Ativ Book 8 teardown guide / Keyboard replacement - LOTS OF PICS

EDIT AND IMPORTANT NOTE:

It is IMPOSSIBLE to replace the keyboard fully on this laptop without cutting plastic and potentially doing more harm than good. I fully recommend buying the full upper unit if you need to replace your keyboard - this guide is now a teardown and key-cap replacement only.


Alright guys, so I'm in the process of tearing apart my Ativ Book 8 and replacing the silver keyboard for a black one I picked up off ebay. I have most of it apart, but can't figure out how to get the stock silver keyboard out - it seems to be plastic-welded in. I'll start a teardown guide in the next post. It will start out as mostly pictures (it's getting late here) but I'll have instructions added in soon.

Here's the keyboard I picked up off ebay, btw:

 

Here's a quick teardown guide. I'm going to add graphics eventually, but I've seen a few requests for this guide in my own travels, so I figured I'd make one myself.

First, a few general shots. Make sure you're opening up the same laptop as I am here, and I reccomend use of an anti-static mat and strap for this, as you'll be dealing with a lot of exposed PCB.



Close the lid and flip the laptop over. There are 11 Phillips head screws to remove on the underside: 4 on the edge near the hinge, 3 running down the middle from left to right (including one for the RAM cover) and 4 on the front edge. They are all the same screw.


Once you remove the screws, pry up the RAM cover. It, like most of this laptop, is held in with plastic tabs in addition to screws. I use an iFixit pro tech toolkit, but any thin prying device will work:


If you have installed a RAM upgrade (as you will notice below, I have) remove and store your RAM somewhere safe:



Now for the fun part. Starting with one of the corners of the machine, get your prying device in between the bottom casing and top casing (you'll notice a seam that runs along the bottom of your input ports) as shown:


Start to carefully pry up along the perimeter of the case:


Please note - There are tabs between EACH AND EVERY input port. If you rush it, you may crack the case or break a port. Look a few pictures up near the RAM slot to see what I'm talking about. That crack was from an earlier SSD upgrade when I just got a corner up and then tried to pry the whole thing open with my hands. Slow and steady is the name of the game here.


This is the inside of the bottom case - notice all the tabs around the peremiter of the casing. Please be especially careful around the hinge area, it's an easy area to forget about. Take the bottom off and keep it to the side.


You're now left with an exposed motherboard, cooling solution, battery and hard drive (or SSD if you've already upgraded).

 

Reserved

 

Before I start writing the guide, I have three questions for those that frequent dissassembly of laptops:

1. There were two stickers on the GPU and CPU, which had TIM under them. I removed them to get rid of the extra TIM, is this bad?
2. I originally was taking this apart because I wanted to change the keyboard. I ordered a replacement off ebay (and see plenty of replacements all over the web) but I can't seem to get the current keyboard out of the frame. Thoughts? It looks like there are plastic rivets (for lack of a better word) holding the front frame onto that back aluminum piece. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get them off without destroying them.
3. There was a black membrane under the mobo - between it and the keyboard frame. I had to peel it off to see if there were screws holding the frame and keyboard together, and destroyed it in the process. Is it safe to put the machine back together without this membrane? Do you think it's just heat shielding, or could it be a non-conductive material there to prevent shorts...?

 

No need to replace the keyboard. Just replace the key caps one by one.

 

1. Can you post a zoomed in photo or two to illustrate your question 1?

2. You have discovered the reason why the Samsung part (if you can find it) is the complete keyboard / keyboard surround / palmrest unit. Whoever designed this didn't think make it easy to replace only the keyboard. So you will have to cut / drill out those rivets and then glue the replacement keyboard into place.

3. I would think that the membrane is probably to prevent the risk of electrical shorts.

John

 

1. You can see the clear, plastic sticker around the GPU Die towards the upper left corner of the mobo. The CPU sticker is the black plastic piece that looks to be surrounding the CPU die near the bottom middle of the picture:


2. I found it, but I don't want a full black surround. I think I may just remove keycaps and replace them that way - hoping not to break anything in the process. If anyone has any advice, feel free to send it my way.

3. Any idea on where I can get a new one / what to use to make a replacement? You can see it poking out from behind the left edge of the mobo in the above picture, I removed it without taking any actual pictures of it though. I want to put this back together this afternoon, but don't want to do it without that membrane replaced.

 

1. I wonder if the bits of plastic are to reduce the risk of the thermal paste getting on to (and shorting out) other electronics.

