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In this guide I explain how to disassemble an HP Pavilion dv7 notebook.
To be precise, I’m taking apart an HP Pavilion dv7t-1000 notebook but you should be able to use these instructions for all models in the Pavilion dv7 line.
The guide will show how to access both memory modules and hard drives if you are upgrading the notebook, remove most internal components, access and clean the cooling fan.
Before you start, turn off the notebook and remove the battery.
If you need spare part for your HP Pavilion dv7 notebook, you can search here.
STEP 1.
Remove (loosen) four screws securing the hard drive and memory cover. Remove the cover.
STEP 2.
Remove four screws securing hard drives (two screws per hard drive).
Slide the hard drive 1 to the left until it’s disconnected from the motherboard. Remove the hard drive 1.
Slide the hard drive 2 to the right until it’s disconnected from the motherboard. Remove the hard drive 2.
STEP 3.
Remove both memory (RAM) modules.
Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card. These laptop has three antenna cables but only two are used.
One of the antenna cables connected to the main contact on the wireless card and the second one is connected to the auxiliary contact. All three antenna cables are labeled.
Remove two screws securing the wireless card. Remove the card.
STEP 4.
Remove one screw securing the CD/DVD drive.
Slide the CD/DVD drive to the left to disconnect it from the motherboard.
Remove the CD/DVD drive.
STEP 5.
Remove all marked screws from the bottom of the notebook.
The green circled screw secures the keyboard.
Don’t forget to remove two screws hidden in the CD/DVD drive bay.
STEP 6.
Start separating the speaker cover from the notebook base.
You can use a guitar pick as a case cracker. Insert the guitar pick between the speaker cover and case and slowly move along the side.
STEP 7.
Lift up the speaker cover. Be careful, it’s still connected to the motherboard.
In order to remove the cable, you’ll have to unlock the connector first.
Move the brown clip about 2 millimeters in the direction shown by two arrows. The clip must stay attached to the connector base.
On the picture below the connector is shown in the unlocked position.
STEP 8.
Now you can remove the speaker cover.
STEP 9.
Remove four screw securing the keyboard.
STEP 10.
Lift up the keyboard from the base and access the cable connector underneath.
STEP 11.
Carefully unlock the keyboard cable connector.
Move the brown clip about 2 millimeters in the direction shown by two arrows. The brown clip must stay attached to the connector base.
If you damage the connector, the keyboard will not work when you assemble the notebook back together.
Well… I broke the connector. I removed thousands of laptop keyboards before but I broke this connector!
As you see, the left pin on the brown clip is missing.
No panic! I still can use this clip to lock the connector.
You’ll find more info here: Fixing damaged keyboard connector on a laptop motherboard.
STEP 12.
Pull Wi-Fi antenna cables though the opening in the cover.
Remove three screws securing the speaker assembly.
Disconnect the speaker cable (green arrow) from the motherboard.
STEP 13.
Remove the speaker assembly.
STEP 14.
Disconnect the video cable from the connector on the motherboard.
Remove six screws securing display hinges (three screws per hinge).
STEP 15.
Separate the display assembly from the notebook base.
In the next post I will explain how to take apart the display panel assembly and remove the LCD screen with inverter board.
By the way, it’s not necessary to separate the display panel assemble from the base in order to take it apart.
STEP 16.
Disconnect and remove the CMOS battery.
Remove all marked screws from the bottom. The green circled screw is hidden in the CD/DVD drive bay.
STEP 17.
Remove all screws securing the top cover assembly.
Disconnect the touch pad cable from the motherboard.
STEP 18.
Start separating the top cover assemble from the notebook base.
You can use same trick with the guitar pick shown in the step 6.
STEP 19.
Remove the top cover assembly.
Here’s the back side of the top cover assembly.
STEP 20.
Disconnect the USB and audio board cables from the motherboard (green arrows).
Disconnect the cooling fan cable from the motherboard (yellow arrow).
