How to Clean the Inside of a Dell M1210

Cleaning your laptop can make it run better.

Laptops can get dirty because of the gaps that allow dust and small crumbs to get caught inside of them. Regularly maintaining the cleanliness of your laptop will ensure that it will function smoothly, providing a better experience when you use it. Cleaning the inside of a laptop can be tricky if you don't know the proper procedure to open it, and can even damage it. Take a few steps to open your laptop safely to clean it.

Things You'll Need

• Phillips screwdriver with approximately 2.5mm head
• Flat-head screwdriver
• Small brush

Instructions

Preparation

1. Remove the battery and then ground your laptop to make sure that no electricity is stored within it. To ground your laptop after the battery is removed, press the power button a couple of times.

2. Find a small indent on the right side of the hinge cover, the area above your keyboard. Remove the hinge cover by sticking the flat-head screwdriver into the indent and then pry it upward. Be gentle when removing the hinge cover to avoid breakage.

3. Remove the three M2.5-by-mm screws beneath the hinge cover that you just removed. This will allow you to lift the keyboard off the laptop. Gently lift the keyboard until you see the keyboard connector, which looks like a greyish ribbon. Lift the tab on the keyboard connector to take off the keyboard.

4. Look for the palm rest, which is a sheet of metal beneath the keyboard labeled with a "P." The palm rest has 7 M2.5-by-5mm screws, each labeled with a "P." Remove these screws and look for four M2.5-by-8mm screws located at the bottom of the laptop. Remove these screws, as well as the captive screw located at the bottom right.

5. Remove the Bluetooth component that is located under the battery. Then disconnect the coin cell battery cable and the touch pad cable, both located under the keyboard portion of the laptop. Once all of these components are removed, you may start removing your palm rest from your laptop, starting from the back. This will expose many components of your laptop to clean.

6. Clean the components of your laptop using your small brush. Brush gently because some chips within the laptop are fragile. Likely targets include the fan, the air vents, the motherboard, the portion of the laptop beneath the palm rest and the keyboard.

References

• AhWee; How to Disassemble Laptop (Dell XPS M1210); James Wee; February 2009