Cannibalizing a laptop for parts

15 years ago

I have a couple of older Dell laptops (Inspiron 1000) that are ok for light use (like web browsing or editing a single doc at a time), but not much more. I use one and my wife uses one. The screen on mine started going blank recently. I know it works other than the screen because I can connect a monitor to it or connect via VNC and everything is working. My wife recently spilled a soda on part of her keyboard. Everything still works, but a couple of keys are sticky.

I bought a laptop on ebay that has a bad motherboard, so I'm thinking I can take the motherboard from mine and put in the ebay laptop and take my keyboard and put in my wife's PC.

I've replaced laptop RAM, hard drives and CD/DVD drives before and have replaced pretty much everything on desktops, but haven't swapped things like motherboards or keyboards.

Has anybody done this type of surgery? I haven't taken a laptop completely apart, so I don't know if much is involved in it or not.

Of course, about an hour ago, I logged in via VNC, applied the updates and rebooted and the laptop screen has been fine since, so maybe all I'll need to replace is my wife's keyboard, but I'll still be happy because I'll have a spare battery and power supply for less than either would normally cost.

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Comments (6)

Pooh Bear
15 years ago
Is the laptop you got from Ebay the same as the laptops you have now?

I have completely disassembled a Dell laptop. Not fun.
Most of it is very straight forward.
Take out the screws and remove the components.
The flat ribbon cable that connects the keyboard to the
motherboard is VERY flimsy and easy to damage. If you pull
on this cable you risk pulling the leads out of the connector.
Be carefull with other cable connections as well.
A pair of forceps can be very helpful for this.

Nobody around here will touch a laptop repair job.
The one laptop I repaired was to replace a cooling fan and
a keyboard. I had to completely dis-assemble the laptop.
I also had to dis-assemble the donor laptop. And re-assemble both.
Found out quick why no one around here will touch a laptop job.
It is tedious, time consuming work. And if you need to buy
parts good luck. What you do find will be way over priced.
Yep, nobody around here will touch a laptop repair job.

Pooh Bear
bpgreen
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the reply.

"Is the laptop you got from Ebay the same as the laptops you have now? "

Yep. Three Inspiron 1000s. One for parts from ebay has parts two are needing.

From your description, it sounds relatively easy (as long as I am VERY CAREFUL) and about what I thought it would be.
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Pooh Bear
15 years ago
It's not overly complicated. Just pay attention.
Don't pull on cables. Don't pry on anything.
If it doesn't come apart easy find out why. Don't force anything.
As components got smaller they got more break-able.
It's definitely a tedious job. Be patient and work methodically.

Pooh Bear
genes
15 years ago
Make sure you identify the location of screws and mark them as you take them out. Taking pictures along the way doesnt hurt either for the first time
bpgreen
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the advice, everybody.
bpgreen
Original Author
15 years ago
I thought I'd let everybody know that the laptop finally arrived and I was able to swap the parts I wanted to swap and repair both laptops with parts from the one I got from ebay.

The only part that was a little tricky is that I found that I had to lay the display down flat and pry a strip of plastic between the display and keyboard to get at the parts. Once I did that, I just needed to remove the keyboard and display and swap them into the other laptops.

Thanks to all who helped out.

Cannibalizing a laptop for parts

Comments (6)

Pooh Bear

bpgreen
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Cannibalizing a laptop for parts

Comments (6)

Pooh Bear

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