travelmate 240

i have tried a search but cant find anything related
i have the acer travelmate 240 my problem is that the battery charger socket as come loose and been pushed back in to the case but i dont know how to undo the case i know there are some screws on the underneath and i have remove these but it still wont come apart i dont wont to force it apart i am sure there must be some more screws holding it bu i dont know where they are i would appriciate any help
cheers chris

 

http://www.eserviceinfo.com/downloadsm/10249/acer_ACER TravelMate 2300_4000_4500.html

 

cheers zazonz i have downloaded this file but i dont understand it i dont it shows how to undo the case
cheers

 

I think it gives a rough estimate of how everthing fits together.

 

Since I have just had to do this to reset and re-grease the CPU heatsink, here's how to remove the top panel:

*** DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK ***

READ ALL OF THIS POSTING BEFORE DECIDING TO GO AHEAD - THERE ARE IMPORTANT NOTES THROUGHOUT.

You will need a small cross-head screwdriver

1) Power down and remove the battery.

2) Prepare a clean work area and something in which to store the screws (not many, according to how deep you go).

3) Open the laptop as if you are going to use it and gently push the screen back as far as it will go.

4) Notice the two plastic covers at the rear corners below the screen, covering part of the screen hinge.

5) Press down on the flat area while gently sliding the covers outward (one at a time is easier!).

6) Under the covers will be two small silver screws - one each side - remove them and put them somewhere safe.

7) Gently start to lift the button panel starting from the right edge just above the screw you removed.

** DO NOT use the small plastic screw mount point as a lifting lever as you may break it off **

8) Gently peel up the panel, noting that it curves up and over the rear part of the laptop below the screen. On the front edge are several tabs that lock this panel into the plastic of the rest of the top and these need to be gently de-located - in general, once you have the rear part of the button panel raised, you can gently pull it upwards and towards the LCD panel, unlocking the tabs at the front. If they stick, put some downward pressure on the bottom left and right corners of the button panel as you lift it towards the LCD panel.

9) With the panel lifted off the body of the laptop take care not to strain the cable linking the buttons and LEDs to the motherboard - you do NOT have to unplug this if you are only working on the heatsink.

10) Likewise, if you raise the back end of the keyboard and lift it slowly up and towards the LCD panel you can remove it, but take care of its connecting ribbon tape.

You now have full access to the heatsink - to remove it there's four large screws around the CPU area and a few smaller ones. Because the large screws are numbered 1-2-3-4 it makes sense to remove and replace them in order - most likely to ensure even pressure is put on the motherboard as you do things.

If you have come here because your power socket has desoldered itself (yep, happened to me), then you have to go very deep for this and remove the motherboard. I had to do this a couple of weeks ago and it was a tedious process. As I am not doing this 'right now', here are just some pointers from memory:

As well as the screwdriver, get a sheet of white paper, a regular pen and a 0.5mm (small tip) permanent marker pen. Don't forget the soldering iron and solder too! Maybe some new heatsink grease as well.

Pros will wear an antistatic wrist strap. If you are not a pro, think about asking one to do this work for you. If you still want to go ahead at your own risk, ground (earth) yourself regularly by touching a grounded metal pipe with one hand while you are NOT holding any components in your hand. If you want to be 'clever', make sure you are only wearing natural fibre materials (nylon etc. generates and holds static electricity), such as a cotton T-shirt and denim jeans - heck, if you fancy, strip down and work in cotton shorts - erm - I am assuming you are working at home here; if you are in the office, go with the wrist strap or pipe-grounding thing or check your dress code allows the 'country boy' look! If your dress code allows the 'shorts only' approach AND you have female techs, please email me your company details and name of your recruitment officer!

1) Do the above procedure to remove the top bits AFTER these first few steps...

2) Remove the hard disk.

3) Remove all the black screws from the bottom of the case.

4) Remove the 4 silver screws from the battery compartment area.

4) Now turn the unit the right way up and remove the top panel as described above and then the keyboard - you will have to disconnect the cables - note that many will have a lift up/down locking bar on them and so the bar must be CAREFULLY lifted before the cable will free itself. DO NOT lift the bar with a screwdriver as you may crack it - try and use your fingernails or, worse case, a plastic pen top (eg: the 'tongue' on a bic crystal pen top).

