Dell Latitude D610 - keyboard replacement

fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
edited June 2009 in Hardware
My wife has a Dell Latitude D610 laptop, and it needs a new keyboard. She is a rather violent typer anyhow, and I guess at some stage she used the thing while not in a good mood :hitit2:

Replacement keyboards are about $15 on fleabay, which seems a good deal. The question is how easy it would be to swap out a keyboard in a laptop. Does anybody have experience with this kind of stuff?

Frank

Comments

  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited June 2009
    If you are mechanically inclined at all.. 15 min, tops.

    Start here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd610/en/sm_en/hinge.htm#wp1120207

    You take off that little strip across the top where the buttons are (small screwdriver in the corner and it all just "snaps" off.

    2 maybe 3 screws, 1 ribbon cable.. you have the keyboard in your hands.

    Reverse to put it back.... 15 min easy.
  • fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
    edited June 2009
    Sounds good - I'll order a keyboard and see how I go!
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited June 2009
    Like Ryder says, very easy. One thing to go ahead and prep for: Once the keyboard is off, clean the interior. You may as well get the dust bunnies out of the fans and such while it's open. :)
  • fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
    edited June 2009
    Oh man, I could have done this months ago! If only I had known how easy it is - snap off one plastic cover, two screws out, snap out keyboard, plug out old keyboard, plug in new keyboard, snap in place, two screws back in, cover back on - done. The whole job is done in the time it takes you to read this post. And my wife has been struggling with this keyboard for ages.

    Many thanks for your advice. The laptop is as good as new again!

    Frank
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited June 2009
    I was concerned the first time I opened one... now I strip them to the bones and rebuild them like they're a regular computer.. glad it worked out for you :)
  • fmuellerfmueller Auckland, NZ Icrontian
    edited June 2009
    I recently opened a Thinkpad A31 that had a fried motherboard and sold the rest in parts. I made $125 off the thing, which didn't seem bad for an ancient laptop with a fried mobo that I had gotten for free!

    Anyway, getting the keyboard out of the Thinkpad was hard work. Maybe I didn't do it right, but I only got the keyboard out after breaking the case. That didn't give me much hope for keyboard replacement in the Dell. Glad I asked here! :thumbup

    Frank
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited June 2009
    I was intimidated the first time I took apart a laptop as well. It was at my workplace when I was in college... the Dell laptop was just out of warranty and needed a new fan installed. I actually had a Dell phone tech walk me through the procedure because the service manual for that model was "internal only" at the time for Dell. After taking that one apart and putting back together successfully... under the scrutiny of my very picky boss (Sr. System Administrator for the Universities largest System Admin department, I was student employee) I became the de-facto laptop repair guy for the department. Once you have the basic idea down they become really easy to take apart and put together. I can strip my old laptop all the way down in under 30 minutes these days and put it back without a screw out of place.
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