3. I am unable to recommend a particular type of plastic sheet but if I were in your situation I would be searching my house for something similar.

John

 

Sorry this is taking so long to edit, but re-doing keycaps was harder than I thought. Add in full-time work, making a full-time college schedule and buying a house, and I don't have a lot of time left over.

As for the keycaps: one key set in particular (the arrow keys) proved very difficult - taking a good half hour per key to get right. This is partially because it was the first row I attempted, and I hadn't become familiar with the procedure yet, but trust me - they're a *****. The other difficult ones are the function keys with LED notification lights, as the scissor is VERY small. If anyone has any questions, let me know - I think I can handle swapping these with my eyes closed now. Here are pictures!


Starting the grueling process, and an example of why this is necessary. Look at how readable the black keys are, as opposed to the silver/grey ones. This isn't a huge deal for the standard keys, but trying to find a specific function key is a MAJOR pain:


Arrow keys - they don't like going on straight. I had to re-seat this key about 10 times, change the scissor mechanism twice, and when it finally worked, I still don't know what I did different:


Movin' on up:


FINALLY DONE:


All-in-all the process took about 5 hours over 2 days, but much of that time was spent fiddling with it behind the bar I work at. Once I sat down and had proper lighting and a good workspace, it flew. I could now probably do a whole keyboard in little more than an hour. It's tedious, for sure, but quite possible - and well worth it.

 

This looks absolutely FANTASTIC! Very nice work indeed. Looks like a macbook with those black keys and I'm sure that they keyboard is a joy to use with the backlight. This is a far better solution than trying to replace the whole keyboard; it also visually looks better than the all black/silver in my opinion.

I am going to follow suit at some point, but I would like to know how you actually took off the keys in the first place. Are they clipped on?

 

Dude it looks amazing, could you please create a video actually showing the replacement process?

 

Brilliant! It looks gorgeous! I've been wanting to do the same thing for months, and even though I found sources for the keyboard unit I couldn't find a good guide to replacing the factory one since it is riveted together. I've considered replacing the keycaps, which seems to be the way to go, but I have no idea how they are all clipped together. If you can provide any help on what the actual process to replace the keycaps is that would be outstanding.

 

I read in the other thread that you purchased the black keyboard. Have you started the process? Any word on how the keys are clipped onto the keyboard?

 

They keys are clipped in with two posts on both the near side and far side of each cap. I'll post some pictures eventually - but I don't want to take it apart again unless required, so I don't think I'll post a video - there are a decent amount of good, standard ones all over the place (it seems to be a fairly standard scissor mechanism). If anyone is close to NYC/NJ though and wants to work on one, I'll give you a hand and we can make a video then.

 

No, I could not find a source for the keyboard in the U.S. so it's coming on a slow boat from China. I doubt that I will see it until next week at the soonest.

I did go ahead and try removing one of the key caps from my laptop just to see how it worked. I decided to try with the right-hand CTRL key since I never use that one. After watching a bunch of YouTube videos on replacing keycaps on island-style keyboards, and it seemed to be fairly standard. There are videos that show how to replace the key caps on the newer Apple laptops that use island-style keys, and it was pretty much the same process. Honestly though, I felt like they just snapped off pretty easily and snapped back on equally easy. The key (like with most things on this notebook) is to use steady, consistent force when prying them up.

 

OK, the black keyboard arrived this morning and I immediately dropped everything to work on it. It took me about 75 minutes to swap out the key caps for everything except the arrow keys (we were warned it was tricky), the function keys, and the number pad. Now I'm sick of messing with keycaps and am taking a break.

I find that once you understand how it works it actually goes very quickly. In most cases it only takes 10-15 seconds each to remove each key cap, and then 3-5 seconds to replace it with the new one. The process that works best for me is to remove an entire row from the new keyboard at once, that way I understand how each key is attached as some keys are a little different. Then I go down the same row on the laptop removing key, attaching it to the correct location on the new keyboard, then proceeding to the next. Once I have the entire row removed then I install the new caps on that row. I find that this is a fairly efficient process for me since I'm doing a lot of the same motions in a row instead of switching tasks. As a bonus, since the old keys are being installed on the new keyboard I get a chance to see how to properly fit them (as some are different) and then I am preserving one keyboard that has the key in the proper location at all times to avoid confusion.

