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These instructions will help you remove hard drive, memory, wireless card and keyboard from a HP Pavilion dv9000 series laptop. All these components, except the keyboard, can be accessed through the bottom of the laptop.
In the next guide I will explain how to disassemble laptop display panel and remove inverter board with LCD screen.
Do not disassemble your laptop if it’s still covered by the manufacturer’s warranty or you loose the warranty. Are you looking for spare parts for your HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop? Search here.
First of all, remove the battery. Remove screws from the 1st hard drive and memory covers. Remove both covers.
Under the memory cover you will find the wireless card and RTC battery.
In order to remove the hard drive, lift up the right side of the drive assembly (move 1) and then pull it to the right (move2). If you are replacing the hard drive, you’ll have to transfer the caddy and connector to the new drive.
Before you remove the wireless card, you’ll have to disconnect both antenna cables pointed with green arrows. Simply unsnap both antenna cables from the wireless card with your fingers. After that remove two screws securing the wireless card and pull it from the slot by the edges.
Some Pavilion dv9000 laptops have only one hard drive installed. As you can see, in my notebook there is no second hard drive under the cover.
If you would like to install a second hard drive into your notebook, you’ll have to purchase a new 2.5″ SATA hard drive, SATA connector and drive caddy.
I refer to all HP Pavilion dv9000, dv9000, dv9100, dv9200, dv9300, dv9400, dv9500, dv9600 & dv9700 notebooks as the “dv9000″ since adding a hard disk drive (HDD) to all above mentioned notebooks is similar.
In order to remove the CD/DVD drive you’ll have to remove the securing screw (1) and then carefully pull the drive from the laptop.
KEYBOARD REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS
Remove six green screws securing the keyboard bezel and one red screw securing the keyboard.
Carefully start removing the keyboard bezel with a small flathead screwdriver.
Be very carefull, the bezel is attached to the motherboard with a flat ribbon cable. The cable location is pointed by the green arrow. Do not disconnect this cable. Simply place the bezel as it shown on the picture below.
Remove three screws securing the laptop keyboard.
Lift up the keyboard. Be carefull, it’s connected to the motherboard.
In order to release the keyboard cable, you’ll have to unlock the connector as it shown on the picture above.
1. Slide the connector lock to the direction shown by two green arrows with your fingernails.
2. Pull the keyboard cable from the connector.
Now you can remove and replace the keyboard with a new one.
In the next guide I explain how to replace broken dispaly hinge in HP Pavilion dv9000 series laptop.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:52 am
for several fixes on dv9000 series red light on wireless switch and some quik play buttons not working this worked for me. Turn off the notebook and remove the battery for 2 minutes. With the battery still out after 2 minutes hold down the laptops power button for 1 minute then let it go. Reinstall the battery and power up. Worked for me good luck
March 12th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Follow-up to 3/10/09:
Drat! No luck. Although the up-time of the wireless does seem to have improved, the Intel PRO-Wireless 3945ABG Network Adapter Mini-PCI card still occasionally drops out (blue light changes to amber/red) for no apparent reason, even though the battery was removed. I guess it wasn’t an old battery pulling down the voltage slightly after all (in case the wireless card was somehow sensitive to that).
When this happens, the Device Manager entry for it still reports it as “This Device is Working Properly” — clueless.
To recover, I have to restart (reboot) and often it will restore back OK.
When it won’t, then I have to “Uninstall” it in Device Manager, detect it again (“Scan for hardware changes”), and type in the addresses for static IP, gateway, DNS (otherwise it doesn’t seem to connect like my other machines).
Sometimes, when the system seems to hang as I try to uninstall the device I have to restart in between the above steps to overcome it.
I noticed that when I tried to change the “Power Management” value (under device Properties > “Advanced” tab) from “Use default value” to “Highest” (max performance, min battery life), the wireless didn’t work.
I noticed that when it was indeed connected and working great, and I tried to uncheck the setting “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” (under the device’s “Power Management” tab) per the Intel tech support recommendation, this message appears when I close the property box (click OK): “The radio is off. The changes will take effect when you turn the radio on.”
