Replacing a Laptop Battery

[j.a.f.e.]

My YouTube laptop battery died. The laptop is several years old and has some battle scars but I like it and it's in good shape so I'll replace it. It's actually a very easy job the two hardest parts are opening the case without breaking anything and figuring out which battery you need and there is a bewildering number of choices all but one of which are wrong. 

There is a 6 picture limit per post I can embed so this will be in several parts.

The new battery. This is a fancy one. Comes in a printed box, has a manual and a couple small screwdrivers. The HP OEM battery is not available for it in the time frame I have so I went aftermarket.

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The tools to open the case - I got fancy and ordered them with the battery. It was less than $10 for the set and I decided to try them. I have a tool like the large black one on the right and it turned out to be the best tool for this job.

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One of the battle scars - I admit it - I dropped it. More than once.

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There are eight screws on this one. Like just about every other laptop some or all are covered by something else. Two are visible and the other six are hidden under the rubber foot pads. Usually there's a label somewhere hiding one or two screws I got lucky.

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Taking off the foot pads is easy but they tend to stretch. I'm replacing these so I wasn't too careful about stretching them.

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HP was very nice on this. There are six screws M2 x 6 and two screws M2.5 x 6. They are marked on the case and the screws are different finishes.

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[j.a.f.e.]

The batteries can swell when they go bad. I suspected this one did and spoiler it was just starting to. It wasn't too bad yet but once they start it's a disaster waiting to happen if you keep using them.

Its hard to see in the pic but there is a little bulging on case at the left side of the touchpad. The battery is under the touchpad and extends to the left side of the case.

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I start at the front and work around the perimeter. It's similar to using tire spoons on a tire.

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The case opened and we get a full frontal view of the battery. There are only five screws holding it in.

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The battery removed and looking for swelling. The new battery is on the bottom and there is slight swelling on the old one.

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The connector is simple to unplug/plug.

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[j.a.f.e.]

Reinstalling the new battery can be a little tricky. In this unit there is one alignment pin but there can be more and they're easy to to not see.

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Properly seated and waiting for screws. Then the case just snaps together.

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The new footpads. Again there are often many choices and it's easy to order the wrong ones. But they are very inexpensive - I think these were around $8.

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This one has two different thicknesses of strips.

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And done! No more bulging case and I can run it unplugged again.

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[skfarmer]

cool topic. so many things designed to be tossed that can be fixed if one goes through the effort and can find/get the correct parts.

[j.a.f.e.]

I don't like tossing stuff but then I grew up where you bought stuff once.

Stuff like batteries, memory, and even the SSD are easy to source if you can identify what the correct replacement is - that can be the hardest part, at least for me.

[j.a.f.e.]

I don't like tossing stuff but then I grew up where you bought stuff once.

Stuff like batteries, memory, and even the SSD are easy to source if you can identify what the correct replacement is - that can be the hardest part, at least for me.

[goodfellow]

I have a really great 2015 Vintage MACBook Pro that needs to have that service as well. It wouldn't run the upgraded MAC OS, therefore I installed Linux Mint on it several years ago and it runs great. I want to change the old HD over to an SSD, upgrade the memory to 8GB RAM, and change the battery while I'm in there.

Thanks for the tutorial JAFE!!!

[j.a.f.e.]

Hope it inspired you Goodfellow but I suspect you're way ahead of me. Pix would be great when you do it.

I like Mint too. Too bad they dropped KDE.