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In the following guide I’ll be taking apart a Gateway NX570X laptop. I think my disassembly instructions will work for other Gateway laptops in the NX570 line too. Please let me know if you have a different Gateway laptop and this guide works for you, you can mention your model in the comments below.
The laptop I’m fixing stopped charging the battery even though the AC adapter works properly and outputs correct voltage. I tested the adapter with a voltmeter. Actually, it’s charging the battery but only intermittently, when the AC adapter pushed in firmly. In order to charge the battery I have to adjust the AC adapter plug inside the power socket on the back of the laptop. Apparently, there is a problem with the power socket (aka power jack) and it has to be replaced or resoldered. OK, let’s take this lappy apart. I’ll be removing the system board so I can access and repair the power jack.
Are you looking for spare parts for your Gateway NX570 laptop? You’ll find them here.
STEP 1.
Turn off the laptop, unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
Remove seven screws (yellow circles) securing the memory cover.
Remove one screw (yellow circle) securing the keyboard. There are two more keyboard screws under the memory cover. You can see them in the step 5.
Remove one screw (orange circle) securing the Wi-Fi card cover.
Remove two screws (red circle) securing the hard drive. In order to disconnect the hard drive from the motherboard, you’ll have to slide the hard drive assembly to the left. Remove the hard drive assembly from the laptop.
STEP 2.
Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card, simply unsnap them from the card using your fingers. Remove one screw securing the wireless card and remove the card.
Remove both memory modules.
Loosen four screws securing the heat sink assembly (red circles).
STEP 3.
Carefully lift up the heat sink assembly from the laptop. The cooling fan is attached to the motherboard. Unplug this cable from the motherboard.
STEP 4.
Remove one screw securing the CD/DVD drive. Push the drive to the left and remove it from the laptop.
STEP 5.
Remove all screws from the bottom of the laptop. Two screws marked with green circles are securing the keyboard.
If you are replacing the keyboard, you simply remove one green screw in the step 1 and two green screws in the step 5 and then proceed to steps 7,8,9,10.
STEP 6.
Remove two screws from the hinge cover.
STEP 7.
Start removing the hinge cover with a small flathead screwdriver and continue removing it with your fingers.
STEP 8.
Remove the hinge cover.
STEP 9.
Lift up the keyboard as it shown on the picture below and place it upside down on the palm rest.
STEP 10.
Unlock connector on the system board. Release the cable and remove the keyboard.
STEP 11.
Release the wireless card antenna cables.
Unplug LCD cable from the system board.
Remove two screws from each display hinge.
STEP 12.
Carefully lift up and remove the LCD assembly.
STEP 13.
Remove four screws securing the top cover.
Unplug the touch pad cable from the system board.
STEP 14.
Lift up and remove the top cover assembly.
STEP 15.
Remove five screws securing the motherboard.
Unplug the speaker cable (left) and the Bluetooth card cable (right) from the system board.
STEP 16.
Start removing the system board from the left side.
You’ll have to disconnect one more cable shown on the picture below.
Finally, the system board has been removed.
Now you can access and repair the power jack. You can use these power jack replacement instructions.
When I was removing the power jack from the system board, it came out with the internal sleeve attached to the “+” connector. This sleeve connects traces on both sides of the system board and normally, when you unsolder the power jack, it stays inside the hole.
Now I’ll have to make a modification so traces on both sides of the system board are connected. I’ll have to connect traces with a cable.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Justin,
I don’t think that cooling fan is controlled by the operating system.
But if you suspect that your operating system is causing the problem, you can boot your laptop from a life Linux CD (Knoppix for example) and find out if the fan works fine with another OS.
Knoppix runs from a CD and doesn’t use files on the hard drive at all.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Justin,
It’s hard to tell if you have a faulty fan or there is a problem with the motherboard. I guess you should buy a known good fan for test. If the problem still exists, there is something wrong with the motherboard.
Why the fan starts when you turn on the laptop? That’s a good question and here’s my guess.
Maybe the motherboard sends maximum possible voltage to the fan at the beginning and it’s enough to start the fan. After that, the voltage going to the fan is lower and it will not start. This is just a guess and I could be wrong.
Here’s another idea just in case if there is a problem with the motherboard. You can probe the motherboard with a voltmeter and find terminals with voltage needed for the fan. Solder the fan directly to these terminals.
Basically, the fan will run all the time as soon as the laptop is turned on, but it should work. Do it only if you have nothing to lose.