Additionally, the following has not happened lately, but I thought I would mention it: Sometimes, after it quits working and I uninstall the 3945ABG wireless device, when the system detects it I get a message “…this device cannot find enough free resources that it can use…”, and suggests removing (disabling?) another device to free up resources, IRQ 16 I think. Odd that the same devices in my dv9033cl are sharing that same IRQ 16 when it is working OK. Go figure.
Sometimes when the 3945ABG goes out, without restarting I am able to uninstall it then re-detect it and the light goes from amber back to blue and I can re-configure it and get it working again. I understand there are motherboard issues with some production runs (especially AMD processor models), but without moving my system (to flex the circuitry traces) it seems odd that I would be able to use the wireless again.
Personally I think there is something basic wrong with how the 3945ABG card itself is designed (hardware too sensitive to voltage levels perhaps?), or how its driver interacts with Windows. All the bizzare behavior, even when it is successfully delivering me a wireless connection (like the “The radio is off” message when it’s on, “Device working properly” when it’s not, etc.), reinforce this belief.
On the InsanelyMac web site I notice every reference to the 3945ABG card indicates that it does not work for their purposes (though largely due to lack of suitable drivers due to no interest). They all indicate success switching to other brands/models, like the Dell 1490, after patching the BIOS.
Another thing I noticed in the past, and just remembered, is that when I’m running Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) to start with Windows and automatically run in the background (to index all the content of my files for quick searching later on), the wireless connection tends to disappear. I don’t know if it’s power-draw/drain related (low voltages, insufficient power to the card and disk drives at the same time), or a heating up of the motherboard or wireless card (hence a cooling design flaw and motherboard replacements; some blame on the hotter-running AMD processors and nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics accelerator chips), or what.
However, when it’s working, sometimes I’ve been able to simultaneously watch a 2-hour movie (running on AC power, of course) remotely coming in from off a LAN disk drive on my network, and also run microtorrent and/or Vuze (Azureus) to download gigabyte-sized files at the same time without it crapping out within a couple of hours at a time. I would think that would be enough time for video and disk drive power drain issues to show up fairly fast and/or heat to build up (before the movie ends).
It just all seems so random. It usually seems to happen when I’ve quit using it for a while and I’m not watching and it sits there mostly idle. At least I suppose it’s not doing anything. I can’t seem to pinpoint anything in particular. Maybe something kicks in when it’s idle (and yes, I’ve tried disabling the screensavers, any power-saving spin-down and screen blanking options, etc.).
As mentioned before, I had VERY random/poor wireless up-time when the “HP Wireless Assistant” used to be installed. It seemed that the “assistant” was competing for control against Windows own built-in features, especially when one day I caught it reporting the opposite status for the card that Windows was. After totally uninstalling that software that day I’ve since enjoyed much better connections… until recently.
Maybe ‘Laptop Tech’ is right — the recent Microsoft patches might have triggered an upsurge in the wireless problems. Reminds me of the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I should take my own advice.
March 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I have experienced wireless problems off and on as well. Bought a dv9033cl unit (Intel Core2 T5500 microprocessor chip) from Costco in early 2007 (last of the XP-loaded units). Has an Intel PRO-Wireless 3945ABG Network Adapter (WM3945ABG) 802.11a-g-b Mini-PCI card running Windows XP-MCE. Probably 99.5% of the time I keep this 17-inch unit plugged in on AC power.
In summer 2007 started having intermittent wireless connection problems. Sometimes it would work for hours, sometimes for only moments before the blue light would turn orange. Tried all the recommended tricks and hints to fix (uninstall/reinstall drivers, do it in safe mode, use DHCP vs fixed IP address, disable wireless power management, remove/reinstall battery, etc.). Utter frustration.
In October 2007, I thought I had finally figured it out. Uninstalled HP Wireless Assistant altogether (crap anyway). Enjoyed steady performance for over a year afterwarrds. At the time I posted my advice on the following page “Business support forums – Wireless issue addressed by HP”
But from the comments that followed it apparently didn’t help others (or maybe it did and they didn’t report back?) as there also seems to be lots of motherboard problems, particularly with the AMD processor models (vs Intel) of the dv9000 and dv6000 series (and some others).
