How to Open a Dell Laptop to Clean the Fan

The cooling fan in your laptop helps to keep your CPU (Central Processing Unit), or processor from overheating. Your cooling fan will collect a lot of dust and debris which can possible cause a short in the cooling fan. Routine fan cleaning is essential to the life of your laptop. If your CPU overheats it can go bad and/or cause damage to other important components inside your laptop. The hardest part about cleaning a cooling fan is gaining access. This requires some disassembly of your laptop.

Things You'll Need

• Flathead screwdriver
• Phillips-head screwdriver
• Antistatic wrist wrap

Instructions

1. Turn off your Dell laptop, disconnect the power cable, remove the battery pack and disconnect any other cables or external devices. Attach an Antistatic wrist wrap to your wrist and attach the wire clip to the laptop frame. This will help prevent against shock from static electricity.

2. Use a small flathead screwdriver to pry up on the keyboard bezel. The keyboard bezel is a small plastic strip located between the laptop's keyboard and LCD display. Remove it completely from the laptop, and set it to the side.

3. Remove the now-exposed two to four Phillips-head screws (depending on the laptop model), and then lift up on the keyboard and place it face-down over the track pad and palm rest.

4. Disconnect the keyboard's ribbon connector from the laptop's motherboard. Lift the keyboard out of the laptop base and set it to the side. This will expose the Dell laptop's cooling fan.

5. Remove the single Phillips-head screw attaching the fan to the motherboard. Lift the fan out of the laptop base; you're now ready to clean.

References

• 2XOD: Dell Latitude Disassembly Guide
• Inside My Laptop: Remove Keyboard and Clean Fan Dell Latitude Laptop