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Disassembly instructions for Gateway MX6030 (MA2) notebook
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Disassembly instructions for Gateway MX6030 (MA2) notebook msg 05-10-2008
Posted by msg on May 10, 2008, 1:42 pm
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 Greetings:

Not finding any disassembly instructions on the 'net, I hope
readers of this n.g. can help; I cannot find the captive
fasteners directly underneath the CPU area that are preventing
me from lifting the top bezel clear. I have removed the fan
and heat pipe assembly but nothing is evident beneath it.
I did find and remove the tiny screws above the DVD drive
so I can partially lift the top bezel to see that there
are two plastic posts in the CPU area secured to something.

All help much appreciated.

Michael

Posted by msg on May 11, 2008, 8:18 pm
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 msg wrote:

<snip>

> Not finding any disassembly instructions on the 'net, I hope
> readers of this n.g. can help; I cannot find the captive
> fasteners directly underneath the CPU area that are preventing
> me from lifting the top bezel clear. I have removed the fan
> and heat pipe assembly but nothing is evident beneath it.
> I did find and remove the tiny screws above the DVD drive
> so I can partially lift the top bezel to see that there
> are two plastic posts in the CPU area secured to something.

<snip>

For the record, here is how I completed the disassembly
(in my opinion, the construction of this laptop and
others like it is very unfriendly)

1. Remove all visible screws from the bottom of the unit
after having removed all devices and covers, except
the four tiny screws in the hard disk cavity;

2. pry up the keyboard bezel (top cover) from the front
with your fingers until you can insert your hand
under the keyboard; push the keyboard up forcefully
near the front edge until it pops out (captive spring
fingers will emerge) and then pop it out at the rear
(and disconnect its cable and the trackpad cable.

3. pry up the horizontal black plastic strip which covers
the power button and includes the lcd hinge covers;
this will take a lot of force and I expected that it
would crack, but with effort, it was removed.

4. unscrew the four lcd hinge screws and remove the lcd
assembly and disconnect its cable.

5. the top cover (bezel) may now be removed.

6. unscrew the four remaining screws attaching the mainboard
to the bottom case piece and carefully spread various
plastic edges to clear connectors and board edges in
order to remove the mainboard.

Now, if only there were some data on the onboard power
inverter component placements and circuit (board power
supply dead). The designer (or perhaps autorouter)
must have been inebriated to have scattered the power
components over most of the real estate...

Michael

Posted by Dave Martindale on May 12, 2008, 2:29 pm
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>Now, if only there were some data on the onboard power
>inverter component placements and circuit (board power
>supply dead). The designer (or perhaps autorouter)
>must have been inebriated to have scattered the power
>components over most of the real estate...

Maybe they are scattered to spread the heat load around....

More likely, this may be a side effect of a board that is never intended
to be repaired, only swapped when defective.

I have a 2-year-old Gateway machine that works fine when it's running,
but it will drain a fully-charged battery in 2 weeks when "off" or in
hibernation. The problem is almost certainly that the DC-DC power
supply remains running all the time, while "power off" happens further
downstream. When connected to a bench power supply at 19 V, with the
battery removed (so no battery charge current) and the laptop "off", it
draws about 20 mA continuously from the power supply. It must load the
battery similarly when the battery in installed and no external power is
available.

This is almost certainly bad circuit design in the first place, but in
the hope that it was not, I sent it back to Gateway twice under
warranty. They didn't find anything wrong, but swapped the motherboard
on one of the trips. No change in battery drain. No apparent attempt
on Gateway's part to either diagnose the actual problem, or get someone
in engineering to say "oh yeah, they are designed that way".

It isn't be the first device I have owned with this problem, either. I
have an Icom R2 handheld radio powered by 2 AA cells, and it will drain
a set of fresh batteries in the space of a few weeks. It has an
internal DC-DC converter to step up the 2-3 V DC to what's needed by the
analog receiver circuitry, and the converter runs all the time even when
the radio is "off".

The solution for the laptop is the same as for the radio - remove
batteries when not in use.

        Dave

Posted by BillW50 on May 12, 2008, 6:42 pm
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Dave Martindale typed on Mon, 12 May 2008 18:29:05 +0000 (UTC):
[...]
> I have a 2-year-old Gateway machine that works fine when it's running,
> but it will drain a fully-charged battery in 2 weeks when "off" or in
> hibernation. The problem is almost certainly that the DC-DC power
> supply remains running all the time, while "power off" happens further
> downstream. When connected to a bench power supply at 19 V, with the
> battery removed (so no battery charge current) and the laptop "off",
> it draws about 20 mA continuously from the power supply. It must
> load the battery similarly when the battery in installed and no
> external power is available.
>
> This is almost certainly bad circuit design in the first place, but in
> the hope that it was not, I sent it back to Gateway twice under
> warranty. They didn't find anything wrong, but swapped the
> motherboard on one of the trips. No change in battery drain. No
> apparent attempt on Gateway's part to either diagnose the actual
> problem, or get someone in engineering to say "oh yeah, they are
> designed that way".
>
> It isn't be the first device I have owned with this problem, either.
> I have an Icom R2 handheld radio powered by 2 AA cells, and it will
> drain a set of fresh batteries in the space of a few weeks. It has an
> internal DC-DC converter to step up the 2-3 V DC to what's needed by
> the analog receiver circuitry, and the converter runs all the time
> even when the radio is "off".
>
> The solution for the laptop is the same as for the radio - remove
> batteries when not in use.

A two year old Gateway? Running with the original Li-Ion battery? If you
use a laptop with the battery in and mostly on AC, a two year old
battery is mostly shot. If you want to make it last 10 or more years,
pull it out.

Install BattStat (free)
http://users.rcn.com/tmtalpey/BattStat/

And then check what the wear factor is on that battery. Then get back to
us.

--
Bill


Posted by Dave Martindale on May 13, 2008, 2:16 pm
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>A two year old Gateway? Running with the original Li-Ion battery? If you
>use a laptop with the battery in and mostly on AC, a two year old
>battery is mostly shot. If you want to make it last 10 or more years,
>pull it out.

I *do* remove the battery for extended operation on AC. This isn't the
original battery either - Gateway supplied 2 new batteries in their
attempts to fix the problem. These batteries have only been charged and
discharged a few times (I actually use the laptop relatively seldom).
And the batteries still have plenty of capacity - they will power the
laptop for several hours of normal use.

But when either of these batteries is left installed in the laptop when
"off", the battery is discharged to the point of not being able to boot
after about 2 weeks. If you do the math, you'll see that 2 weeks of
drain at about 15 mA is enough to fully discharge these batteries (one
is rated 4800 mAh, the other 5200). And 15 mA of drain at a battery
voltage of 14.4 V is consistent with finding about 20 mA continuous
current consumption from the power jack supplied with 19 V.

All of the evidence points to a continuous drain of about 15 mA when
turned off - not a battery problem.

        Dave

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