You did know, didn’t you, that there’s a list of recalled models eligible for an extended warranty repair, right? “HP Pavilion dv2000-dv6000-dv9000 and Compaq Presario v3000-v6000 Series Notebook PCs – HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement”
In January I unplugged the unit to run it on battery power (to play a DVD movie in another room). Worked OK on batteries (but actually had to plug it back in to finish the movie).
Next day, started it up on battery power alone. No wireless. Ever since, intermittent wireless again (battery or AC-mains powered). Lots of time wasted trying to diagnose. Finally couldn’t get it to run more than a few seconds before dying, and most recently not being recognized at all. Plenty of frustration and head banging (Not again!… NO-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o!…).
Resorted to using my “Linksys Wireless-G USB Network Adapter with Wi-Fi Finder” WUSBF54G for my connections (BTW, a wonderful multi-purpose gadget — though not quite as fast, and sticks out the side, subject to damage — but any alternative USB adapter would probably serve as well for a working wireless connection).
Decided my machine had joined the ranks of the damned and its motherboard was dying. Resigned myself to this as a future. Oh, goody, my model not on the extended warranty list.
There’s many web sites/pages related to this issue with the HP/Compaq notebooks/laptops. Here’s another bunch of souls with wireless woes, “Business support forums – dv6140us (dv6000) wireless problem”
…and another “Intel WiFi Products – Power Save Polling (PSP) causes connection issues with some access points”
…and another “Intel PRO-Wireless 3945ABG driver affecting signal strength – Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion”
…and yet another “Found How-to: Easily Remove the DV6000T & DV9000T Wireless Card Blacklist! – Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion”
That last one revealed to me the existence of HP’s “whitelist” which restricts the BIOS to working with only certain models of wireless cards — aha! So maybe a different brand/model of wireless card would help, eh? But HP has cursed their BIOS with not recognizing them, hence a workaround is needed.
It’s all discussed on the “InsanelyMac” website where a bunch of Apple Macintosh geeks have figured out how to also run Mac OS X and/or Linux on various “ordinary” machines designed for Microsoft Windows by patching the BIOS, downloading Linux drivers, etc.
Here’s one of their many pages on the dv6000/dv9000 series models describing the BIOS patches to permit using other brands of wireless cards besides the Intel 3945ABG, “hp dv6000t laptop – InsanelyMac Forum”
At this point the temptation is strong to abandon Windows and try the modifications, though it looks to be risky for a conservative newbie like me… But how much worse can it be than the hassles of dealing with HP’s outsourced and often clueless “technical support” (my own experiences anyway), sending in a machine for repairs (if you’re lucky enough to get the go-ahead) and, by many reports, it coming back unchanged, or all scratched up, or lost in the system for weeks, or all registered programs and document files gone, etc.
(Strong recommendation from the HP user forums: don’t send any machine in for motherboard or other hardware repairs with your own hard drive(s) installed — take them out and leave at home — HP has drives they can use for testing purposes.)
I have not yet tried the Insane Mac folks’ BIOS patch — still trying to understand if I can use a BIOS version (patched or not) that is several revisions beyond the one recommended on the HP pages for my specific model — but I’m wanting to possibly try an Atheros model of wireless card which reportedly works better than the Intel one for some folks.
Anyway, today I recalled that all this began when I powered up my PC on the battery that next day. Something *clicked* and I recalled reading on one of the many web pages something about voltage levels on the motherboard PCI-Express bus being low affecting the wireless card, and the other stuff about power management, etc.
So today, on a lark as an experiment, I removed the battery pack and left it out while booting to see if it affected the wireless device detection/drivers loading/connectivity endurance/etc. After all, perhaps the battery pack is aging/getting old (even though I rarely use it) and somehow affecting the motherboard voltages. The battery still seems to run the rest of the machine OK for over an hour, though, and that used to include the wireless connection working OK as well. (Normally, of course, the battery is installed to act as a UPS should the AC power fail or glitch.)
