Opening an Optimus IV

[eoinzy]

Hi,

My 15.6 Optimus IV (Clevo W350ET) is sick.

I've upgraded to windows 10 and noticed a few ailments. Actually they seem more like hardware problems but I thought I'd mention the OS first.

Recently I heard crackling from the speakers. It's not common and only happened a few times.
But that's nothing compared to what happened today. It was on my laptop and I was getting something from the coffee table and moved it so the keyboard was perpendicular with me/sofa, and I heard what sounded like something small that was loose inside. It was rattling for a second or two, then stopped!! I've no idea what it was but a few minutes later,the laptop shut off!!! I pressed the power button and it came back on....but only for a minute or two. I repeated this once it twice more before giving up. Each time it would shut off quickly. Maybe within a minute. I noticed in the windows error log there was a Critical entry relating to "kernel-power". I also noticed the fan wasn't making any noise, which it does a lot during boot usually. So I believe something is loose with the fan, or else a clip inside the case broke off and is potentially stuck in the fan blades.

So to cut a long story short, is there instructions to open one of these laptops? I tried once before but couldn't find all the screws to loosen, so could do with a guide.

Thanks.

 

[Stephen M]

There are quite a few Youtube videos about working on laptops, may be worth pasting the model number in and seeing what happens, you will probably get pages from Schenker as well, they use Clevos, their model number may point you to a video as well.

 

[ubuysa]

It sounds to me as though your fan has failed or is simply blocked up with muck and dust. Opening up the Optimus IV is easy, I did it some years ago on mine to replace the wireless card, the post is at https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?25211-Optimus-IV-removing-the-wireless-card. Once you get the bottom off you can see the fan and heat pipes.

If you've not cleaned it lately (and if you've never had the bottom cover off then you haven't ) now would be a good time. Get a soft brush and a can of low pressure compressed air (for cleaning computers) and gently blow and brush the dust and muck off the fan blades and (this is the important bit) from out between the thin vanes of the heat exchanger at the outlet side of the fan (where the copper heat pipes go). This is where all the cooling is done and the vanes are easily blocked by muck and dut.

 

[eoinzy]

Thanks, actually that was easier than I thought.
I didn't realise there was that faceplate that came off. The last time I was trying to unscrew all the lower screws and take the bottom off in one big plastic lump!!

So I got it open anyway, and its actually clean as a whistle. I'm surprised how good it is after 4 years! It looks just like the picture in the above link. No dust anywhere!!

I'm actually writing from the laptop now with the bottom off. I turned it on to see if the fan was working and lo and behold it is actually working, albeit very quietly. But I assume the quietness is due to how cool it is. The main point is that the fan is working anyway.

The copper vanes are pretty warm alright, but they vary in temperature. I'm touching them every 30 seconds or so and they're currently very warm, bordering hot (but not hot). I can keep my finger on them for a while before it gets uncomfortable. I imagine that's normal, which is not what I wanted tbh. At the moment I can't see anything out of the ordinary. I would have liked to see something stuck in the fan, or something broken.

I'll keep it on and see what happens. I might play a game and get it going and try force some symptom that will identify a point of failure. At the moment it seems nothing is wrong...