Remove four screws securing the motherboard.
STEP 21.
Lift up the right side of the motherboard as it shown on the picture below and disconnect the DC-IN jack cable.
STEP 22.
Remove the motherboard from the notebook base.
On the opposite side of the motherboard you can access the processor (CPU) when the heat sink is removed.
The motherboard is dead? Check out these motherboard repair offers.
By the way, the best way to find a replacement motherboard is searching by the HP part number. The part number should be located on a sticker in the memory compartment. The HP part number looks like XXXXXX-001.
Here’s the notebook base without motherboard.
The USB board, audio board, cooling fan and DC-IN jack are mounted on the base.
In order to remove the cooling fan, simply remove two screws securing the fan.
As you see, the cooling fan is dusty and has to be cleaned.
UPDATE:
There are only two fans listed in the service manual for HP Pavilion dv7 series notebook. They are listed on the page 27.
488885-001 for laptops equipped with AMD processor.
480481-001 for laptops equipped with Intel processors.
One of the DIY-ers had trouble searching for a new replacement fan for her AMD notebook. After the notebook was disassembled, she found that it had an Intel fan installed.
Here’s her comment:
Forget the question I just asked…We opened up our laptop and found the fan for the Intel processor installed instead of the fan for the AMD…apparently these ARE interchangeable…FYI
Check out comments 29 and 30. Thanks to Liz for this information.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
August 30th, 2010 at 3:38 am
thank you very much
i did the procedure because my laptop was getting hot very fast , over 75 grades.
after clean the fan with a brush (it had only some dust and one hair), it is worst the problem with temperature. im thinking about call technical support. I think fan is not working now.
your procedure is ok, i think i mde something wrong or fan was near to die.
thank you very much
August 29th, 2010 at 5:17 am
You sir, are a great human being. To take time out of your, what I will assume is a very busy and active life, and posting this great guide. I attempted to take apart my dv7 yesterday prior to seeing this and I recognized that I needed the info you present. I see there are others on here having the same heating problems. The cleanout of the fan area seems to improve the situation. I recommend to clean it every day for at least a week. I was having shut off and on for a while and it gradually got worse. After a thorough cleaning the problem is getting less frequent.
Again, it is unselfish people like you who make this world more tolerable. Thank you, from fellow dv7 users.
August 28th, 2010 at 11:23 am
David,
Turn off the laptop, unplug AC adapter and remove battery. Wait for a few minutes, plug the AC adapter and try turning it on.
If it doesn’t help, try reseating memory modules.
August 27th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Hey it’s me again haha I bought a air duster and did what you said, I saw a cloud of dust come out of the intake as I was shooting into the exhaust. But as I turned on the laptop again it was very quiet and went black screen after about 5 minutes. Now, when I try to turn it on, it just goes black screen and shuts off once in a while.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
David,
Yes, most likely dust blocking normal air flow and laptop overheats.
No, it’s not necessary to to disassemble the laptop.
Find an air compressor (you can use shop-vac in air blowing mode) or use compressed air and blow air inside the air intake on the bottom of the laptop until all dust is gone. After that switch direction and blow air into the grill on the side. Switch air direction a few times until the cooling module is clean. This will fix your problem.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Hi Laptop Tech, great tutorial, I love the detail. I have a slight problem however. I’ve got a dv7-1428ca I believe. The fan is running fine except its running at full speed all the time and the laptop gets really hot and shuts down sometimes. I feel air going IN AND OUT of the intake. Is it dust blocking the way out? Do I need to take it apart? Side note : I dropped it a while back and broke the LCD screen inside and managed to replace it but the fan hasn’t been working like it should since.
August 20th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Hi there,
Just used your helpful guide to clean and examine a rattling fan. In reassembling my laptop, I followed the directions backwwards until everything was back in place. I turned it on, got LED lights, but the screen remained black. I thought that I had left something unhooked or unplugged, so I took it apart once more to make sure everything was connected and in place. After second reassemble, my laptop won’t turn on at all.
