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How to disassemble HP Pavilion dv7 series notebook

In this guide I explain how to disassemble an HP Pavilion dv7 notebook.

To be precise, I’m taking apart an HP Pavilion dv7t-1000 notebook but you should be able to use these instructions for allmodels in the Pavilion dv7 line.

The guide will show how to access both memory modules and hard drives if you are upgrading the notebook, remove mostinternal components, access and clean the cooling fan.

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Before you start, turn off the notebook and remove the battery.

If you need spare part for your HP Pavilion dv7 notebook, you can search here.

STEP 1.

Remove (loosen) four screws securing the hard drive and memory cover. Remove the cover.

STEP 2.

Remove four screws securing hard drives (two screws per hard drive).

Slide the hard drive 1 to the left until it’s disconnected from the motherboard. Remove the hard drive 1.

Slide the hard drive 2 to the right until it’s disconnected from the motherboard. Remove the hard drive 2.

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STEP 3.

Remove both memory (RAM) modules.

Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card. These laptop has three antenna cables but only two are used.

One of the antenna cables connected to the main contact on the wireless card and the second one is connected to the auxiliarycontact. All three antenna cables are labeled.

Remove two screws securing the wireless card. Remove the card.

STEP 4.

Remove one screw securing the CD/DVD drive.

Slide the CD/DVD drive to the left to disconnect it from the motherboard.

Remove the CD/DVD drive.

STEP 5.

Remove all marked screws from the bottom of the notebook.

The green circled screw secures the keyboard.

Don’t forget to remove two screws hidden in the CD/DVD drive bay.

STEP 6.

Start separating the speaker cover from the notebook base.

You can use a guitar pick as a case cracker. Insert the guitar pick between the speaker cover and case and slowly move alongthe side.

STEP 7.

Lift up the speaker cover. Be careful, it’s still connected to the motherboard.

In order to remove the cable, you’ll have to unlock the connector first.

Move the brown clip about 2 millimeters in the direction shown by two arrows. The clip must stay attached to the connectorbase.

On the picture below the connector is shown in the unlocked position.

STEP 8.

Now you can remove the speaker cover.

STEP 9.

Remove four screw securing the keyboard.

STEP 10.

Lift up the keyboard from the base and access the cable connector underneath.

STEP 11.

Carefully unlock the keyboard cable connector.

Move the brown clip about 2 millimeters in the direction shown by two arrows. The brown clip must stay attached to theconnector base.

If you damage the connector, the keyboard will not work when you assemble the notebook back together.

Well… I broke the connector. I removed thousands of laptop keyboards before but I broke this connector!

As you see, the left pin on the brown clip is missing.

No panic! I still can use this clip to lock the connector.

You’ll find more info here: Fixing damaged keyboard connector on a laptop motherboard.

STEP 12.

Pull Wi-Fi antenna cables though the opening in the cover.

Remove three screws securing the speaker assembly.

Disconnect the speaker cable (green arrow) from the motherboard.

STEP 13.

Remove the speaker assembly.

STEP 14.

Disconnect the video cable from the connector on the motherboard.

Remove six screws securing display hinges (three screws per hinge).

STEP 15.

Separate the display assembly from the notebook base.

In the next post I will explain how to take apart the display panel assembly and remove the LCD screen with inverter board.

By the way, it’s not necessary to separate the display panel assemble from the base in order to take it apart.

STEP 16.

Disconnect and remove the CMOS battery.

Remove all marked screws from the bottom. The green circled screw is hidden in the CD/DVD drive bay.

STEP 17.

Remove all screws securing the top cover assembly.

Disconnect the touch pad cable from the motherboard.

STEP 18.

Start separating the top cover assemble from the notebook base.

You can use same trick with the guitar pick shown in the step 6.

STEP 19.

Remove the top cover assembly.

Here’s the back side of the top cover assembly.

STEP 20.

Disconnect the USB and audio board cables from the motherboard (green arrows).

Disconnect the cooling fan cable from the motherboard (yellow arrow).

Remove four screws securing the motherboard.

STEP 21.

Lift up the right side of the motherboard as it shown on the picture below and disconnect the DC-IN jack cable.

STEP 22.

Remove the motherboard from the notebook base.

On the opposite side of the motherboard you can access the processor (CPU) when the heat sink is removed.

The motherboard is dead? Check out these motherboard repair offers.

By the way, the best way to find a replacement motherboard is searching by the HP part number. The part number should belocated on a sticker in the memory compartment. The HP part number looks like XXXXXX-001.

Here’s the notebook base without motherboard.

The USB board, audio board, cooling fan and DC-IN jack are mounted on the base.

The DC jack attached to a harness. New jack harness for dv7 notebooks available here.

In order to remove the cooling fan, simply remove two screws securing the fan.

As you see, the cooling fan is dusty and has to be cleaned.

UPDATE:

There are only two fans listed in the service manual for HP Pavilion dv7 series notebook. They are listed on the page 27.

488885-001 for laptops equipped with AMD processor.

480481-001 for laptops equipped with Intel processors.

One of the DIY-ers had trouble searching for a new replacement fan for her AMD notebook. After the notebook wasdisassembled, she found that it had an Intel fan installed.

Here’s her comment:

Forget the question I just asked…We opened up our laptop and found the fan for the Intel processor installedinstead of the fan for the AMD…apparently these ARE interchangeable…FYI

Check out comments 29 and 30. Thanks to Liz for this information.

