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In the following guide I will take apart a Dell Vostro 1510 notebook. You can use this guide for removing almost all internal parts from the notebook base. I think these instructions might work for some other Dell Vostro notebooks, not just a Vostro 1510. If it fits your laptop, please mention the model in the comments below.
If you need spare parts for your Vostro 1510 laptop, you can search for used and new parts here.
Before you start the disassembly process do not forget to unplug the power adapter and battery.
STEP 1.
Remove hard drive and memory covers.
STEP 2.
Pull the hard drive to the left and disconnect it from the motherboard.
Remove the hard drive. As you see it’s a SATA hard drive. If you are replacing the hard drive, any large 2.5″ SATA hard drive should work just fine.
STEP 3.
Remove both memory modules. In a Dell Vostro 1510 you can install up to 4GB RAM (2GB module into each slot). You should use DDR2-667 modules.
STEP 4.
Remove three screws securing the cooling fan. Unplug the cooling fan cable from the motherboard.
Remove and lift up the cooling fan.
STEP 5.
Loosen four screws securing the heat sink.
Carefully lift up and remove the heat sink.
STEP 6.
Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card. Grab the golden connector on the end of the antenna cables with your fingers and pull it up.
Remove one screw securing the wireless card and remove the card.
STEP 7.
Lift up the keyboard cover with a small screwdriver or another sharp object.
Remove the keyboard cover.
STEP 8.
Remove two screws securing the keyboard.
Lift up the keyboard so you can access the keyboard cable connector underneath.
Very carefully unlock the connector and release the keyboard cable.
Now you can remove the keyboard.
If you are replacing the keyboard, you don’t have to through steps 1-6. Simply remove and replace the keyboard as it shown in steps 7 and 8.
STEP 9.
In the following three steps I’ll remove the display panel assembly.
Remove one screw securing the right hinge.
STEP 10.
Disconnect the video cable from the motherboard.
Pull both wireless antenna cables through the opening.
Remove five screws securing both display hinges.
STEP 11.
Remove the display assembly.
If you would like to know how to take apart the display panel and remove the LCD with inverter, check out other disassembly guides in the Dell category. The LCD screen removal instructions will be similar for most Dell (and other ) laptops.
STEP 12.
Disconnect three cables and remove three screws from the top cover assembly.
STEP 13.
Remove all screws from the bottom of the notebook.
STEP 14.
Start separating the top cover assembly from the base assembly. You can use a small flathead screwdriver.
Continue separating the top cover assembly with your fingers.
Remove the top cover.
STEP 15.
The CD/DVD drive is mounted inside the base and can be removed only after you remove the top cover.
Disconnect the CD/DVD drive cable from the connector on the motherboard.
Lift up and remove the CD/DVD drive.
STEP 16.
Remove three screws securing the motherboard.
Unplug the USB board cable from the motherboard.
Lift up the motherboard as it shown on the picture below.
Remove the motherboard.
The processor (CPU) is locked in the socket. In order to remove the processor, you’ll have to unlock the socket first. There is a small screw on the side of the socket. This screw locks/unlocks the socket.
In this notebook the CMOS (RTC) battery is replaciable. You can unlug the old CMOS battery from the motherboard and replace it with a new one.
January 16th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
hey man my vostro 1510 recently got under attack by “Malware Doctor” and it finally stopped my laptop from even booting up, so i wanted to know is it possible to replace the harddrive with a new harddrive, install windows on it and use an enclosure on the old drive to recover all my files that were on it (files like: music/movies/pictures/etc.)?
thanks for any info you can give me
Jabh
January 16th, 2011 at 10:56 am
Hi
My webcam always shows black screen and the reason is its USB cable connector. I appreciate if you answer these questions:
1-How can I take apart the display itself? Or is that necessary at all?
2-Where can I buy a new (not used) webcam cable? (I don’t trust used cables)
Thanks
January 9th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Steve,
It depends on how bad the damage is. Probably you can fix it by replacing the DC jack, not the entire motherboard.
In order to replace the DC jack you’ll have to go though the following steps:
1. Find a new DC jack for your Dell Vostro 1510 laptop.
2. Remove motherboard as I explained in the post above.
3. De-sloder damaged jack and solder a new one. Here’s DC jack repair guide. It requires soldering skills.
If you are not comfortable with soldering, you can buy a new jack, remove the motherboard and take it to a local laptop repair shop for the DC jack replacement.
January 8th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
The power plug to my Vostro 1510 was broken when a family member tripped over the power cord. I am told that the only repair is to replace the motherboard as the the female plug-in is part of the MB? Is this a true assumption? Do I have to diassemble the whole computer in order to replace the motherboard?
January 5th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I want to reset the CMOS to try to fix the problem with the laptop freezing in the Dell Splash screen, pressing F2 and F12 does not work.
Googling a bit some ppl recommend to try to reset the CMOS to fix this problem. Whaddya think?
January 5th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Jonah,
Why you want to reset the CMOS? What is your reason?
Thank you. I saw this F*** site before.
They don’t understand that stealing content from other sites never works. Search engines way smarter than these stupid webmasters. They penalize sites like that.
January 5th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Nice guide for disassembling the laptop there, thank you.
Just wondering though if I want to reset the CMOS, is it enough for me to just unplug the red/black wire connected to it from the board or do I need to unplug the CMOS battery as well? At the moment I cannot access the CMOS battery since there’s one screw that’s just cannot be unscrewed.
Btw there’s a website that stole your guide (edited: link removed) seems like they stole a whole bunch of other guides from this website as well.
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Abdullah,
Not sure if it helps but check out this guide.
January 2nd, 2011 at 6:37 am
Hello every one,
sorry to disturb, but can anyone tell me how to enable TPM on Vostro 1520? the bios for this laptop has no option in securtity secion for tpm.
Thanks,
December 20th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
hi boss! i’ve a very very problematic situation with this laptop. One of my friend has got this dell 1510. so he gave me his laptop for setting up all the required software and stuffs for editing videos, creating movie clips, converting and stuffs. I downloaded all required recent updated codecs n different video converter software and installed them, but due to some unknown issues of codec none of those software were working. so i used a registry cleaner “ccleaner”, and scanned and cleaned some of the registries. AFTER THAT DAY, his laptop’s DVD drive is no longer working. under device manager, “the device is working perfectly”. But it cannot recognise any of my new and old dvds cds, no nothings… especially, when i incert high-quality-movie(mkv)-data-DVDdisk, there is a huge sound inside the drive and the DVD doesn’t want to come up. So, then ive to use the pin for ejecting the disk…….Now that friend is blaming me everyday for this circumstances. Now what can i do??? Where is the relation between DVD DRIVE AND CCLEANER(unnecessary registry cleaner)????? please…please …please…help me…………………..GIVE ME A SPECIFIC SOLUTION, PLEASE!