There was a hailstorm in Nagpur last week. Yes, snow on the equator sounds crazy, but it happened after 20 years.
Thanks for the photo, Nadya.
On that day my laptop served as a heater on my desk. Up to July 2014, I enjoyed Dell’s extended warranty support and service for three years. Now I have no option but to clean up my laptop myself.
*** Yes, there are vendors in the market who take more than a day for two hours of work and charge way more.
Here are my quick notes for those who want to open a Dell Studio 1558.
1. Remove the battery.
2. Open the access door and remove it.
3. Unscrew the hard-disk screws. Slide the hard disk to remove it.
4. Remove the screws from the base of the laptop and under the hard-disk area.
5. Release the antenna cable from its routes.
6. And three more screws — two below the hinges and one beneath the battery.
7. Use nails or guitar picks to release the clip of the speaker cover above the keyboard.
8. Two more screws above the keyboard to release it. Be careful — there are thin connector cables below the keyboard. I lost my backlight because of this.
9. Disconnect the display cable & power cable. Release the antenna cables.
10. Unscrew the display and remove it safely. Clean it with a soft cloth.
11. Remove the screen under the keyboard.
12. Unplug the speaker cable and touchpad.
13. Unscrew the optical drive screw & remove the optical drive from the motherboard.
14. Unplug the USB port cable, jack cable, fan and speaker cables.
15. Unscrew and remove the motherboard from the laptop base.
16. Unscrew the fan screws and lift the fan from the base. Remove dust from the fan.
17. Follow steps 16 to 1 to pack everything back up after carefully cleaning each part.
Thanks to the Dell Studio 1558 Manual from Manualsdir.com — otherwise I would have ended up doing a post-mortem on the Dell Studio like I did with the Nokia 3230.