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I think I might have it, I recently had to replace the hard drive (the old one crashed) and had to reinstall everything and I might have not installed the correct chipset drivers, as the fan runs when I am in BIOS but not when Windows XP starts up.
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Actually, I downloaded and installed Speedfan a few weeks ago to monitor my temps, and I did hit the critical mark according to the temp indicators (they all showed little flames beside the numbers) and so I purchased a cooling unit that sits under the laptop (it was on sale) and that seems to have stopped the laptop from overheating (at least it hasn’t gotten so hot that the flame indicators were present on the temp readings). I would assume that the fan not turning on when I have flaming indicators via Speedfan means my fan is not turning on when it should be, but then, why does my fan run when I first start up the laptop? (questions, questions) I can purchase a used fan fairly inexpensively and was considering doing this just to test it out and see if the old fan is the problem. Any recommendations? By the way, thank you for your help.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Justin,
It’s hard to tell if the fan is failing or not. I guess it has to turn on eventually, but I don’t know if the CPU temperature reaches that critical point.
You can try SpeedFan software to monitor the fan and CPU temperature. Maybe it will help to figure out what is wrong.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Hi, I have an MA7/MX6596 with a cooling problem. The fan starts up when the computer starts up, and then shuts off after 15 to 30 seconds, and then does not come back on at all. The laptop gets very hot, and this concerns me, but it has never shut off because of a thermal overload (assuming this laptop even has thermal protection). The fan is clean and I haven’t found any way to manually enable it to see what the issue is. Should I just assume the fan is failing and replace it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
paul tiffany,
Did you have a chance to test your laptop with another known good battery? Could be just bad battery.
If it’s not the battery, I don’t know which component on the motherboard is causing the problem. I don’t fix motherboards on component level.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Good Morning, Tech.
My Gateway “jack’s” been repaired, with silver solder for strength, and is working fine.
However, there’s a “no battery detected” icon AND, sure enough, it doesn’t work with a
battery. Some say to replace the motherbrd, but I think there’s a component, ON the brd, that I can replace.
What’s your take on this?
February 16th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this, great time saver
your the Best
Danny
February 15th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Jim,
I’m glad to help.
Not sure why you having this problem. Try again, I guess the PayPal site was down for a while. Also, you can try “Donate” button on my other site http://www.irisvista.com/tech/, it’s on the top of the page. By they way, this site could be useful for Toshiba laptops.
Thanks!
February 15th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Your help has been sensational. I got my Gateway with the power connector problem working. I really appreciate the way you responded immediately to my questions while you were working on the Gateway that you had. This saved my daughter a great deal of money.
I tried to make a contribution by clicking on the “Donate” button but Paypal doesn’t seem to like that for some reason. Is there some other way to make a contribution?
February 10th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Jim,
You will not believe but I’m working on a laptop with problem like that RIGHT NOW.
The power jack got disconnected from the motherboard and while removing the jack I pulled the sleeve again. Apparently, it’s not designed to be repaired.
If you solder the power jack like that, most likely the laptop will not power up because the power has to get to both sides of the motherboard. The power goes from one side to the other through the copper sleeve inside the hole. Without the sleeve it will not work.
Unfortunately, there is not much space around the “+” hole on the motherboard, so you have to be very careful.
Here’s what I did:
1. Using a small screwdriver I scratched off the green paint from the traces around the “+” hole until copper trace is exposed. Did it on both sides of the motherboard. Coated cleaned area with fresh solder.
2. Cut off one leg-connector from a new resistor. I’m going to use it as a bridge to connect traces on both sides of the motherboard.
3. Widened the “+” hole on the motherboard with an awl so I can fit in both, the power jack leg and my bridge into the “+” hole.
4. Inserted the leg-connector I cut off from a new resistor into the “+” hole and shaped it as U. Soldered my bridge on both sides of the motherboard to terminals prepared in the step 1.
5. Inserted the power jack into the motherboard and soldered. The “+” connector is soldered to the bridge.
I was using my multi-meter all the time and tested continuity while doing the repair. I wanted to make sure that my bridge is soldered to proper terminals without shoring other traces.
I hope you understand what I’m talking about. I know that it would be good to see the picture of my repair, but the laptop is already assembled and charging the battery.
Works fine so far.
February 10th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
That link is the one I have been looking at but the layout is not the same asan MA7. Also, you said in your description that the sleeve connected the power to both sides of the board. So, how would I get power to both sides if I am connecting only to the connector’s solder side as shown. I tried soldering to one side of the hole but that turned out to be ground. Do I solder to the other side of the hole that appears to be connected to PC1 and PR8?