Replacing a broken fan in an Acer Aspire A150 Netbook

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My little A150 was a great buy when I picked it up a few months back, £150 from Currys Digital as it was an ex display model - which would probably explain the fact that the fan needed to be replaced! Every time I turned it on the noise was ridiculous, I had to turn it on and off in the hope that next time I started it up it would be quiet.

This meant I wasn't able to do much with it in public, so I decided to take a look on eBay for a new fan, 2 days and £15 later I have said fan and have it installed. For anyone looking to disassemble one of these netbooks for this reason or others I thought I would put together a little guide:

Before you do anything ensure you have removed the battery and power cable (obvious, and if you hadn't thought of it chances are you shouldn't read any further!). Also, take some time to sketch out the location of all of the case screws, you want to make sure you put all the screws back in the right place! I have done this too many times without doing this and I ALWAYS have pieces left over, anyway where were we....

Remove the keyboard

First off you will need to remove the keyboard, this is probably the most simple part of the process. Locate the clips around the keyboard and gently press them in with a flat head screwdriver. Once you have unclipped it, gently wedge the screwdriver underneath and lift.

Next you need to unplug the 2 ribbon cables, the one that connects the keyboard and the one that connects the trackpad as shown in figure 2.

Put the keyboard to one side, close the lid and flip the machine over. If you haven't sketched out the screw locations do so now, then remove all of them. Be sure you remove the 2 screws under the 2 back feet, a gentle prod with a flat head screw driver will be enough to lift them off.

Remove the top assembly

Flip the machine back over, open the lid and remove all of the screws from the plate under the keyboard and lay them out on your sketch (you may need more than one sketch!)

Next turn the machine onto its side, take your flat head screwdriver and prize the machine open. The whole top assembly should lift off easily if you lift from the front near the track pad and pull towards you.

Remove the WiFi card

Next you will need to remove the WiFi card (mine was a Dell mini 9 card as my little A150 is a Hackintosh). Remove the 2 screws and gently pull the card to the right and it should lift right out, take a note of colour wire is plugged in where and unplug the cables. Place to one side.

Remove headphone / USB Assembly

Now we need to remove the board to the right of the machine that contains the 2 USB ports and the Audio I/O. We need to remove this as it overlaps the hard drive which is connected to the motherboard. Unscrew the 3 screws holding it in place, lift out and place to one side. Be careful of the WiFi switch when doing this as it is fragile!

Unscrew the monitor hinges

Yep we have to lose the screen as well! Well, you can get away with only removing the 2 screws on the left hand side as I did but its probably safer to remove it completely unless you are feeling confident! Place the monitor to one side.

Finally...

Right! In order to get to the fan we need to flip the motherboard over, flip this out an lie it on something soft and lint free. Next, unscrew the 3 screws on the fan, unplug it and lift it off. Replace the fan with the new unit and replace the screws and finally, plug the new fan in!

Reassembly

If you have followed the steps and made notes of all of the screw locations reassembly should be easy! The only problem I had was getting the rubber feet to stick back on properly... I am now minus 2 feet! eBay it is then....

I hope someone will find this useful, if not I guess its just a reference for me next time I take this to pieces....