How on Earth do You Disassemble a Computer?
Many of you have old computers laying around your house, i know i do, so I decided to write a blog on how to disassemble them, for whatever reason you might have for wanting to. I will try and explain every step to the best of my abilities, but there are so many types of computers and cases that I cannot explain every one, but if you need help, feel free to post a comment with your email and i will do the best i can to answer your question.
For this blog, I am going to disassemble an old Athlon 64 machine i had laying around, chances are that your old machines will be significantly older, but will probably have the same general concept.
Step 1.
Assemble the tools you will need, a Philips screw driver, and a pair of needle nose pliers, and perhaps a pair of wire cutters, but basic hand tools. You will also need a large flat area, i prefer working on the floor, but you can work on a bench or table.
An important step is to ground yourself, to the chassis of the computer, with a grounding strap. Another thing you should make sure if is that you don’t set any of the electronic components on a surface that might create static, like carpet, other cloth, and if you can avoid it, metal. Good surfaces would be Plastic, paper, anti static bags, tile, linoleum, wood, and counter tops.
Step 2.
Remove the side panel, it is almost always the right side if you are looking at the computer, but i have run across several Dell computers that opened on the other side. Thy are almost always secured with 2 screws, almost always Philips, and sometimes they are thumb screws. Occasionally you will find one that uses snaps, or a propriarity method, like often Dell uses snaps and buttons. You then slide the side panel towards the back of the case, and then off.
Step 3.
Disconnect the power to the side panel fan if your computer has one, and set the side panel to the side, no pun intended.
Then you disconnect the power from everything. such as fans, and drives. The 4 pin molex connectors are sometimes hard to pull apart, so try not to pull on it so hard you smack your knuckles, and do not pull on the wires on any connector, it can potentially damage the connector.
Then disconnect the power for the motherboard (big thing in middle), note that these connectors have a clip so you will have to press the clip thing to get it to come off (although I would imagine you could do it if you pulled hard enough, but i don’t recommend that.
Alright, check back next week for more steps.
