Disassembly of the Fujitsu LifeBook T4200 Series Tablet PC

This guide is a mirror (mostly) of the one posted over at the Tablet PC Review.com forums.

This disassembly guide is a primer on how to disassemble the Fujitsu LifeBook T4200 Series Tablet PC to get to the Socket P socketed processor so one can upgrade from a “Merom” 65nm processor to a “Penryn” 45nm processor, reapply thermal grease, clean out the heatsink and fan, and so forth. This guide will not go in to specific details on how to a.) replace the processor and ensure stable operation; b.) remove and reapply the thermal grease; or c.) clean the heatsink — it is simply a basis to get access to the processor, what you do from there is up to you. This guide is applicable to the Fujitsu LifeBook T4210, T4215, and the T4220 as these models all use the same chassis, but may be also applicable to previous and possibly future generations of the Fujitsu LifeBook T4000 series line. And, now for some friendly reminders:

Notices and Warnings

Notice: This will void your manufacturer warranty, make sure you are willing to accept that any mishaps during disassembly of your system will void it.

Warning: This guide is also not for the faint of heart, in any disassembly there is a risk that you may damage system components. It is your responsibility and ultimately your choice to proceed with the following guide and its steps. I must admit that I had a couple of close calls of possibly damaging something, it’s a risk that one must take, even when documenting a disassembly guide.

Warning: Electrostatic discharge (ESD) kills sensitive components like the one found in your Tablet PC or any other system. Remember to ground yourself before touching any component or wear an antistatic wrist wrap at all times when dealing with computer components.

Warning: You can not undo any of your actions when disassembling if any system component is damaged. Like the first warning, make sure you are willing to risk disassembling your system because opening up your system will void your warranty. If only life was as easy as doing a Ctrl-Z.

Right, now that we’ve gotten through that, let the disassembly begin!

What you’ll need

• An antistatic wrap or an object so you can ground yourself from static electricity
• 50mm or 75mm Phillips Screwdriver
• 50mm or 75mm Flathead Screwdriver (or something thin and flat)
• Jumper Tweezers (optional, but helps getting screws out of tight spaces)
• Paper (optional)
• Pen or Pencil (optional)

Planning

I recommend that you have a pen or pencil and paper ready because its easy to loose track of which screws goes into which. As you see in the image below, I’m taking no chances with ending up with a few screws that belong somewhere in my Tablet PC. I’ve dissembled quite a few notebooks, and always ended up with one to three extra screws. You don’t have to do this, but it doesn’t hurt to know which screw goes where.

Disassembly

Caution: Take it easy when removing the screws, you’re trying not to strip the screw. If the screw driver slips while your loosening the screw, reposition it and slowly turn it to loosen the screw. It may feel like it’ll take an eternity to remove a screw out of many screws, but for screws this small, it’s better to take it easy than stripping it.

1. Remove the weight saver, battery, or optical drive from the modular bay.
2. Remove the main battery.


Step 1 & 2 - Remove modular bay device and main battery

3. This step is optional, but remove all memory modules from the memory compartment and place them aside, preferably far away from where you are dissembling your system.
   

   Step 3 - Remove memory module(s) if needed

4. Remove the two screws from the hard drive compartment door.
   

   Step 4 - Remove screws from hard drive compartment door

5. Remove the hard drive compartment door and pull the HDD ribbon connector upwards.
   

   Step 5 - The HDD data ribbon cable

   

   Step 5 - The HDD ribbon cable removed

6. Pull the hard drive up by pulling the black tab then remove the hard drive.
   

   Step 6 - Pull on the HDD tab on the side and slide out HDD

7. Remove three screws (with arrow icon) near the hinge.
   

   Step 7 - Removing the three screws near the hinge

8. Next, remove the two screws behind the hinge.
   

   Step 8 - Remove two screws behind the hinge

9. Now, to remove the keyboard: following kureshii’s excellent guide (and since I didn’t take pictures of this process because it requires both hands) to remove the keyboard plate and the keyboard itself.
   1. The long strip, which kureshii calls the “keyboard lock” (and I’ll refer to it as the “keyboard plate” for consistency), below the display and above the keyboard is what we’re going to remove first. Gently pry with a flathead screwdriver (or something thin and flat) both the left and right side of the plate (marked accordingly) and slide toward the middle of the plate. It’ll help to press down a couple of the top row keys so the center screw shaft is free. Once the middle of the keyboard plate is free, remove it and move on to the next step.
      

      Step 9.1 - The tricky keyboard lock/plate

      Photo used by permission from kureshii.

   2. You are now free to slide out the back plate.
      

      Step 9.2 - Slide out the back plate

   3. Slowly pull the keyboard away from you until the lower tabs of the keyboard near you are free from the chassis. Slowly rise the entire keyboard upwards about half an inch, and detach the keyboard data ribbon. Don’t yank at it, but just enough so that it is detached.
10. Now, on to the bottom of the Tablet PC, there are 15 total screws to remove as outlined in the picture below.
    

    Stop 10 - Remove 15 screws as outlined

    1. As outlined above, don’t forget about the three screws in the modular bay.
       

       Step 10.1 - Remove the three screws in modular bay

    2. OK, I lied when I said there were 15 screws to remove, actually there are 16 total for this step (not including the three you already removed in step 7). Look in the battery compartment bay and find the screw next to the label “M2TPx5.5″ and remove it.
       

