How To:Disassemble Your Samsung Netbook
-W - A - R - N - I - N - G -
Please note: If you're just about to upgrade your RAM to 2GB you don't need any of this - see Upgrade the RAM on an NC10 instead.
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Taking Your Samsung Netbook Apart
Preparation
The following items are either necessary or at least handy to have around when opening your Sammy:
- Some kind of cloth to place the netbook upon. Good to avoid scratches on the cover when your Sammy is on its back. Quite useful for this purpose is the bag samsung ships with the netbook, since its just the right size; This has the added benefit that you can easily move the netbook around if you need to.
- Some kind of small bowl or box to put the screws and small parts you remove. It's incredibly easy to lose them, especially on a crowded workshop desk...
- A screwdriver. Since nearly all of the screws are the same size the main one you'll need is a small cross slot one. There's been some discussion on the forum about whether to use a Philips type or a Pozidrive, some people prefer one, some the other. There might even be different types of screws in use in different lots so you'll just have to try whichever works best.
- Some thin sturdy lever (preferrably plastic) to pry apart the two halves of the casing. A credit card has been suggested, also a guitar pick seems to work well. Do not use a screwdriver for this as you're almost certain to end up with ugly notches in the places where you pry with it!
That's about it, other things you'll need then depend on what you want to do to your Sammy...
Screws
Be very careful when removing the screws, several people have managed to completely strip them beyond use. Get the right screwdriver for your netbook, see above. You have to remove all 15 screws (some have only 14) in order to open it up (unlike other Samsung notebooks on which you wouldn't need to remove the screws for keyboard or hinges).
Opening it up
Disassembly is fairly straight forward for the experienced, just remove the screws then pry the bottom case off. Start at the left side USB ports and snap off the front (don't forget to remove the SD card placeholder) then the sides and finally the back behind the battery. That back part might be a bit tricky, especially the snaps on the insides of the hinges. Be patient here, they'll eventually come apart.
The LCD isn't hard - remove the rubber plugs from the four corners (make sure that you don't lose the adhesive). After removing the 4 screws behind the plugs you can pry the bezel off with your prying tool, start at the top, then sides, then finally the bottom which is the most difficult, but still relatively easy. The two sides of the camera make good places for antenna installs.
Removing the keyboard
On the top side of the keyboard you'll find three little snaps - right above F2, between F7 and F8 and above Print. Unsnap these with a small screwdriver or a knife and you can lift it up. Be careful, though, you still need to unplug the foil cable below: With a fingernail snap open the thin plastic bar right were the cable sits in the socket. The cable comes off easily then.
Getting under the mainboard
In order to access the space under the mainboard you don't really need to remove it completely. Just remove the plugs for speakers, microphone, scrollpad and Bluetooth (if installed) and the three screws that are marked with arrows on the board. Remove the harddrive if you want to, but you can as well just leave it where it is. Make sure you have removed the keyboard. After that you can very conveniently turn the board over to the back.
Putting it Back Together
When reassembling first put the back on on the left side, since the audio sockets need to slip into the holes in the casing. Be sure that Everything is snapped back into place, sometimes I miss a spot or two, but it doesn't really seem to hinder the process. A problem might arise with the keyboard - It happende to me several times that I found a number of keys not working after putting everything back together. No big deal, however - just remove the keyboard screws again, snap the keyboard out, remove the foil cable, wipe it clean, also clean the socket (just blow in) and reassemble everything again, up to now this did the trick for me.
Further Discussion
Further tips on taking apart you Netbook can be found here
Netbook Modifications
Here are some of the modifications that people have carried out:
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