Applying Arctic Thermal Compound Mx4 to a laptop

Okay, so after some temp. issues. I've ordered this today, and it will be here within the week.

My question(s)...

1) How do I take the back off my Acer 5742G and is it easy?

2) Are there any good pointers you can give me?

3) How likely am I to balls up my laptop by doing this? I have no prior experience with this at all.

I tried taking off the back of my old laptop, just to see if I could, and I couldn't do it. I unscrewed everything on the back and took off the various hatches, but nothing helped. I even took out the HDD, but it still didn't budge.

 

You probably need to remove some various Trim pieces and remove the keyboard first to remove the whole bottom piece.

This video, while not specifically on how to disassemble the notebook, may still be useful on giving you clues on how they're ingeniously put together.

See:
Acer Aspire and Extensa 5235, 5738, 5739, 5740, 5741, 5742 Laptop Screen Removal and Replacement - YouTube


As for the Arctic Silver compound, squeeze a small drop onto the middle of the cpu and put/push the heat sink on and tighten 1/4 turn at a time, each screw in the order shown (on/beside the screws on the heatsink). To really check - after you have done this once, remove the heatsink again and see if you put enough (the paste will have totally covered the cpu...) or too much (the paste has squeezed out and gunked up the sides...) or not enough (only part of the cpu was covered...).

Hope this helps.

 

This looks similar to your model's back cover and may be of some help:
eMachines E442-V133 Laptop Processor Upgrade Part 1 - YouTube