Editor's note: Disassembling any electronic product is risky and requires extra caution. In addition, disassembling the electronic product may also lead to the loss of the warranty of the electronic product, so you need to consult the official after-sales service before trying to maintain the operation yourself.
As we all know, it is not only the use time that makes technology produce temperature, but also summer.
Limited by size and weight, laptop heatsinks often need to make some compromises on fan size, number of fins, and air duct paths for other functional components. Coupled with the portable nature of laptops, the chance of exposure to all kinds of dust is much higher than that of desktops, and these accumulated dust will significantly affect the heat dissipation efficiency of notebooks and make the already not rich heat volume worse. Allowing the computer to run in a poor heat dissipation environment for a long time greatly increases the chance of battery bulging, which in turn leads to a series of potential problems with trackpads, keyboards and even screen damage.
A Dell XPS 15 with a battery bulge causing the trackpad to |
Therefore, for those notebooks with high frequency of use, high intensity, or relatively long use time and poor working conditions, cleaning every once in a while is a very reasonable maintenance behavior, not only to maintain a relatively normal working condition, but also to reduce the probability of serious chain reactions caused by heat accumulation in the notebook in the long run, resulting in other uncontrollable failures.
Cleaning and warranty
Depending on your usage environment and usage habits, even a new laptop that has just started should actually carry out some simple internal cleaning after half a year or a year of use. However, this time is still under the warranty period of most laptops, and disassembling the computer yourself - depending on the brand and type of laptop you buy - is likely to be classified as a warranty violation:
China's official warranty policy|Apple
At the same time, as a very common and basic maintenance method, ash cleaning will also be launched by some brands as a special service, and will not affect the warranty status of the product under the premise of service through official channels:
ROG's "deep cleaning and maintenance service" includes the ash cleaning part|ASUS official website
Therefore, if your computer is still under warranty, (as with the previous disassembly and repair of the phone) asking the brand official whether it can provide ash cleaning service is often the safest choice. This can not only minimize the problems caused by human factors, but more importantly, it will not invalidate the warranty, so as to avoid the worst situation of self-maintenance: disassembling the machine for cleaning, hardware failure caused by operation errors, and being denied insurance because of self-dismantling when sent for repair.
tool
Different from the previous mobile phone repair, the cleaning tools include screwdrivers, suction cups, pry tabs and other disassembly tools required to disassemble the notebook case, as well as cleaning tools such as alcohol cotton pads, cotton swabs, and air blowers.
Disassembly
For teardown tools, unless your computer is as keen to use special screws as the MacBook, a Phillips screwdriver plus a plastic pry bar, along with several plastic skid tabs, is enough to open the back cover (or D-side) of most laptops.
《 New Bag 》
If it's just to clean up floating dust from the inside of your notebook, or to clean something like speaker mesh, then just removing the back cover is enough. But to clean the dust more thoroughly, we still need to remove the heat dissipation module of the notebook. On most laptops, the heat dissipation module will integrate chip fasteners, vapor chambers, thermal conductive copper tubes, fans and heat dissipation fins, etc., and the screws that fix it are generally conventional Phillips screws, but sometimes they may also be special screws such as TORX, so in addition to the above basic tools, you also need to determine the screwdriver and other tools you need according to the online disassembly guide or the official repair manual.
Integrated heat dissipation module of Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro with integrated fan, heat pipe, fins and vapor chamber |
clean
The most likely to appear and accumulate inside the notebook is often floating ash and various fluff hairs, and due to environmental factors such as water vapor and electrostatic adsorption, these dust are often not loosely adhered to, but will adhere to the surface of the part. Contrary to conventional belief, the best tool for dealing with this dust is not a "vacuum cleaner", but a canister of compressed air.