The removal process is fairly straightforward. The scissor mechanism attaches to two locations at the top and two at the bottom of each key cap. I pry up the key from one side with a micro-screwdriver (the smallest that I have. Then i get the micro driver between the scissor mechanism and the keycap and using a firm but steady push I unclip the top connectors. Once the two top connectors are unhooked you can lift the top edge of the key and it usually comes right off. Attaching the new key is cake, I just slide it up a bi from the bottom edge while pressing down, then hinge the top edge into place and press down until I hear it all click into place. You can press the key a few times to ensure that it is installed correctly, if it isn't then it will feel wrong.

Now the ones that are different...some of the keys have a tiny metal wire or bar on the underside that is shaped like a U. The ends of this bar/wire slide into tiny metal loops/eye holes on the keyboard, then once they are inserted you can press the keycap down into position. For keys that have a single bar it's fairly easy to install. The ones that are not are the largest keys, SHIFT, SPACE, etc. Those have both an upper and a lower bar that both point towards the middle of the key. These can be a bit tricky to install, because you need to get both bars threaded into the eyelets before clicking the key into place, and you still have to click the key on from the bottom edge and hinge it into position. On top of that, removing the keys with these double bars is trickier because they tend to block your access to the scissor mechanism.

At any rate, if anyone is interested in doing this then I highly recommend it. It provides a massive improvement to legibility and still works with the backlight. It's a relatively simple swap process if you are patient and thorough. Best of all, you can get the replacement keyboard for $18-$19 on ebay with free shipping (to most of the U.S.). If you are worried about breaking something, you are most likely to do so when removing a cap. Just remember to practice on the new keyboard so that you know how it goes together, and if you somehow break a scissor or something you've got a replacement part on hand ready to go.

I'm going to grab a bite and do some yard work and then finish this up after my kids go to bed tonight. Good luck!

EDIT: Done, and I love it. Absolutely the 2nd best upgrade possible on this laptop (the first was adding an SSD). I didn't find the small keys much of an issue at all, I had far more trouble trying to fit the keys with multiple metal wires/bars on the keyboard.

 

Matt, I need to replace whole keyboard. I removed everything and exactly where you were at... I can't seem to get the current keyboard out of the frame.. Did you remove those plastic things? Or you have figured out that there was some missing screw or any other trick to be able to take out the keyboard from the frame.. Dude all the pieces are around now and Im stuck. If you can let me know how did you do it, I would really appreciate that.. Thanks

 

You really can't replace the keyboard alone - you have to buy the entire top assembly. I didn't want to risk taking off those plastic welds, but you can give it a shot if you're feeling frisky. I didn't want to have to buy an entire new top piece (the assembly is the keyboard and plastic bezel, with the metal trim) if I screwed it up, though. I believe John has previously linked the upper assembly part number if you really need to replace the whole thing.

 

What happened that you need to replace the keyboard? Is it not functional or are you looking for black keycaps, a la this guide?

 

Thanks a lot my friend. I do appreciate that you have replied. I just dont understand that there are so many keyboards on sale for this laptop, but people just buy to replace the key caps?
Thanks again. God bless.

 

Man. I still haven't replaced my broken keyboard yet and I'm dreading tearing it down to this level. If it wasn't for the great screen, I would consider just buying a new laptop.

I'm going to buy the whole housing unit top.
is there a step by step guide for this whole replacement?

 

Well good luck with that. First of all, if you really dont trust yourself, I would say DO NOT TRY IT. To be able to reach the housing unit top, you have take EVERYTHING out. And once you figure that out, you will see that it seems impossible to take the keyboard out of the frame. I searched whole day for the replacement housing unit top, and even contacted with Samsung part supplier (got that contact info from live chat agent on samsung's website) and they told me that it is discontinued. I searched everywhere and finally found one on ebay from China. It was about $75 shipping included. I am not 100% sure if that is the correct part number (the one that I had order just says NP880z5E, it doesn't say the exact part number), but from my search I think the part id is BA75-04742B. I found 1 silver and it was the last one and ordered it. If you say you dont care the color, there is also another one which like a navy blue I guess. I am not sure if we can share en ebay link here but, if we can, let me know, I can send you the link. I spent my whole day on it, I dont want anyone else have the same pain in the ***

 

Did you manage to replace it or are you still trying?

(sorry - was quoting your post, but something went wrong.)

 

2 days ago I took the whole housing unit top out (that I was thinking I can clear the keyboard since I spilled coffee on it and some keys were not working), but then I realized that it is impossible to reach keyboard.... If i had the part yesterday, I could replace it since I already took of everything. But that was not the case. I reassembled everything again So then I ordered the unit top housing from ebay it will be here in 2-3 weeks I guess. Maybe I should take the picture or make a video when I replacing the housing unit top.