       Step 10.2 - Remove the screw in the battery compartment

11. Great, now carefully flip the Tablet PC over and open the display. In the area where you would normally see the rotation arrow indicators, you’ll see that there’s a circuit board held in by a screw. Remove that screw, then gently pull it upwards and remove the RIGHT wire connector FROM it, and remove the LEFT wire connector FROM the MOTHERBOARD. This will make it easier to know which one connector goes into which when it comes to reassembling the Tablet PC.
    

    Step 11 - Remove screw, pull rotation indicator board up, remove right wire from circuit board, remove left wire from motherboard.

12. In the same area where you removed the rotation indicator board, you’ll need to remove the LCD display cable (white) and the Wacom serial cable (black).
    

    Step 12 - Remove the two display cables

13. Now to remove the touchpad data ribbon cable, located near the touchpad, by pulling the green connector with a finger upwards. When it is as depicted in the picture, you can easily slide the ribbon out.
    

    Step 13 - Remove touchpad data ribbon cable

14. Now, remove the three screws labeled “M2X3″.
15. As shown below, slowly peel both of the black tapes just enough so the wireless antenna and temperature probe wires can freely move. Carefully pull out the two antenna wires on the wireless card (blue circles). You don’t have to eject the wireless card from its slot, but if you have to press both of the tabs (red squares) to the left, and then gently lift the wireless card up and out of the slot. If you’ve installed laptop memory before, this process is the same. For reference: the black wireless antenna wire goes on top, the grayish one on the bottom.
    

    Step 15 - Peel back tape, remove wireless antenna wires, optional step of removing wireless card

16. Next, to the right of the heat vent fan, remove the wire from the motherboard. When reassembling, be sure to reattach this cable or else your system will overheat quickly!
    
    

    Step 16 - Remove the fan cable from the motherboard

17. Now, we remove three more screws. One screw is near the wire you just removed in the previous step, the remaining two screws are the only ones still holding the hinge.
    

    Step 17 - Remove the two remaining hinge screws

18. Now, you can lift the display up and away and to the side. Watch the wireless antenna wires and the one temperature probe when sliding the display out. They go with the display, so make sure they don’t get caught on anything.
19. OK, almost there! Remove both the entire wrist area and the heat shield (the sheet metal portion) away. Tada! You now have access to the vital parts of your Tablet PC’s motherboard.
20. Now, you’ll need to remove 5 screws to remove the heatsink and the fan. Then it’s easy to lift the entire assembly away.
    

    Step 20 - Remove five screws from the heatsink

21. You now have access to the processor. What you do from here is up to what you plan to do once you have disassembled your Tablet PC. If you’re planning to upgrade from a Merom processor to a Penryn processor (a Merom to another Merom or a Penryn to another Penryn) take a flathead screw driver and rotate turn the dial from the lock symbol to the unlock symbol and carefully pull the CPU out of the socket. Reverse the steps but with a new processor. If you’re planning to reapply the thermal grease, there are many guides on the Internet which will show you which thermal grease to buy (if you haven’t already) and how to apply it on the processor and the chipset (which also has thermal grease). Or, if you’re just curious to see what’s under the hood, well, that’s fine too.
    

    Step 21 - It's imperative that you turn the dial from the locked to unlocked symbol if you plan to remove the processor

Reverse the steps when reassembling, do a test run by going into the BIOS (press Enter when you see FUJITSU, use the arrow keys to go to BIOS Setup) and make sure everything runs fine and that the processor and installed RAM are recognized.

I hope you enjoy this guide on how to diassemble your Fujitsu LifeBook T4200 Series Tablet PC, this is my first diassembly guide, so I certainly hope this will be a great resource for those who have this Tablet PC.

Thanks

Thanks to kureshii for allowing me to use his one picture from his keyboard removal guide, to the members of the TPCR community, and to the distant traveler who somehow manages to find this guide, let alone this blog.

Gallery

Step 1 & 2 – Remove Modular Bay Device and Main Battery

Step 3 – Remove memory module(s) if needed

Step 4 – Remove screws from hard drive compartment door

Step 5 – Remove HDD data ribbon cable.

Step 5 – The HDD ribbon cable removed

Step 6 – Pull on the HDD tab on the side and slide out HDD

Step 7 – Remove three screws near the hinge.

Step 8 – Remove two screws behind the hinge

Step 9.1 – The tricky keyboard lock/plate

Step 9.2 – Slide out the back plate

Stop 10 – Remove 15 screws as outlined

Step 10.1 – Three screws in modular bay

Step 10.2 – Remove the screw in battery compartment

Step 11 – Remove screw, pull rotation indicator board up, remove right wire from circuit board, remove left wire from motherboard.

Step 12 – Remove the two display cables

Step 13 – Remove touchpad data ribbon cable

Step 15 – Peel back tape, remove wireless antenna wires, optional step of removing wireless card

Step 16 – Remove the fan cable from the motherboard

Step 17 – Remove the two remaining hinge screws

Step 20 – Remove five screws from the heatsink

Step 21 – It’s imperative that you turn the dial from the locked to unlocked symbol if you plan to remove the processor