Advanced Dock Fan Replacement (w/ pictures)

I replaced the fan on my Advanced Dock the other day. The factory fan is super noisy .. so I decided to replace it with a quiet Panaflo unit. Unfortunately the new fan is thicker so I had to mount it outside the dock, but the noise reduction is worth it.

The dock is essentially silent now. With my near silent T500 on it and the whole assembly on my desk right next to me, I can barely hear it at all. With my T60p on it, the laptop's fan itself is louder than the dock.

Taking the dock apart really pretty difficult.... The thing is really well engineered and well made. Here are some of sticking points I encountered:

* The dock uses Torx security screws -- the kind that have a little pin in the middle so you can't just use normal Torx bits. You have to go buy the right bits or you won't be able to get the screws out.
* One you take out the screws, getting the top cover off it tricky. There are lots of clips and a few hidden screws including one that is really hard to get to near the Ultrabay. I had to dremel off some plastic to get my bit and driver in.
* The key lock/eject button area is really hard to deal with. For disassembly, release everything else before and leave this to the end. It sticks and you just kind of have to wiggle everything around until the top cover comes off.
* Once the top cover is off, there is another metal cover inside that you have to remove. Lots more screws! At least they are philips this time.
* As to not have to completely disassemble the dock, I drilled holes in the back cover around the fan so I could remove the stock fan's 3 screws.
* I mounted the fan in a solid but ghetto fashion. I used hot glue to mount it and electrical tape to fill in the gap. At least it was Scotch 35 high quality "no-goo" electrical tape.

Putting everything back together wasn't so bad .. until I got to the end where you are putting the top cover back on. I just couldn't get the cover to go back down over the key lock! I figured it out in the end after much frustration. (And a few broken clips and one broken screw mount. This happened because I had to take the cover off so many times to try to figure out what was going on.) You just can't see inside the cover to see what is binding up!

In the end, this is the trick.....:

With the cover back on, it'll bind up over the key-lock. The cover will not go down all the way over the lock. The trick is you put the key into the lock and tilt the lock out a little -- away from the center of the dock. There is a slot on the top of the lock has the align with on the top cover, and if you don't do this, it won't and you won't be able to get the cover down. (The lock is mounted to the chassis with a little bracket, so without the cover holding it in place, you it moves around a little.)


Other things to remember:

* Don't loose the spring under the eject button... It's long and fiddly. You have to make sure it's in the right spot before putting the cover back on.
* The eject mechanism also is held in place by the cover. You have to reset it before putting on the cover and make sure it doesn't come apart before the cover is on, or it won't work! Touching the eject button before the cover is fully screwed on will cause the eject mechanism to come apart and you'll have to take the cover off again.

So that's basically it. it was worth the upgrade to me -- and even with a few broken clips on mine now, you can't even notice.

I put pictures up on my Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=advanced dock&w=95368991@N00

Nothing too detailed, but you can see pictures of inside the dock, etc.

If you guys have more questions, let me know.

-Adrian

 

I know it's been a while since this was posted, but I wanted to say thanks and share my experience as well.

I replaced the 60mm power supply fan with a quiet but wider one. I took a saw and removed the entire fan cover off the back so the fan could stick out. I also stuck a filter on the fan. Here are the results (as well as a few disassembly shots):

http://picasaweb.google.com/dornif/LaptopFan

A few tips for anyone else considering this:
1. Try to get an actual T8 Security screwdriver (not just the tip). You need a skinny one and then no drilling is required to open the case.

2. Save all screws for each layer in a separate place and take pictures before removing them. Putting this thing back together right is easily the hardest part.

3. The dimensions of the fan are 60x60x22.5mm

4. All parts can be found at Fry's. I went crazy trying to find an actual T8 Security screw driver before checking there.