A canned compressed air for cleaning cameras |
The reason is also very simple, the power of household vacuum cleaners is often set to clean the ground and large particles of dust, it may be feasible to clean the laptop keyboard and screen, but if it is directly used to clean the dust on the motherboard, it is likely to tear small components such as inductors or even suck off because of excessive suction; At the same time, the continuous airflow during vacuum cleaner operation will cause static electricity to accumulate, and there is a chance that electrostatic breakdown elements may occur even after the notebook is powered off. Therefore, vacuum cleaners are not the best choice for cleaning notebooks - at least not motherboards.
In contrast, canned compressed air or manual air blowing is more suitable for cleaning the motherboard, especially the notebook heat dissipation module, not only the air flow and force are more controllable, the slimmer nozzle is also more efficient to handle the fan blades and heat dissipation fins covered by the shell than the vacuum cleaner. The most effective way is, of course, to remove the fan shell, but more and more manufacturers begin to use injection molded fixed fan shells, and can only be treated with compressed air as much as possible.
图｜Gilmore Tee
But in addition, compressed air is not a panacea, especially for wet and sticky dust, it is still a mechanical erasure method is more effective. Therefore, in addition to canned air and air blowing, a few small brushes, cotton swabs, microfiber cloths and scrubbing agents such as alcohol and isopropyl alcohol are also necessary cleaning tools.
Silicone paste:
For machines that have been used for more than two or three years, or if you plan to remove the heat sink from the notebook to clean it, you also need to prepare a new silicone grease - silicone grease is a non-reusable consumable, which in theory must be replaced once the vapor chamber is separated from the processor chip. And the silicone grease will gradually dry up with use, and the dried silicone grease cannot effectively bridge the gap between the wafer and the copper plate, resulting in the loss of the original thermal conductivity. At the same time, notebooks are limited by cost and so on, and the performance of silicone grease shipped from the factory may be slightly worse than some professional brands of enthusiast-grade products on the market, and users who want to further explore the performance limits of notebooks usually choose to replace the silicone grease by themselves.
Removing old silicone grease is usually done with a paper towel and a cotton swab dipped in alcohol|Tek Deeps
There are many choices of high-quality silicone grease, such as the Kryonaut series of the international manufacturer Thermal Grizzly, the 7921 of Shin'etsu of Japan and the MX-4 of Arctic, etc., and even the NT-H2 silicone grease of the heat dissipation giant Owl (Noctua) - 10 grams only costs 167 yuan. If it is still difficult to determine how to buy silicone grease, you can directly refer to the many installation tutorials and silicone paste recommendations on the Internet to choose within your favorite price segment.
I don't know this matter has to be done
Resources
As with mobile phone repair, notebook disassembly also has a large number of ready-made materials available online, whether it is iFixit or Pen Bar Review Room, YouTube or Bilibili, it is not harmful to prepare a specific disassembly/cleaning tutorial on hand while doing it yourself.
Take the maintenance tutorials of Lenovo Xiaoxin Pro 14 and 10th generation X1 Carbon as examples
If your machine is old enough or unpopular to find no videos and tutorials available, you can also try searching for the official service/maintenance manuals provided by the manufacturer by using "service manual" or "maintenance manual" as the keywords:
You can even find the service manual of the Cammoda C64 scanned and uploaded by enthusiasts
Compared with the video tutorials submitted by the public, the service manuals provided by manufacturers are often more complex, but also more detailed and rigorous, and some will even list all the screws in the notebook and even the specifications of the BIOS battery in the service manual, which is convenient for users to purchase spare parts or replacements. If the laptop in your hand is a model sold worldwide, then you are likely to find these very detailed official service manuals; And if your machine is mainly sold in China, the possibility of finding the service manual will be slightly reduced, but don't worry, the video tutorial resources of these models are often very rich - in short, no matter what way you take, doing some lesson preparation between the actual hands-on cleaning is always the greatest guarantee of not going wrong.
