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In this guide I’ll be taking apart a HP Pavilion dv7 laptop.
This is my THIRD disassembly guide for HP Pavilion dv7 laptop. This guide was made for HP Pavilion dv7-6000 series.
In this particular case I’m taking apart dv7-6113cl model.
If your laptop looks like one shown on the following picture, this guide will work for you.
If it looks different check out my first HP Pavilion dv7 disassembly guide (made for dv7-1000 series) or my second HP Pavilion dv7 disassembly guide (made for dv7-3000 and dv7-4000 series).
In the following guide I’ll go though the following major disassembly steps:
STEP 1-9: Accessing laptop memory, wireless card, CMOS battery. Disconnecting hard drive.
STEP 10-16: Disconnecting and removing the keyboard.
STEP 17-23: Removing the palmrest assembly.
STEP 24-25: Accessing the DC power jack harness and cooling fan.
OK, lets take it apart. First of all, make sure the laptop is turned off.
STEP 1.
Unlock the remove the battery.
STEP 2.
Slide the battery latch to the left (unlocked position).
At the same time insert something under the bottom hatch and lift it up.
Continue removing the hatch with your fingers. You’ll have to wiggle the hatch in order to remove it.
STEP 3.
Remove the bottom hatch.
STEP 4.
Under the bottom hatch you can get access to the following laptop components:
- Both memory slots/modules.
- Wireless card.
- CMOS battery.
- Primary and secondary (optional) hard drives.
STEP 5.
Remove four screws securing the primary hard drive mounting bracket.
STEP 6.
Disconnect the primary hard drive cable from the motherboard.
STEP 7.
Lift up and remove the primary hard drive assembly.
STEP 8.
In my HP Pavilion dv7 laptop I didn’t have secondary hard dive installed. I had only an empty bracket.
STEP 9.
Remove one screw securing the DVD drive.
Pull the DVD drive to the left and remove it from the laptop.
STEP 10.
Remove one screw securing the keyboard.
STEP 11.
Now the tricky part to remove the keyboard.
Insert a very small screwdriver into the whole where the keyboard screw was located.
Push the screwdriver into the hole. By doing that you actually pushing on the back side of the keyboard.
STEP 12.
While pushing on the back side of the keyboard you’ll see the front side of the keyboard will lift up a little bit.
You’ll be able to insert your fingers between the keyboard and laptop case and lift it up.
STEP 13.
Continue removing the keyboard and move it towards the screen.
STEP 14.
Now you can access the keyboard cable connector. It’s necessary to unlock the connector in order to release the keyboard cable.
STEP 15.
Carefully lift up the outer side of the retainer. It will pop up at a 90 degree angle.
STEP 16.
After the connector unlocked you can pull the cable and remove the keyboard.
New keyboard for HP Pavilion dv7 laptops available here. Make sure to find one that fits your dv7 series.
STEP 17.
Remove all marked screws from the bottom of the laptop. Make notes about removes crews, they have different length.
STEP 18.
Remove two screws securing the palmrest assembly.
Disconnect the following cables:
- Power button cable.
- Touchpad cable.
- USB board cable.
- Finger scanning device cable.
All cables have similar connectors.
First, lift up the cable retainer.
Second, pull cable from the connector.
STEP 19.
Now you can start removing the palmrest assembly.
STEP 20.
I’m using the guitar pick to separate the palmrest assembly from the bottom cover. You can use a piece of plastic.
Insert it between the palmrest and bottom cover and slowly move along the side.
STEP 21.
Lift up the palmrest assembly BUT BE CAREFUL. You’ll have to slide the USB board cable through the opening.
STEP 22.
Carefully pull the USB board through the opening and remove the palmrest assembly.
STEP 23.
Here’s the bottom side of the palmrest assembly. Here’s you can get access to the following internal components:
- Finger scanning device.
- Power button board.
- Touchpad assembly.
STEP 24.
When the palmrest assembly removed you can get access to the DC power jack which is mounted in the uppder right corner of the laptop base.
New HP Pavilion dv7 DC jacks available here. Again, make sure it fits your dv7 series.
STEP 25.
Also, under the palmrest assembly you can get limited access to the cooling fan. It should be good enough for cleaning (in a case of laptop overheating).
In order to remove and replace the cooling fan it’s necessary to remove the whole motherboard.
For more complete HP Pavilion dv7-6000 series disassembly instructions you can refer to the official HP service manual. Removal and replacement procedures start on the page 46.
May 12th, 2013 at 7:34 am
Hey! Thanks for a great gudie!
