptop from it. If the laptop boots from a bootable CD/DVD but will not read it in Windows, most likely this is software related problem and reinstalling Windows will fix the problem.
If the laptop doesn’t boot from a bootable CD/DVD, most likely the drive is bad and has to be replaced.
Remove the CD/DVD drive from the laptop and search for HP part number on it. After that google the part number and find a replacement drive. You’ll see how much it is.
February 10th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Step 15 and 16 shows a black wire running from the WIFI switch area to the middle of the left side of the motherboard. It is a 2 wire cable……can anyone tell me which wire goes where? Someone gave me a F700 after replacing the motherboard and from what I can see, this wire is missing. They may not have transferred it over to the new motherboard. Before I put any money in this PC I was going to solder some wires in myself to see if I can get the WIFI working again. The WIFI worked before replacing the motherboard.
Thanks!
February 10th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
What is the way to fixed my cd/dvd drive for my laptop. The model of my laptop is presario f700….Because it is not reading the dvd or cd disk……..How much is the payment of fixing my cd/dvd drive………Thanks.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am
anon,
Sounds like the motherboard failure.
Hopefully it works for you. You have nothing to lose anyway, right? Let me know if it works.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:39 am
First off I would like to thank Laptop Tech immensely for these guides. It makes taking laptops apart sooooo much nicer when you don’t have to play hunt and peck with screws forever.
I’m working on a relations F700 that originally I suspected was a loose/broken power jack. Now that I have the laptop in person to work on it, I’m pretty sure that the jack is good.
When I press the power button the laptop power LED lights for roughly 2 seconds and then goes out. No beep, no drive spinup, no backlight attempt, nothing. I tested the power brick and even the battery with a multimeter and they seem to be working.
Reading mikes post and the link to the nvidia GPU problems it fits the symptoms to a tee. I jury rigged up an alternative way to apply heat to the GPU while pressing it to the board. I’ll post back when I actually get the laptop back together to see if I instead just didn’t kill the motherboard more =)
January 31st, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Solution for the following problem (josh, jamal, others):
” … when i try to turn it (laptop) on all it does it show ( by power light only ) that it is trying to turn on & then shuts off. Just keeps repeating that step & never even turns the screen on. Anybody know where i should start to find the problem?”
I had the same problem on F700, and I fixed it thanks to this web site and this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHTF3oNdxI
It shows you how to repair the Nevida GPU (using a common heating lamp) .
Good luck
January 24th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
thanks man, finally long nose pliers work
January 24th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Replying to Hexstud post 134:
I used hemostats but I just checked and it looks like any needle nose pliers would work. They’re not very tight.
January 24th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
help pls, how do you remove the two hex stud? is there some special kind of screw to remove it? what’s the alternate way of removing it if I don’t have that special kind of screw driver?
January 21st, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Trish,
I haven’t done it myself, but I assume you have to remove the top cover assembly first. After that you should be able to access the touch pad from the bottom side of the top cover.
January 21st, 2010 at 2:46 pm
How do you remove the touchpad unit for the Presario F700? I got everything else taken off, but my touchpad doesn’t work and I want to remove it from the cover to make sure there is not damage on it or to replace it. Thanks.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:36 am
My son spilt beer all over his laptop – he’s nearlt 18 (that’s okay in the UK). Now it doesn’t work.
Your guide has helped me take apart and will help put it back together. Whether i can clean and dry it out thoroughly enough is another matter. Fingers crossed it will live again.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Christy,
Yes, it’s possible that the LCD cable got disconnected from the motherboard. Reconnecting the cable would be the first thing to try.
The LCD cable connector is shown in the Step 10.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Replying to post 128 by Christy:
Hi,
I’m not sure but it sounds as though you can see a very dim image on the monitor LCD screen. It sounds as though the backlight may have been damaged when it fell.
That being the case I Googled “F700 backlight” and found it.
I found this link on backlight replacement:
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/09/replace-laptop-backlight-ccfl-lamp/
I’ve never changed one myself but if you attempt it I suggest taking pictures with a digital camera every step of the way.
I’m not sure how much the Shipping is but getting the backlight for $9.50 seems like a bargain considering the alternatives.
Incidentally, following the procedures outlined in this guide make removing the display panel a snap.
Good luck,
Jim F.
January 15th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
On my F700 Presario I dropped it on it side. Right after that my screen stopped working. I can plug it into a regular monitor and can see everything fine. I called support and they told me it was probably my backlight and it would cost me $400 at least to fix. Does anyone have any suggestions as I don’t know how I would check everything on my computer to make sure. Also he said it might be a cord that may have became disconnected. When I plug it into the monitor my monitor on the notebook shows up a little but not much. I have adjusted the brightness so know that will not help it. Any suggestions?
January 13th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Hi,
After cleaning and re-assembly of my F712NR I re-installed Vista Home Premium and upgraded to Sp1 and Sp2 I was in the process of installing AVG when my computer stopped recognizing the Broadcom Wireless card.
Searching on the internet showed this to be a common problem. The card has been intermittently recognized but not for the last several days. I tried various recommended solutions but nothing has worked so far. Any ideas? Anyone?
Thanks, Jim
January 10th, 2010 at 10:33 am
is there a fuse on the motherboard anywhere mine will not charge or run with the power supply I know the supply is good it works on my other computer… thanks
January 10th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Hey i also have a compaq f700..and am wanting to upgrade for gaming. I currently try to play call of duty modern warfare 2. and the lag is terrible. i have 2gb of ram which i think is the max..and i was wondering if i could upgrade the processor and video card?
January 9th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
thankyou for the information !
my compaqs display screen turns fuzzy like a tv when i try to use it, i went to staples and they said it would be 370 dollars to repair this. Is there anything i could do to maybe fix this problem. The fuzzynes will go in and out, when i put a little pressure on the top of the screen it seems to work. Maybe the cords are loose? thankyou !
January 8th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Thank you so much for your detailed instructions on how dismantle and fix our laptop, a Compaq Presario. The instructions were excellent and easy to follow. The heat sink on our fan had gotten dirty and was causing the fan to make noise, not work properly and the computer to overheat.
After reassembling, our screen didn’t work, the problem turned out to be that I had not seated the memory modules 100%. After reinstalling them, everything worked great.
Again, thank you so much. Your site was a real life saver. I’m currently laid off and the expense of having to have the computer fixed would have been difficult. I’ll definitely donate to your site, once I’m back to work.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:19 am
tristin,
You can try reinstalling the sound driver. If it doesn’t help, backup all personal files and reinstall Windows from the recovery disc. If the sound still not working even after reinstalling the operating system from scratch, there is a problem with the sound card.
The sound card is integrated into the motherboard. It means the whole motherboard has to be replaced.
Does it work fine after you reconnect the battery? Will it run on the battery power only?
If yes, it sounds like the motherboard failure.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Hey,
I have a Comaq Presario F700, and one day the sound just didn’t work. On the home page where the volume is it shows the volume and it just has a red x on it. I’ve tried everthing and don’t know what to do; do you have any suggestions? Also when starting my computer the screen is black and the power button flashes, and to start the computer I have to unplug it and take the battery out, I think the problems might be corrilated some how? If you have any suggestions that would be awsome, thanks a ton.