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In this guide I explain how to disassemble a HP Compaq 6730s – 6735s notebook and remove the cooling fan which is mounted under the motherboard. Basically I will take the whole notebook apart and remove all internal components one by one.
Why wouldn’t HP make a door for the cooling fan? Why should it be so complicated to replace the cooling fan?
Let’s start to disassemble the notebook.
If you need new replacement parts for you HP Compaq 6730s-6735s notebook, you can find them here.
STEP 1.
Remove the battery.
Remove covers from the hard drive, wireless card and memory.
STEP 2.
Remove one screw securing the DVD drive (red circle) and pull the drive from the notebook.
Remove memory modules (in my laptop I had only one module installed).
Remove the hard drive, you’ll find details instruction on the sticker glued to the hard drive caddy.
Unsnap two antenna cables from the wireless card. Remove two screws securing the wireless card (green circles). Remove the wireless card.
STEP 3.
Remove five screws securing the switch board cover (red circles).
Remove two screws securing the laptop keyboard (green circles).
Remove eleven screws securing the laptop bottom cover (yellow circles).
STEP 4.
Lift up the switch board cover. You can separate the switch board cover from the bottom cover with a piece of soft plastic. I’m using a guitar pick.
Be careful, the switch board cover is attached to the motherboard. Do not pull the cable from the connector yet.
STEP 5.
Lift up the keyboard and place it on the switch board cover so you can access the keyboard cable connector.
The keyboard is connected to the motherboard via a flat ribbon cable. Before you pull the cable and remove the keyboard, you’ll have to unlock the connector.
On the picture below you can see the keyboard connector unlocked. Now you can pull the cable and remove the keyboard.
STEP 6.
After the keyboard has been removed, you can release the switch board cable and remove the cover.
STEP 7.
Remove four screws securing the notebook speakers.
Unplug the speaker cable from the motherboard.
Remove both speakers.
STEP 8.
Release the wireless card antenna cables.
Unplug the webcam cable from the motherboard.
Remove four screws securing the display hinges (red circles) and one screw grounding the video cable (green circle).
STEP 9.
Lift up and remove the display panel assembly.
In the next guide I’ll explain how to get inside the display panel and remove/replace the web camera module.
STEP 10.
Remove two screws securing the top cover assembly.
STEP 11.
Carefully lift up the top cover assembly.
Be careful, the touch pad cable is still attached to the motherboard.Release the touch pad cable and remove the top cover assembly.
STEP 12.
Now we can access the motherboard.
Unplug three cables pointed with arrows.
Remove three screws securing the motherboard.
Lift up and release the RJ11 (modem) jack.
STEP 13.
Start removing the motherboard from the laptop case.
The motherboard has been removed.
STEP 14.
Finally, you can access and replace the cooling fan.
Simply remove one screw securing the cooling fan to the laptop base and replace it with a new one if needed.
If you are replacing the motherboard you’ll have to transfer some parts to the new board.
Transfer the DVD drive connector, modem card, heat sink, processor and modem cable.
January 6th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
I did it now, thank you for this guide, it realy helped me a lot
i ended it with damage, 2 keys were removed from keyboard and i failed trying to fix it again :s
January 5th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
@ Laptop Tech,
Thankss again!!
Thankss! That worked brilliantly, ahh I’m so relieved that it finally came off without breaking haha + Thanks for the website with additional piccies, they gave me peace of mind that I hadn’t unclipped the wifi cables wrongly
January 5th, 2012 at 9:08 am
@Akhlaque : Thank you for your help, it’s very strong sticker but now i removed the keyboard successfuly
I reached the step 12, i released RJ11 and removed 3 screws fixing the motherboard but i could not remove it, it seems like the motherboard is still attached from the left side near USB ports, what should i do please ?
thank you!
January 4th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
@ Rob,
This connector has white base and brown locking tab. The cable jammed between the base and locking tab.
In order to unlock the connector you’ll have to move the brown locking tab about 2 millimeters towards the LCD screen. It must stay attached to the base. Do you see the locking tab still attached to the connector on the step 7?
After that the cable will be released and you should be able to pull it from the connector.
Something like shown here in the disconnecting keyboard part: http://www.irisvista.com/
January 4th, 2012 at 5:57 am
Hiyya,
Fantastic guide so far! I’m up to step 6, I’ve removed the keyboard but can’t quite figure out how to release the switchboard cable :’) Please help?
Thankyouuu
January 3rd, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for this post, an awesome guide.. it saved my life.
@Mitch:
I was also stuck on the same point where u are right now, and it turned out that the keyboard is fixed by a very strong sticker. So I used the back side of screwdriver and tried to lift up the keyboard, and it did the trick very well.
There is nothing risky here, just push with something on the side of keyboard where u think it is fixed, and push it little bit….
Best of luck
Akhlaque
January 2nd, 2012 at 4:10 pm
I tried hard to lift up the keyboard but it was strongly attached from bottom, i tried several times and i stopped because i felt something was going to break.
I removed all the screws, all was ok until step 4, please can you help me in doing this, i have 6730S.
thank you !!
December 28th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
@ Peter B,
The stuck card has to be removed from outside. Taking apart the laptop will not help.
The memory slot is covered and you will not be able to access the XD card.
December 27th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Apart from noisy fan – which I hope this fantastic guide will help me sort out – I also have a problem of an XD card inserted the wrong way round & stuck in the card reader.
I saw the suggestion of trying a dental pick – this didn’t work! At which stage in the tutorial would I be getting access to the card reader to extract the XD card?
Thanks for the great & clear advice on so many things on this site!
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:14 pm
@ Silax,
Sure you can do that.