Anyone know how to disassemble the Samsung R20?

Hi everyone, i wanna to disassemble my r20 laptop to clean up all the dust. Anyone can help.

 

I disassembled and cleaned my CPU heatsink a couple nights ago. Took the time to put new cooling paste (Arctic Silver 5) on the GPU and CPU as well. Was well worth it. My fan never runs faster than the lowest speed now, running RMclock with 0.975V at FID 14 that is.

This is how it's done. (I'm writing this from memory so some steps might be out of order or missing). In order to access the fan and heatsink you need to get the mainboard off the bottom plastic casing thus disassembling almost everything.

• Turn off the computer and take the battery out. Pull out any cards or plastic dummies from the PCIe slot and cardreader.
• Turn the computer over and take out all the screws you can see except the ones holding your RAM cover (you can do it but it's not necessary). Should be 19 in total, including the ones holding your HDD and CD/DVD-drive.
• Extract HDD and CD/DVD-drive.
• Turn the notebook over. The keyboard is kept in place with three plastic latches on the longside facing away from the display. First one is located between the Windows button and the left Ctrl. Second one is by the Spacebar just left of the scroll markings on your touchpad. Last one is by the Down arrow. Push the latches away from the keyboard using a thin flat screwdriver. The keyboard should pop up, if it doesn't you could bend it lightly. Be careful when you pull it out as it's still connected to the mainboard with a thin flat set of wires. Disconnect by flipping the plastic connector on the mainboard upwards (toward the ceiling).
• The touchpad connector is also visible and can be disconnected the same way (flipping it upward).
• Three screws are holding the plastic cover under the display in place. Unscrew. Lift away.
• The display connector is now accessible, unplug by pulling upwards.
• Unscrew the screws holding the display hinges. There's still one wire (WLAN antenna) connecting the display and the mainboard (WLAN card) but I left it attached.
• Lift away the display.
• Now you need to unscrew all the screws marked with arrows to release the mainboard. When this is done you should be able to lift the mainboard out of the plastic casing, you need to maneuver all jacks (USB, LAN, ear phone etc.) out of the casing as you go along. There's still one wire holding the mainboard to the casing, it's the speaker. You need to turn the mainboard over, while it's still connected, in order to unplug it.
• When the speaker is unplugged the WLAN antenna wire is the only thing still connecting the mainboard to anything else, I left it that way.
• Turn the mainboard over having the fan and heatsink facing you. There's six screws (four by the fan, two by the GPU heatsink) holding the fan in place.(I think you actually have to expose the GPU in order to get to the CPU heatsink)
• Unscrew these as well as disconnecting the wires to the fan from the board, lift the fan and accompanying "air duct".

There you have it. The CPU heatsink. There's probably a layer of dust forming a kind of felt where the fan blows. Clean this out.
At this stage there's also the option to disassemble the CPU heatsink and reapply new high quality cooling paste. Just four screws keeping you from from the CPU core.

• Assemble. Using all the screws

Hope this helps. Please ask in this thread if there's any questions. I'm sure many R20 owners would appreciate step-by-step images of your disassemble as well.

 

Firstly, thanks for the step by step list. I will be dissemble my R20 in the coming weekend. Definitly i will take some photos of my disasemble and post in this thread. Coming Soon.

 

Photos would be nice. I would be particularly interested in how/if you can get off the hinge cover part (with the silly wavy pattern and Power/AV buttons) - that thing simply wouldn't budge when I tried. Not sure if I missed any screws or just didn't tilt the display into the right position.

 

In order to get the hinge cover off you need to pull the keyboard out first. If I remember correctly there are three screws holding the cover in place, well visible and symmetrically placed. When these are unscrewed and the display is fully pushed back it is fairly easy to get it off.

 

I am about to do the same with my laptop, since noise and heat has become intolerable.

I have a question, though. You write FID 14 and VID 0.975V. I've Celeron M 1.87GHz based Samsung R20 here. It is running 85C+ without much load. FID 14, Voltage ID - 1.212. Is your CPU different or you managed to somehow change that VID?

 

It is probably a T2250 CPU.

See the undervolting guide for how you might be able to drop the voltage of your CPU, although I'm not sure how easy it is to manipulate the Celeron CPUs.

John

 

I confirm that Celeron M is NOT manageable with RMClock in the described manner.

Is it possible to replace Celeron M with T2250 used in the same series of notebook (namely, Samsung R20)?

 

The CPU is socketed so it should be possible to replace the Celeron M with any other CPU that uses the same socket and was sold by Samsung (so we know it is supported in the BIOS, although other same-socket CPUs may also be supported).

The ultimate CPU guide shows the Celeron M 1.6 uses socket M. The T2250 is missing from that guide but is of the same family as the Celeron M. This suggests that the R20 could handle CPUs up to the T7400. The German version had a T7200 while some of the UK specs are listed here. That gives you a selection of CPUs to look for.

John

 

Some additional hints:
- "Reset" keyboard latches before starting to reassemble the laptop.
- (Better yet) disconnect antenna from WiFi before removing motherboard.

And question:
- Where do I find/buy a new fan for this model?

 

There are some exploded diagrams of the R20 on the link below.

http://www.mk-electronic.com/Hersteller/Samsung/NP-R20 Serie.shtm

 

I have the same question. I need a new fan - the old one is literally driving me crazy. I dont think getting rid of the dust will save me alone.

 

did you try undervolting the CPU? That can substantially reduce the heat and fan noise.

Two places to try for the fan are:

(i) 3rd F A Q at Samsung UK website.

(ii) ServiceSource Europe. Send an email to their contact address. I once got a Fujitsu fan from them.

John

 

thx for your response John

Yeah, i tried undervolting but it wont help when the noise stems from a damaged fan

I will try sending around some mails like you suggest if noone here knows a fitting brand