Teardown,Takedown, Having Fun Disassembling Laptops

My mom's laptop (an Acer Aspire 4736Z) recently stopped booting, it would show the motherboard logo, show a scrolling bar with the Windows logo, then turn itself off. I asked for the chance to tinker with it and I got the green and go.

But how to open up a laptop? Google and YouTube to the rescue. I found two excellent takedown/teardown videos and proceeded with  testing my first two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Laptop won't start because a chip or component is broken.

Tools needed to do the delicate task are:
1. A Philips screwdriver with a magnetized tip. Perfect for picking up the screws entrenched in those deep holes.
2. Tape to keep the screws in order. You would want to remember which screw goes where. You may take notes, pictures, even a video of yourself while you're at it.
3. Magnifying glass, to  closely inspect if a chip or component is broken.


Hypothesis 2: Laptop won't start because something is overheating. 

So I got down to removing the cooling system and, HOLY GUACAMOLE BATMAN!, blocking the fan vent is the thickest, blackest dust cotton I've ever encountered since cleaning my stand fan after 14 months and 27 days ( I exaggerate of course, specifying length of time just sounds theatrical). Cleaning the vents, I  learned a few more things from our friendly neighborhood Google.

1. Use acetone or isopropyl alcohol to remove old thermal grease and thermal tape.
2. Thermal grease is preferred over thermal tape.
3. Applying thermal grease is an art.

Well, after doing all i can to make everybody cool, nada, nilch, nunka. Still no booting.

So back to the Google boards again and searched here and there for answers. Aha, more hypotheses to test:

Hypothesis 3. CMOS battery might be drained - Replace
Hypothesis 4. One component has a short - remove and reboot to see which one affects booting process.
a. If its memory, make sure you have a spare memory card to use or you can put your memory card into another computer.
b. If its the harddisk, try to put the harddisk into  an enclosure and try to see if you can read the contents.