How to disassemble HP Pavilion tx2000 Tablet PC

 

In this guide I explain how to disassemble a HP Pavilion tx2000 Tablet PC and remove the motherboard. I’m removing the motherboard in order to repair failed NVIDIA chip.
Before you start, make sure the laptop is turned off and battery removed.
STEP 1.
Loosen five screws securing hard drive, memory and wireless card covers.
Remove all three covers.

STEP 2.
Lift up one side of the hard drive by the black tab to disconnect it from the motherboard.

STEP 3.
Remove the hard drive assembly.
By the way, it’s a regular 2.5″ notebook SATA hard drive. There is an adapter connected to the hard drive. That’s why the hard drive connector doesn’t look like a regular SATA connector.

STEP 4.
Both memory modules can be accessed though a door on the bottom of the laptop.
Remove both memory modules.

STEP 5.
Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card.
Remove two screws securing the wireless card.

STEP 6.
Pull the wireless card from the slot.

STEP 7.
Unlock the DVD drive and remove it from the laptop.

STEP 8.
Remove four screws securing laptop keyboard on the bottom.

STEP 9.
Carefully lift up the keyboard from the laptop case.

STEP 10.
Now you can access the keyboard cable connector which is located underneath the keyboard.

STEP 11.
Before you can remove the keyboard cable, you’ll have to unlock the connector.
On the following picture the connector shown in the locked position.
In order to unlock the connector, lift up the right side of the brown clip at a 90 degree angle.

STEP 12.
On the following picture the connector is shown in the unlocked position.
Now you can pull the keyboard cable from the connector.

STEP 13.
Remove the keyboard.
New replacement keyboard for HP Pavilion tx2000 laptops available here.

STEP 14.
Remove four (red) screws securing the hinge cover.
Remove three (yellow) screws securing the display hinge and cable cover.

STEP 15.
Under the cover you’ll find two display cables.
Disconnect both cables from the motherboard.

STEP 16.
Turn the laptop display and start removing the hinge cover.

STEP 17.
The hinge cover removed.

STEP 18.
Disconnect LCD cable from the motherboard.

STEP 19.
Remove two screws securing the display hinge.

STEP 20.
Lift up and remove the display assembly.

STEP 22.
Remove screws from the bottom of the laptop.

STEP 23.
Remove two screws securing the top cover.
Disconnect two cables from the motherboard.

STEP 24.
Remove the top cover assembly.

STEP 25.
Disconnect two cables from the motherboard.

STEP 26.
Make sure the Express Card slot cover removed.

STEP 27.
Carefully lift up the left side of the motherboard.

STEP 28.
Remove motherboard from the laptop base.

STEP 29.
The motherboard has been removed.
On this side of the motherboard you can access the CMOS battery.

STEP 30.
On the other side of the motherboard you can access and remove the cooling module (heatsink with fan).

STEP 31.
Remove four screws securing the heatsink assembly.
Disconnect fan cable from the motherboard.

STEP 32.
Carefully lift up and remove the cooling module.
New fans for HP Pavilion tx2000 laptops available here.

If the heatsink is clogged with dust, you can blow it off using compressed air.

STEP 33.
After the cooling module is removed, you can access and remove the CPU (processor).


                                                                                     by insidemylaptop

How to fix laptop motherboard with failed NVIDIA graphics chip

 

In this post I explain how you can fix a laptop motherboard with failed NVIDIA graphics chip. This repair might apply to some HP/Compaq laptops and probably some other laptop brands. If this repair works for your laptop, please mention the brand and model number in comments after the post. This will help other readers with similar laptops.
By the way, I just fixed my son’s Xbox 360 with red ring of death (error 74) using exactly same technique.

MOST COMMON PROBLEM SYMPTOMS

1. Laptop turns on with garbled video on the internal laptop screen and external monitor.
2. Laptop turns on as normal but there is no video on the internal laptop screen or external monitor.

MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM

The NVIDIA graphics chip soldered to the motherboard. When the laptop gets very hot, the NVIDIA chip separates from the motherboard and laptop video fails.

HOW TO FIX FAILED NVIDIA CHIP

I have previous posts explaining how I fixed same problem by baking the motherboard in an oven or bubble-wrapping the laptop. But today I’m going to fix the motherboard using a heat gun. Basically, I’m going to heat up the NVIDIA chip with a heat gun to solder it back to the motherboard (reflow). I think this method is more reliable and the repair should last for a while.

WARNING!

There is no guaranty this method works all the time. While doing this repair you may damage the motherboard and make it unrepairable. Also, you may damage the laptop while taking it apart.
Proceed at your own risk and don’t blame me if you turned your laptop into a very expensive door stop.
If you don’t feel comfortable doing this repair, take your laptop to the repair shop.

HOW I FIXED THE MOTHERBOARD

First of all, you’ll have to disassemble the laptop and remove the motherboard. You can find laptop disassembly procedure in the service manual. If you having trouble finding the manual, leave a comment and maybe I can point you to the right direction.
In my example I’m using a motherboard removed from HP Pavilion tx2000 laptop.
In most laptops the graphics chip located under the CPU heatsink (and it has NVIDIA logo on it), so there shouldn’t be a problem locating the chip. The chip has a glossy top surface.

For this repair I’m going to use an Ecoheat heat gun EC-100.

In order to figure out how to position the heat gun and for how long, I tested it on a penny with a small piece of solder on the top.
The Ecoheat heat gun has a switch on the handle. There are two positions for the switch. Position 1 – slow. Position 2 – fast.
I used position 1 – slow.
I positioned the heat gun about 1 inch away from the penny and turned it on.

After about 40-45 second the solder started melting. After 50 seconds the solder melted completely.

To protect the motherboard from the heat I used a regular cooking aluminum foil. I cut off a piece of aluminum foil and folded it a few times to make my protection shield thicker. After that I cut off a square opening right in the middle, same size as the NVIDIA chip.
After I removed the heat sink, I had some old thermal grease stuck on the NVIDIA graphics chip. You can remove old thermal grease using alcohol swabs. It’s not necessary to make it perfectly clean. Just make sure there are no large chunks of thermal grease on the chip.

UPDATE: Some people mentioned that I should have applied some liquid flux underneath the NVIDIA chip for better results. I didn’t do it this time. I’ll definitely do it next time if the motherboard fails again. I found this video explaining how to apply liquid flux under the GPU chip. This video was made for Xbox 360 motherboard but should apply to any laptop motherboard too.
Liquid flux for GPU reflow available on eBay.
Finally, I positioned the heat gun above the NVIDIA chip about 1 inch away and turned the heat gun into the position 1.

After 50 seconds I turned it off and let the motherboard cool down for about 20 minutes.
Don’t forget to apply new thermal grease on the NVIDIA chip when you install the heat sink.
Some laptops use thermal pads instead of grease. If that’s the case with your laptop, make sure the thermal pad positioned correctly.
After I assembled the laptop back together, the video started properly!
The NVIDIA graphics chip problem fixed!
Will it last for a long time? I don’t know. Still testing.

READ THIS BEFORE REPAIR

Make sure to visit The NVIDIA GPU Litigation site.
It’s possible that your HP/Compaq laptop qualifies for a free replacement. Here’s a quoted from the site:

If you have an HP or Compaq notebook computer, you may be eligible to receive a replacement computer. A repair remedy is not available for HP/Compaq computers because replacement parts are not available. Replacement computers will be shipped 6 to 8 weeks after a claim is approved.

                                                                         by laptoprepair101