Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Another ZV5000



This is the second ZV5000 this month and I have another one waiting on the bench after this one is completed. This laptop has the classic dc jack symptom of giving it a proper wiggle to get it to charge.
This is a fairly easy laptop to get apart. I like to start with taking the fan cover off. Then I move to the under battery screws. Make sure you get the optical drive out before taking the main bottom plastic bezel off. Once the optical is removed you gain access to a hidden screw that keeps that main bottom bezel on.
Once all the screws are gone from the bottom you need to take the four back screws out that are hidden under a silver "sticker like" backing. Now the top power button bezel can be removed to gain access to the screws that hold in the keyboard. Remove those screws and take off the keyboard. Like many other laptops be very careful when removing the keyboard ribbon. So many times I see laptop with broken or mangled ribbon holders. I'll get some pics posted of what I mean.
You're about halfway through taking apart the laptop. You can now move onto the screws under the keyboard and power button bezel. Once those are gone you can go to the bottom of the laptop again and remove five screws on the tan chassis of the motherboard. Next are the screws that work with the docking station. You will need a flat head screwdriver to get these off.
If you've done everything right you can now lift the motherboard and still attached tan chassis off the plastics of the laptop.
Flip it over and remove the three screws under the cpu. You can also remove the heatsink screws and remove the cpu. Be very careful when removing this because you can rip the cpu right out of the locked socket if your not careful.
When I got down to the motherboard I could see that the solder had cracked around the main power pin.
The jack is very easy to de-solder and solder is also a breeze. Replacing the jack made this laptop charge fine again with no problems.
As always, I'm not responsible for any damage you might do to your laptop. The best rule of thumb is "If you need to ask you probably shouldn't try to do it yourself".

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