Did I help you $ave some money? Please consider making a donation. Thank you!

203 Responses to “How to disassemble HP Pavilion dv7 series notebook”

Pages: [21] 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 … 1 » Show All

203Stephen Says:May 5th, 2011 at 10:44 am

Thank you soo much, i have had such a hard time finding a dv7 dissasembly explination, just wondering, is it necessaryto take off the monitor and such just to access the fan and the heat sink? Having a serious overheating problem, reaches110 degrees in little or no time. i’m thinking i need to clean the fan, and maybe reapply the thermal paste to the heatsink?

202yabbi Says:April 24th, 2011 at 2:06 pm

Thanks very much for this info. I took it apart, then put it back together, now the keyboard doesn’t work. There are 2micro ribbon cables that need to go back, but I don’t know which way is ‘up’ with them, because I took it apart onThursday, and put it back together on Sunday. Any hint on that would be helpful, as I start to unscrew the wholedamn thing again. Thanks.

201

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Radek Says:April 23rd, 2011 at 1:41 am

I got as far as trying to remove the speaker cover but I couldn’t manage it. I cracked out both sides with a pick like yousaid but the middle section seemed really strongly attached to the motherboard and it felt like it would break if I hadused more force. Is it possible I have a different dv7 model to yours?

200Jeremy Says:April 22nd, 2011 at 12:48 am

Thank you very much for this guide. Was able to disassemble my laptop and finally clean out my fan as this has beencausing my computer to overheat a ton. I’m embarrassed by how much dust was actually taken out, lol. But it’s allclean now and I was able to put everything back together and she runs great now.

Thanks again!

199Tim Says:April 21st, 2011 at 9:56 am

My DC in had a pin that broke and because of this page, you saved me well over $160!!! Thank you so much fortaking the time to put this information out there for us. Very helpful and very much appreciated!!! I hope Karma willfind its way to you!!!

198Pete Says:April 20th, 2011 at 8:07 am

Oh God, it takes 22 steps to get to my fan? My laptop is working okay, it just been heating up a bit quickly lately, andI’d like to properly clean the fan, but while your guide is perfectly clear I’m just terrified that I’ll be unable to put itback together again properly.

Did no one at HP seriously consider that making the fan accessible would be a bright thing?

197ARTY Says:April 15th, 2011 at 12:49 am

think!!!!thinks lot my trouble is solve!!!!!grassiass!!!!!!

196Laptop Tech Says:April 13th, 2011 at 8:54 pm

John,

I have replaced the motherboard with a new one, and get the exact same situation. Yes, this is the samesituation that the John on the dv5 board seems to have.

It’s really hard to give a good advice without testing the laptop.When I have to troubleshoot a laptop with a weird problem, I take it apart down to the barebone system: motherboard,CPU and memory and test with an external monitor.It’s possible that in your case this is CPU related failure but again, this is just a guess.

I really need to get to the data from this computer, so I have a cable to connect the HDD, whcih I haveremoved, to my other computer. However, I’m finding that it is not plug & play as advertised. I can seethe HDD and it gets assigned a letter, but I can’t access anything. All I see is a folder called HP Recovery,which I can’t access.

You are looking at the wrong partition. Usually HP laptops have two partitions: main partition and recover partition.Take a look at the hard drive in the Disk Management utility. Can you see main partition in there?

Since I’ve replace the MoBo, and I get the same problem, what else could it be? The only things that don’tget replaced when you replace the MoBo are the HDD and processor (and the wireless card).

Remove the wireless card. Disconnect laptop display cable from the motherboard. Leave only motherboard, CPU andmemory. Test it with an external monitor. If the problem still there, I guess this could be CPU failure.

Any chance you could ask the other John if he fixed his issue and if so, how?

Not really. You can leave your question in the comment area. Maybe he will get back and answer it.

195John Says:April 13th, 2011 at 10:31 am

Tech,

I appreciate the feedback. However, I have replaced the motherboard with a new one, and get the exact same situation.Yes, this is the same situation that the John on the dv5 board seems to have. I really need to get to the data from thiscomputer, so I have a cable to connect the HDD, whcih I have removed, to my other computer. However, I’m findingthat it is not plug & play as advertised. I can see the HDD and it gets assigned a letter, but I can’t access anything. All Isee is a folder called HP Recovery, which I can’t access. I need to try to take ownership of it.

Beyond that, I’d like to not throw away a $700 2.5 year old computer. Since I’ve replace the MoBo, and I get the sameproblem, what else could it be? The only things that don’t get replaced when you replace the MoBo are the HDD andprocessor (and the wireless card).

I had even tried to boot from a WinVista OS disk (original MS disk) and it didn’t work. I may take the HDD toBestBuy or somewhere and have them pull the files off it if they can.

Any chance you could ask the other John if he fixed his issue and if so, how?

194Laptop Tech Says:April 10th, 2011 at 12:38 pm

John,

I’m wondering if it might be that the processor is dead.

Your description sounds like a problem with the motherboard, not the processor.By the way, take a look at the comment 78 in this post (his name is also John).http://www.insidemylaptop.com/take-apart-hp-pavilion-dv5-laptop/Hi had a very similar failure with hi HP Pavilion dv5 laptop and he tried replacing the processor. It didn’t help.

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