What could be causing this? Everything (but the fan) was working previous to me taking it apart.
Thanks again for your helpful guide and a hopefully helpful response!
August 20th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Whilst I was trying to clean out my hp pavilion laptop I think I may have accidentally killed the fan. I could not get past Step 9 as only the laptop keyboard screw was stuck and I could not remove the laptop. So I tried used a can of compressed air on the vent on the back of the laptop near the monitor.
I got some dust out but I spotted a huge dust bunny that is resistant to the can of compressed air. I re-assembled the laptop but now it won’t come on. The led lights come on but I get a black screen. Worse thing is the fan starts but after a few seconds stops leading me to believe that the fan’s motor may have been destroyed by the compressed air.
I am getting 2 schools of though on the compressed air fiasco. Many friends tell me that this is impossible as compressed air will not damage the fan but 1 or 2 friends’ say that it can happen and refer me to the The Laptop Repair Workbook which says that some fans may be damaged if you spin them beyond their operating RPM’s.
Can anyone tell me why the Laptop will not come on. Key factors are powers up lights come on, hard drive spins but fan stops working after a few seconds and the entire time I get a black screen..
August 17th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Thanks thanks thanks and many thanks !
This topic was very useful for me to access the “Dead” power connector.
Adrien (from France
)
August 15th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Hi there,
It was a matter of time before someone took the risk and opened the thing. I’ve spend days to try unmounting the keyboard; know i understand why. Thnx a lot!
August 14th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
danny,
Not sure what’s wrong but your description sounds like heat related failure.
Take a look at the cooling fan. Does it spin at all when you turn on the laptop?
August 11th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Thanks so much for this excellent guide! My laptop was getting very hot and the fans would run at high speed a lot, so I opened it up and cleaned the airways. Now it’s back to normal. Couldnt’ve done it without this guide, thanks!
August 10th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I took my laptop apart following these instructions only up to step 16, then put it back together again. Now, it freezes up on me after using it for about 20 minutes, then won’t reboot. I opened it again just to make sure I put everything back in place and everything seemed to be okay. After doing this it worked again for about 20 minutes, then freezes again and won’t boot up. Any idea on what I could have done wrong? If anyone can help I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!!!
August 8th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
thank you so much for this tutorial. i’m getting one blink error and this will really help. anyone know wher i can get a AMD Turion X2 RM-70 Dual-Core Mobile Processor? the error codes say CPU failure
July 31st, 2010 at 4:23 pm
The dv7-2200 is quite a bit different from this model. I’ve torn many down and thank you for covering the high points of this series.
July 30th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
thak you very much, i wish to clean the fan, it is getting hot very fast last week, and make some noise too
technical service here takes at least 4 days to do
July 30th, 2010 at 8:41 am
Nice guide. by the way, is there any shorter(easier) process to expose the fan just for the purpose of cleaning it? thanks mucho
July 28th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Thank you alot.
My friend spilled some beer on his computer, nothing was wonking even with a new hard drive.
But i followed this tutorial, cleaned everyting inside the laptop, removed the keyboard (it was not working properly) and plugged an usb keyboard and now everything is working again.
Hp told me they needed 600$ to repair it. Cost me 100$ mostly because of the new hard drive.
Again, thanks
July 26th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I found your article very useful. One question, I replace the LCD panel and it works. The problem is that the new LCD has 3 antenna cables and the old one use to have 2. And I can’t connect the cable 1 to connector 1, or cable 2 to connector 2.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 am
Beautiful!!!
Thanx soooo very much…
Never before opened a laptop, did this only because i spilled tea with aaaaLOT of sugar inside and one of the HardDrives was acting badly…. but since i got that out decided to fiddle around a bit….
Wonderful Guide…..
Great Job, sir!!!