DIY Laptop/ Notebook Computer - Do It Yourself Notebook, Picture Tutorial

Picture of the CPU chamber after removing the cover and two screws

A picture showing the back of the laptop with CPU chamber (open), hard drive chamber (top left corner, closed), memory/WiFi chamber (middle, closed), and battery chamber (lower, open).

The most tricky part is to remove the heat sink and pipe before mounting the CPU. You have little space to work with. Obviously, you try not to break anything.

Now I had the fan and heatsink removed and got ready to mount the CPU.

Making sure the CPU is aligned well with the socket.

Tightening the screw on the CPU/socket.

Now the CPU is mounted with the heatsink and fan back in their spaces.

Cover back on the CPU chamber.

Now working on the memory chamber. The cover is removed by removing one screw. (Warning: the screws are small. Keep them in a safe space).

Now insert the memory module.

Memory module "happily" inserted.

Now it's time to add the internal WiFi card. This card adds a wireless network adapter to the laptop!

There are two wires that need to be connected to the WiFi card (one black and one white). The connectors are a clip-on-bottom type. They are a little difficult to work with. Since they the WiFi card is not supported well, it's difficult to push the click-on bottoms onto the card without putting too much pressure on the card itself. What I did was to place a screw driver head underneath the card to support it while pushing the clips.

Now it's time for the hard drive after putting the cover back onto the memory chamber.

The hard drive needs to be mounted onto a bracket first.

Two screws on each side are used to fix the drive to the bracket.

Slide the drive bracket into the HD chamber with the IDE pins going into the connector. Push it to make sure the connection is tight. And then ready for putting the cover back on.

Now I was ready for the battery. I pulled it out from the accessory box.

Battery was inserted. Piece of cake..