I knew I was getting dust issues inside the laptop a few months ago when the fan started running full boar while browsing the web. Yesterday I noticed something disturbing: My machine powered off suddenly. Dang! I thought to myself, but I wasn’t too worried as I knew the likely cause.
My glass desk was exceedingly warm, certainly warmer than when we set the laptop up for “permanent” use here (I no longer use a desktop at home, as I’ve delegated it to being the HTPC). Today it happened twice, and I decided to put aside my hatred for those small little screws and get to work.
My Dell Vostro 1000 was pretty easy to crack open, and things flew along, right until it came time to pop off the main casing. I thought I had gotten all the screws. I had, save one. Ah, no problem…I’ll just…get…it…ugh. The dang thing is out of reach of my screwdriver bit. No worries, I’ll use a longer one. I’ll just…get…it…ugh! The longer bit won’t fit in the hole! What kind of crud is that?! No worries, I’ll go grab a screw driver that is more slim and will fit no problem. What?! The phillips head is too large for the screw?! This is rediculous.
So after about 20 minutes of trying to get that single screw, I finally went looking for my repair kit for my glasses. I spent another 20 minutes looking for it, finally finding it tucked away in a linen closet (great place for it, I must say). I pop out the screwdriver and pray that this screwdriver is not too small. Hark! It is not and the screw comes out. I proceed to take the case off and access the inner sanctum of the laptop where hte problem is clear as day. About 1/8th of an inch matte of dust between the fan and the heatsink that blows air out of the laptop. Pop the sucker off, clean it out with a few blasts of air, replace and we’re in business.
I get the whole laptop back together and get ready to put the keyboard in when I look down and see 4 screws instead of my expected 2. Arg! No worries, I’ll back track…backtracking…all the way down to the heatsink and fan. It is a good thing I did, because the fan wasn’t screwed in. I closed it up again and was glad after 2.5 hours I was finished with a task that shouldn’t have taken more than 40 minutes.
I hate working on laptop hardware.