Or perhaps, even though I have the “Power Options Properties” management settings “optimized” for “Home/Desktop” (no hibernation, no standby while on AC power), maybe the presence of a battery still affects things. Perhaps with no battery at all the machine is forced to make no attempts at power saving any on-board hardware (wireless features included) such that if the Intel card is going “dormant” due to some instruction from somewhere (driver, core Windows, other services, etc.), it might stop happening.
All that “interaction stuff” is beyond me, technically.
Well, all I can report is that so far today my Intel wireless adapter card was detected (once again, hooray!), so I re-applied my various networking settings, and it’s been working great for several hours straight.
Perhaps another coincidence? I dunno… more time will tell… I would like to be able to re-install my battery pack, but first I’m going to see if this improvement lasts for several days straight. Maybe some of you out there could try this as well and report back.
Additionally, I agree with a previous comment, that all this trouble that resurfaced with my wireless also seems to have loosely coincided somewhat with some recent Microsoft update/security patches back in… what, mid-January? Something like that. (Unfortunately I didn’t mark my calendar or put an entry into my diary, “Today my wireless misbehaved for the first time in ages. I tried rewarding it with an increase in power allotment, but alas, it was to no avail…”)
If the presence of an older battery is what’s affecting things, then eventually I may get brave enough to try the BIOS patch and another brand wireless card to get around needing a newer battery pack since new card is cheaper than a new battery.
I hope this proves to be useful info — any comments (besides my comment being too long-winded)?
March 4th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
jozka,
Unfortunately, I don’t think that you can clean the keyboard. The contacts are hidden inside the keyboard and you cannot access them without breaking the keyboard.
You can let it dry for a couple of days. Maybe even remove the keyboard from the laptop and place it somewhere close to the heater. Try it again. If the same problem still exists, most likely you’ll have to replace the keyboard.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I have a Hp dv9408nr. Unvortunately, I spilled a slight bit ov beer on the keyboard. I didn’t act quick enough to thoroughly clean it, and unvortunately the key between the D and G no longer works. (Hence the v’s) As var as I can tell, there’s no other damage to things otherwise. Would anyone recommend pulling the keyboard out to attempt cleaning it, in the hopes I can bring that key back to live? Or is that key doomed never to work again? According to diagnostics on the laptop, the keyboard is in working order, despite that I cannot use that key. And what’s a good cleaning agent that might work/not destroy anything else? Thanks vor your time.
February 28th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
AB,
There are two memory slots under the memory cover. If both slots are occupied, you’ll have to remove original memory modules and replace them with new modules.
Here’s how you can remove the memory module:
1. Carefully spread latches located on both sides of the module. The memory module will pop up at a 20-30 degree angle.
2. Pull the memory module from the slot by the edges.
As an example, you can use this guide for removing RAM modules.
I guess you purchased memory for a desktop computer. The laptop module is shorter.
For your HP Pavilion dv9000 you’ll need SO-DIMM memory module which has 200 pin.
The service guide for dv9000 says you should use a PC-5300(667-MHz) SO-DIMM module.
A memory slot is a connector where you insert a memory module. You have to buy memory modules, not slots.
You’ll find step by step instructions in the official service manual, here’s the link (it’s a pdf file). Take a look at the pages 128-130.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Hi guys,
I have a hp dv9000 that I would like to add extra memory to and have no bloody clue how to do so (step by step after oppening the memory cover).
I purchased an extra gig for the laptop and it seems not to fit as it is a long strip.
I read that in order to upgrade from the current 1 gig to 2, I need to purchase two 1 gig slots because this laptop does not have extra slots. I would have to remove the current pieces and insert the news ones.
I went into the HP guide to see how to add the memory and it didn’t help much.
I would greatly appreciate it if there was a step by step illustration that someone knew about and to answer my questions above.
Thanks guys
February 25th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Lutz,
Do you have a Pavilion dv9000? Did you read my post about free repair from HP? You’ll find a link at the end of the post above, under the last picture.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Mr Black,
I think so.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Thank you soooo much! I had flashed my bios with a bad version and my laptop was almost a brick until I found this guide and removed my Wireless card. Thank you very very much!