"Motherboard Flip"
As a special product form of notebook computers, some models may encounter an internal structure called "motherboard flip" during the cleaning process. On most laptops, the cooling module is located between the motherboard and the D side, and these parts can be directly seen and accessed by removing the bottom cover; However, on the model of the motherboard inverted, there is no way to directly see the heat dissipation structure after disassembling the back cover, and the motherboard must be removed to see specific parts such as vapor chambers, fasteners, copper tubes and fins:
A certain motherboard flip-mounted MSI notebook, copper tube and vapor chamber are pressed under the motherboard|Pen Bar Evaluation Room
Such an internal structure can increase the distance between the hot CPU and the GPU to the palm rest and keyboard, and improve the temperature accumulation of the C surface (keyboard surface) to a certain extent, but at the same time, it greatly increases the difficulty of ash cleaning and maintenance. For these models with motherboard flip structure, the process of cleaning must remove the motherboard and reapply the grease, so it is recommended to find a video tutorial that matches the notebook model in your hand as a reference and practice.
Notes
Although the integration of notebook computers is not as high as that of mobile phones, as a precision electronic product, it still needs to pay attention to the following matters during the process of disassembly and maintenance:
- Notebook belongs to a more complex product with power supply, and some static removal measures should be consciously taken before disassembling the machine (the simplest is to wash your hands, if you are willing to be professional, you can also spend two or three dollars to buy an anti-static bracelet); And during the disassembly, try not to use metal tools on the motherboard to avoid encountering capacitors that are not fully discharged.
- Organize the screws and move gently to avoid breaking the plastic buckle.
- The first step after removing the back cover must be to disconnect the battery and refuse to work with electricity.
- Eight should one oppose: the power off of the power off, the pull of the wire, the fixation of the fixation, the washing of the wash, the erasure of the erase, the swipe of the swipe, the replacement of the replacement, the reset of the reset; Against blind and reckless action.
- The gas in the canned compressed air is sometimes not only air, but also antifreeze or other types of gas, before purchasing, you need to confirm whether the ingredients inside can be used for electronic component cleaning, or buy a special electronic product cleaning gas tank. At the same time, some condensation may be generated during the use of the compressed gas tank, and a period of time should be allowed for drying after cleaning.
- Organic solvents such as alcohol or isopropyl alcohol may damage the motherboard printing or other parts, try not to spray with a spray bottle, and apply it with a cotton swab to be safer.
"Every Year"
The point of "cleaning" the notebook is that it is a periodic maintenance work, and it has obvious positive effects on improving the running state of the computer and extending the battery life, so for notebooks whose use cycle can usually reach three or five years, cleaning the interior every six months or a year is actually a very necessary habit.
At the same time, for those machines that have been used for a year or two but still have room for upgrades, cleaning is also a good opportunity to check whether hardware upgrades are needed, such as replacing a pair of memory sticks or using the free 2.5-inch hard disk compartment to add a piece of machinery. For those older but still in use machines, cleaning once every six months is also the time for visual inspection of the battery, good heat dissipation effect plus regular inspection, can strangle most of the battery bulge in the cradle.
"Spicy Pillow" on roommate's computer
And in addition to the internal cleaning of the notebook, the cleanliness of external parts such as keyboards, palm rests and trackpads also needs to be paid attention to from time to time, not only because these parts are the places where daily fingers contact and friction are the most likely to accumulate bacteria, regular daily cleaning can reduce the phenomenon of sticky hands and sticky hands caused by rubber reversion - for some old Thinkpads that use a lot of skin-like material bodies The model is very useful.
Nail polish polish remover can remove sticky parts of the hand more effectively, but it may also cause some irreversible damage to the plastic (such as color loss)
Notebooks are tools, but tools need maintenance, and the increasing "durability" of computers designed does not mean that we can only "build" without maintenance. The maintenance of these electronic devices is like doing an annual inspection of the car, which is essentially not to solve the problem, but to reduce the probability of problems - the fact that a tool can be used continuously without damage is meaningful in itself.