Cleaning fan of laptop that can't be disassembled

Moughans

Estimable
Mar 16, 2014
4
0
4,510
Hello! I have an Advent Monza S200. It's about a year and a half old, and I've started to notice the fan running a little louder lately. I have a dog, so I figured it was probably time to clean the fan, so I flipped the laptop over, and there's no access panel for the fan. So I took out all the screws and tried to take the entire cover off, and it doesn't come off. I fiddled with it for a bit, and there is just no way the cover was going to come off without using more force than I'm comfortable with. I also can't find any information about removing the cover of this kind of laptop either in the manual or online - I did read somewhere that there weren't many of this model made, so maybe that's why there's almost no information about them.
So I still want to clean the fan, but I don't want to break it by just blowing in compressed air from the outside (I also don't want to just force all the dust further into the computer). Does anyone have any ideas of how to clean the fan of a laptop that you can't disassemble?
Many thanks!
 

Moughans

Estimable
Mar 16, 2014
4
0
4,510


I dunno...at this point I'm half convinced the computer was magicked together somehow and then they added screws to make it look better. If there are hidden screws, they're somehow hidden under the cover that I can't get off. It really is an odd computer, now that I'm looking at it with the intention of taking the cover off.

 

Moughans

Estimable
Mar 16, 2014
4
0
4,510


I think the vacuum option might be my only option. I also looked into removing the keyboard, but it seems to be of a piece with the rest of the top, which doesn't come off. The optical drive is on the opposite side to the fan, so removing that wouldn't really give easy access to the fan.

I believe the reason the cover won't come off is because the VGA port on the left side is flush with the edge, and the microphone/headphone jacks on the right side are flush with the edge on that side. At least, I was able to pry the cover up to those points.

Would it help at all if I posted pictures of the laptop?
Thanks!
 

USAFRet

Illustrious
Moderator
Under the RAM chips, under the hard drive, from the top, under the keyboard.....they put those screws in all sorts of weird places.

I have Sony VAIO, where you have to almost take the whole thing apart just to change the HDD.
Meanwhile, an older Dell I have, changing the HDD is one screw and it slides right out the side.
 

Moughans

Estimable
Mar 16, 2014
4
0
4,510


Well, I definitely know that I'll be making 'ease of getting at the components' a key criterion for my next laptop!