 

If you could take pictures or a video, that would be truly helpful!

 

Yah I will do that once my part is arrived. Then I can paste the youtube link here.

 

Very appreciated! Once done, I would request that the thread should be sticky

 

It's going to be a very similar project to the full tear-down I posted earlier in this thread. When I was doing my black keycap replacement, I thought I'd do the keyboard as a whole at first, and didn't stop until I had *everything* disassembled. That being said, if a picture is worth 1000 words, a video is worth several million, so go for it!

 

Well - I received a new keyboard housing top unit. I tried very hard to find the UK black version but could only find the silver.
Thinking about it now, I'm tempted to just keep looking for the UK black version and buy a new base too.

As there are 2 samsung's in the house (both are 770z5e with 1 being i7 and the other i5) I will open up both and use one as a guide/map, for when I transfer the bits and pieces into the new base and keyboard. I think that might be the best way.

So I'm going to look for a new base as well.

 

The keyboard on my 770z5e was fully replaced today by a technician where I am currently freelancing. He was rather flumoxed when he realized that everything was screwed into the keyboard. When I asked him how he managed to do it so quickly, he told me he took out the speakers and the battery, then he took out some screws and gently lifted everything out. It was wobbling all over the place as he lifted it but he said it would of been a nightmare trying to remove the heatsink and all the other bits.

I owe this technician big time! He was looking all over the net for solutions, didn't find any and came up with that method
I now have a lovely new working keyboard on my Samsung and can finally put the external keyboard away.

 

I swapped the mainboards between two versions of the NP900X4C a few months ago. Before I started it looked to be complicated but was actually quite simple and similar to what you saw. (I had actually wanted to swap the keyboards over but, with the way these notebooks are built, it was easiest to swap the mainboards).

John

 

That's very interesting to hear. Unfortunately I was upstairs working when he was replacing it.

So from your experience was it also the speakers, battery and then a few screws? Or did you have to take out a little more than that?

 

I didn't have to dismantle everything as I was only swapping the mainboards. To do that it was a matter of removing the battery, removing the fan, unscrewing the WiFi card (but not disconnecting the antennae cables which are fiddly to connect), disconnecting the keyboard and touchpad cable(s) and removing the cable connecting the mainboard to the daughterboard. Having got that far it wouldn't have taken much time to remove everything else but I didn't need to do so.

The key requirements are a set of good screwdrivers and to remember which screws came from where so they get put back in the right place. The other small challenge was figuring out how the ribbon cable connectors work (the cables are usually held in place by a latch which is released by lifting the free edge).

John

 

Would you say the the NP900 has a similar layout to the NP770/880?

 

There are some similarities but also many differences: The X4C has a smaller cooling system - no dGPU and lower rated CPU. Also, only an mSATA SSD.

John

 

Hi all,

I'm using a NP870Z5E-X04. Since the last time I've removed dust from the interior and replaced the thermal paste on the cooling units (the fans were getting awfully loud and I had multiple screen freezes in game), the keyboard has been acting up. While all keys work, some need to be pressed multiple times to register. I've come to the conclusion that I possibly removed the keyboard connector while cleaning and didn't reconnect it properly. Which connector is the responsible for the keyboard?.

Thx for your input,

Felix

 

I think it's the wide ribbon cable next to the battery.

John

 

Thank you for the quick reply, I agree. But there's is another cable connected to the keyboard mat, as seen on this picture.



Is that specifically for the backlight and where does that cable connect to the motherboard?

Felix

 

I think you are correct that the small cable will be for the backlight. It will go into a socket near the end of the heat pipe - see photos at the start of this thread - with the other small ribbon cable socket used for the touchpad.

If you aren't familiar with these ribbon cable sockets, one side is hinged and lifts up to release the cable. You should be able to figure out which part (the white bit?) by close examination and gentle force from fingernail.

John

 

The problem that I have with that cable is the specific alignment of the cable in the socket. It has a bit of room to move (for- and backwards as well as left and right) and I'm pretty sure that some slightly wrong positioning on my part led to the issues I'm having. Is there some m.o. for these cables, or do you just align them with the socket as best as you know and close the latch?

 

In my experience it's been a matter of pushing the ribbon into the socket and closing the latch. Things should line up OK so it's worthwhile investigating the cause for any misalignment.

John

 

So, did you ever replace the keyboard? I have spilled a glass of water on mine and am now in the same boat.