ASUS W3V/W3N/W3A/Z63A Disassembly Guide - Top Case Removal
INTRODUCTION
This guide is for people with more technical background and want get right down to the board level or part replacement other than the more accessible parts ie; HDD, CPU or RAM. Enthusiasts that has had experience taking apart computer equipment and building their own computers is recommended, anything less should proceed with caution.
This guide is to show you how to take off the
Top Case of the W3V(click link if you don't know what I mean), which is the palm rest part of the keyboard along with the Touchpad and the Keyboard frame. Removal of this part will allow you to access the mainboard of the system for repair, replacement, or cleaning. This guide will show you how to dismantle the W3V with all the screw locations and procedure to properly take it apart without damaging any of the components, reversing this procedure will allow you to put this back all together.
This may apply to newer
ASUS or other similar notebooks(W3J), the methodology is the same for most notebooks, but of course the screw locations will very different and you will be entirely on your own.
WHAT YOU NEED
1. First to start, you would need a quality precision screwdriver kit that includes 2-3 sizes of Philips and 1 small flat head. I do not recommend dollar store quality as those are made of very soft metal that could damage the screw pattern and possibly not allowing you to remove that screw forever.
2. Some masking tape or electrical tape; to hold down wires or cables, labelling , and even protecting surfaces from damage from your tools.
3. Time. You will need plenty of time here, never do any of these repairs if you are in a hurry.
4. A brain. Try to keep focus and do everything carefully, always trace back your steps and place all the removed parts in an orderly fashion. Take extra care handling screws, as they are easily lost or confused since there are longer screws, shorter screws, bigger screws for different purposes so take notes if you can't remember which goes where. Be mentally prepared!
METHOD
Step 1. Bottom Case - Panels and Screws
First take off all the doors and panels from the bottom case. I'm sure most of you have done this, but for thorough information, I've included it here. Simply use the philips screwdriver and take the 6 screws off the CPU & RAM door, 2 Screws for the WIFI door and the single one off the HDD door. While doing this, you have also conveniently released the keyboard. More on this later. Remove all the doors, HDD, Battery, and the modular unit from the notebook.
After your done, proceed in taking off all the screws around the
bottom case of notebook. Note the 2 screws near the battery are actually for LCD panel hinges and if you've noticed, they are larger screws. On to Step 2.
Step 2. Bottom Case - Interior screws and HDD removal
There are only 3 screws needed to be removed in this step. There are 2 screws located in the chamber of the optical/modular drive bay, remove those and take note that these are much shorter screws.
I believe the shortest two, so do not lose these.
Remove the final screw located inside the HDD chamber.
We will not be removing the RAM or CPU in this scenario, however to remove the
Top Case we will need to remove the CPU Fan from the unit *more on this in Step 3.
Detach the 2 Antenna cables from the WIFI card, these are small gold plated couplings (orinco mini-smp connector) just gently use your fingers and pull them off the card, don't pull the wire! The following procedures will require you to detach the LCD Panel from the casing so now is the time to do it. Just leave them dangling when your done.
Finally, Detach the HDD from the Notebook as well.
Step 3. CPU Fan Removal
The main reason why you would need to remove the CPU Fan is that the fan housing is screwed directly onto the bottom side of the
Top Case, without removing it, it would be impossible to detach it from the bottom portion of the casing. There are 2 screws located diagonally to one another, see pic above. Remember to gently remove the fan header, DO NOT be lazy and directly pull the wire! Use your finger nails to grasp the plastic clips on the sides and pull gently.
Step 4. Keyboard Removal
We have already removed all the screws from the bottom, so all we have to do now is unclip the keyboard. There are 4 clips holding it down along the top edge of the keyboard. Use a small flat head screwdriver and gently push each of the clips upward, only a small amount of force is needed to loosen up the keyboard. See image below.
There is a large ribbon cable for the keyboard held down by a large wide clip on the left side(very obvious), this is somewhat challenging to un-clip as the keyboard cable is very short. Fold the keyboard upward facing yourself while the bottom edge is still lodged on the keyboard frame(sort of like opening a book). Use one hand to hold the cable, while the other to loosen up the clip on both sides of the cable connector. Once it's loosened, the cable pops right out.
Step 5. Keyboard Bezel(Clips) & Top Case screws
Remove the 2 screws for the
Keyboard bezel and disconnect the ribbon cable for the LED Lights on the left connector. The bezel is now held together by snap on plastic, if you turn it around from the backside of the battery compartment you see some plastic tabs which hold this bezel onto the
Top Case. Just your fingers or a screwdriver to loosen these tabs. Now push the
LCD panel all the way open and make sure the rounded part of the bezel is dislodged. You have now removed the
Keyboard Bezel.