5) Locate the CMOS battery - in my laptop it was covered in blue heatshrink plastic and fixed to a metal plate to the left of the CPU fan/heatsink - remove its connector (carefully) and then unscrew the metal plate.

6) Remove the big screws holding the heatsink/fan in place.

7) Remove the small screws holding the heatsink/fan in place.

8) Unscrew the clamp holding one of the LCD screen leads in place

9) Disconnect the two LCD screen cables, noting how the cables were routed - hey, you have a piece of paper - make a diagram - maybe even take a picture with your digital camera or phone!?

10) Remove the four screws holding the LCD screen hinges in place, remove the screen and put it in a safe place.

11) Pretty much every piece of sheet metalwork will have to be removed - that's (from memory):

The cage for the hard disk
The cage for the PC-Card slot
The cage for the CD/DVD drive (I think there was one - hey it was a week ago alright!?)
The hot air vent duct on the back right side of the motherboard

12) On the underside of the motherboard (below a small door) is the modem module - I removed it when I dismantled my laptop but I don't recall whether this was necessary. I know I didn't remove the RAM.

13) Likewise, you will have to remove the CD/DVD drive and floppy + their cables - again, take note of where the cables go and how they route (paper time)

14) With all metalwoork and drives out of the way, remove the remaining screws from the motherboard.

15) To remove the motherboard, *GENTLY* lift the front edge up and pull it towards you, guiding the rear connectors out from their plastic/metal mouldings/housings.

16) Freak out that you have totally dismantled your laptop!!

17) Use a 15/25W (max) soldering iron with small (2.5mm) chisel tip and 22swg electronic solder to resolder the power connector

18) Reassemble in reverse

19) Count how many screws you have left over.

OK - here's another idea for the paper:

When you are just about to remove a drive or lump of metal - look round the unit and see how many screws you are going to remove.

Use your permanent marker to give the unit a unique letter - you know 'A', 'B' etc.

Draw a circle on the paper big enough to hold the screws you are going to remove and put the right letter next to it.

Remove one screw at a time (anyone ever done three at a time!?) and after you have removed a screw, put it in the relevant circle AND mark next to the screw hole the same letter - this helps because some components screw down over others and so just because one 'thing' has 5 screw holes in it doesn't mean you need to re-fix 5 screws into it - some of the holes may be used later.

This way you end up with lots of circles with the right count of screws in them for every item and also every item is marked up with where the screws should go.

If you come across an item with more than one screw type/size/colour in it, mark the different screws/holes/circles with 'extra' letters - for example, you may have item 'D' with one hole as 'DA'.

If you have a cat, make sure it doesn't notice your lovely piece of paper and decide to use it as a jump mat/sleeping place!!

You did see the bit about all this being at your own risk, didn't you!?

NB: Doing this the first time freaked me out - and I'm an electronics engineer and used to repair Tosh and Compaq laptops in the 1990s - WITH THE SERVICE MANUALS - so really really make sure you are up to this.

Warranty? You can kiss that goodbye! (mine was out of warranty anyway).

 

I've got a travelmate 240 too and went looking for solutions on noise from the fan. It's become a lot noisier than when it was new 2.5 years ago.

I found that a lot of people have discussed noise from fans on other Acer laptops and suggested changes to the voltage and clocking of the CPU etc. Nobody appeared to have opened their travelmate to clean off dust inside.

Thanks a lot to linker3000 for describing how to open it!

I followed your instructions and got to the heatsink (your step 10) . To lift it out I hade to remove 3 screws that held a piece of metal just left to the heatsink. Once the heatsink was out I removed all visible dust (with tape rather than a brush to avoid just pushing it somewhere else). Then I blew hard through the ventilation ribs of the heatsink and THICK MATS OF DUST CAME OUT!. I just blew with my mouth as I didn't have pressurized air available (which would probably have been better). I renewed the heat-transmitting paste between sink and CPU and replaced everything.

IT WORKS. For the first time in more than a year the fan actually turns off from time to time when the CPU is not busy. Before the cleaning, the fan would reach speed level 3 (real noisy!) after 5 mins of 100% CPU use, now it doesn't ever do that.