I got a dv7 6080eo and haveing some overheating problems…
Is there anyway i can acces the fan whitout haveing to take apart the keyboard and all that?
Thanks!
May 11th, 2013 at 9:40 pm
Thanks for the post –
Just finished taking apart my DV6100…and it worked like a charm.
I noticed in step 17, there’s one screw which is not circled…located below the primary hard drive. You’ll want to take this one out before lifting up the palm rest / touch pad.
Also, be careful of the clips. Somehow the clip holding the power cable ribbon broke off. Be careful while removing the ribbons in step 15. If you have larger fingers /hands like me, you might also want to find someone with smaller fingers to assist.
Thanks for the post!! Cleaned out my fan and replaced a keyboard (due to a broken up arrow)!
April 13th, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Thanks for taking the time to create and post this excellent guide that is the first non-video that I was able to find for the model I have (6197ca). Video is great but can’t give the detail that you have offered here, especially about minding the placement of the screws that are removed in Step 17, as this could be a real disaster, and the location of the keyboard removal screw and procedure.
I have had problems with overheating and understand that the problem was due to dirt build-up, so I was looking for a resource to be able to do it myself in the future.
I had this done under warranty from HP, along with the replacement of the lower case that broke at one of the speakers.
A word of caution to anyone who has warranty work done by HP – be sure that you have a working disk image before sending your computer in for “factory” service, as the buffoons there formatted my C drive while performing non-hard (purely mechanical) problems. Worse news is that the imaging software I had may or may not be able to get it back.
There can be an issue about voiding your warranty by changing the hard drive, but if I were to do it again, I would have sent them a “sacrificial lamb” hard drive – keeping the original safe and sound at home – and saved myself the days of research and reinstallation that I have spent – and will spend – to get it back to working order.
On that note, your guide makes it clear which is the C drive – and would have made this switch very easy.
As someone else has already commented “all that to clean the fan – Stupid HP”
March 12th, 2013 at 4:37 pm
Hello,
First of all, thanks for the great guide and the link to the HP service manual. I´d like to hear some tips on what to do with my Pavilion DV76165 because, apparently, I screwed up. I disassembled it because the connector pin in the HDMI port bent and when I put it back together with the help of my uncle (who is an IT guy) it didn´t recognize the fingerprint pad and the screen was all blurry; where it should´ve shown white it showed fuzzy green and pink colors. It´s not an issue with the graphics card because it showed a perfect image when we connected the laptop to a screen. We disassembled it again but after this time, it doesn´t want to turn on at all. It was working perfectly before disassembling it, any idea why could this be??? Please help, I´m desperate!
Thanks in advance for an answer!
February 16th, 2013 at 10:42 am
@ Fred,
The only way is replacing the fan. If the problem still there most likely this is motherboard related failure. I hope a new fan will fix it.
February 15th, 2013 at 6:17 am
Hi, thank you for the clear instructions. I have an hp dv7t-6000 which appears to be very close to what you have in Guide 3 (laptop is about 18 months old). I get an error on my laptop that says the fan is not working correctly when I power it up (System Fan 90B). All of the external vents are clean and I don’t see signs of very much dust at all on the inside of the vents. This week, the fan was going on and off every few seconds, much more rapidly than it has done before. I did a hard reset today on the laptop and the fan doesn’t come on at all so I have shut off the laptop to prevent damage. Do you know how I can troubleshoot to know if the fan needs replaced or if the problem is the sensor or signal that is sent to the fan to turn it on and off. Thanks for your help!
February 9th, 2013 at 3:25 pm
Hello, I have the HP DV7 6050ca (It’s just like this one), however my cooling fan doesn’t turn on. It sometimes kind of twitches, but otherwise it doesn’t turn on. I’ve tried playing around with the power cable for the fan and it twitches when I plug it in, but still doesn’t work. My laptop overheats all the time because of this. I’ve already tried cooling pads, using compressed air etc.But the fan mover smoothly when I turned it manually to make sure that it wasn’t stuck. So is there something I’m missing? I really don’t want to have to replace the fan!
Thanks
January 16th, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Which of these cable is from Hp logo on the top?I have the problem that the HP logo all the time blinkin.Sometimes, all the off! mod dv7-6c63nr
January 14th, 2013 at 2:15 pm
@ Iron,
This could be just a bad keyboard.
If your laptop works fine with an external USB keyboard, most likely replacing the keyboard will fix the issue.
January 14th, 2013 at 8:59 am
Just wanted to say thank you so much for posting this. This was the hardest laptop I’ve had to disassemble yet, and I couldn’t have done it without your guide.
All this, just to clean the fan.
Stupid HP.