Remove the RAM plate/door in the middle, this simply slides out.
Remove the rest of the 5 silver screws on the
Top case displayed in the diagram above.
Step 6. LCD Panel - Cables & Hinges
Now that you removed the
Keyboard Bezel, you will notice all the cables and wires. On the left side, will have the Video Cable, Inverter cable and another Unknown cable(edit: it's the built-in Microphone!). The latter 2 cables are quite easy and I recommend at least loosening them from the connector first. The Video cable you would need to be more careful, on the cable itself you will notice a black fabric wrapped around it, just grab the fabric flap and gently wiggle it side to side until the cable is loosened. Unhook all the cables from it's "wells". See pictures below.
On the right side, remember the loosened antenna cables that you left dangling? Just pull them through the hole and you will need to pull out the antenna cables from the "tracks". After you done there is one more header for the power button. Loosen that, and your on to the next step.
After all the cables are out of the way, you notice the hinges. There are 2 screws for each hinge remaining, again these are the larger sized screws. Simply unscrew these and make sure that you are holding the
LCD Panel as it will fall over once all the screws are out. You have successfully removed the
LCD panel from the notebook! Onto step 7...
Step 7. Top Case Removal
With all the screws removed, what left that is holding down the
Top Case are the ribbon cables from the side buttons & the Touchpad as well as the plastic retentions along the front edge(along the speakers). First disconnect all the ribbon cables, by now you should know how to disconnect these. There is a total of three of them including the Touchpad ribbon cable(white).
With the cables out of the way, you basically lift the
Top Case and pull until you have around a 45 degree angle. There will be quite a bit of force while your doing this, don't worry that's just the plastic holding it, and all you need to do is either use your finger nails and run it along the gap at the front of the case and it will
snap right off(it will sound like a crack but it's not breaking). The other way I found was just pull the Top Case towards you until it's almost 90 degrees and it should snap off the same way, although I don't know if this will damage anything if your doing it the first time. Once it's off, there is one final Speaker cable to remove.
Well, if you got this far you probably know that
You are DONE!
Congratulations, you have successfully disassembled your notebook!
This last image is for reference only for those that want to know more about the board or actually replacing it. The Bluetooth module is on the backside, right where the cable slips under the left side of the board near the keyboard ribbon connector. If those of you are replacing the motherboard, there are only 2 screws holding the board down, make sure you have the
CPU Heatpipe removed first. Then simply use your finger and bend the plastic casing around the VGA Connector area and pull on the board. There is a daughter board connected (for the modular drive) and you will need a little force to get this off. After that your pretty much done at removing all the parts from the casing.
You may or may not have noticed that there are somethings different on my W3V:
1. The HDD compartment was modified by myself by removing significant amount of the plastic frame to allow better airflow around the harddrive without sacrificing structural integrity.
2. I've also removed some pieces of foam from the heatpipe I didn't see the purpose of that, rather it covered the surface area of the heatsink.
3. The metal RAM plate in the middle, to me it served no purpose but to take up more weight.
4. The bluetooth cable looks different, well I basically ran it along the board through the fuses and resisters, there is absolutely no slack. Of course, it originally didn't look like this and was taped down rather loosely with yellow ASUS tape.
5. If those of you noticed, the Top Case on my W3V is of the darker color from the W3N which looks better IMHO. I ordered this off the estore to replace my old beat up one, basically the exact same thing for the W3J! And I got this for $25 as the W3N piece compared to $35 for the W3J. I also ordered the exact matching color Keyboard bezel from the W3J for $8. 
6. I have removed all the stickers and labels off my W3V, the serial number faded long ago and since my warranty long expired it served no purpose. My Windows CD-Key sticker started peeling so I took it off permanently and stuck onto the backside of my 2nd HDD kit completely out of view. The last thing I removed(recently) was the Business card holder, which was more of an eyesore collecting dust inside it as I never used it. So basically the bottom case is completely clean except for the Model number 
All these mods/changes are completely optional from your standpoint.
If you want to know more about any of these I can post it! For those of you interested in the overclocking process of the W3V, I can definately post a guide.
Finally, just as a disclaimer: I am not physically responsible for any damages you do to your notebook, this guide is used as a reference only. Details may differ slightly on certain notebook revisions.
ASUS W3V/W3N/W3A/Z63A Disassembly Guide - Top Case Removal
