The lovely people at Samsung have managed to let the battery in my laptop (SF310) die exactly 1 year after manufacture (as it is a “consumable part lasting 12 months”).

Of course this is where I discover that the battery is totally built in, so I have to take the laptop apart to get to it 😳

I have located all the screws on the back (I assume I have to take all of those out), but I’m not sure how much force it should take to lift the back cover off? it seems to be stuck where the ports are (esp. the one for an external monitor). Any recommendations welcome 🙂

What is the model number? Google that and ‘battery replacement’ and I bet you there are 20 websites with guidance and at least one YouTube video of how to do it.

I believe they also have a Facebook page with real people ready to answer questions.

you might need to slide a credit card between the case halves and twist it to part them.

Cougar’s around, he’ll be in here in a tick with advice. He’s a sucker for a damsel in PC distress 😉

TooTall, it’s a SF310 and I have googled for ages, but the only thing I found was a YouTube 20sec video trying to sell me a maintenance manual 👿

Thanks for the tip with the credit card, hopefull the card would break before something important inside the laptop breaks…

Make sure there isn’t an extra screw hidden under the hdd/memory cover.

Unfortunately there’s no ‘standard’ way of stripping a laptop. Sometimes the base comes away, sometimes you need to go in through the keyboard.

A 30 second Google didn’t reveal any insights for me either. The best generic advice I can give is to be patient and take your time, and try and keep a track of where all the screws go as there may be different sizes.

Have you actually got a replacement battery?

Where are you geographically?

ODD will be to slide out the whole DVD drive so do that 1st.

Also remove the HDD cover and look for more screws. You may need to remove the HDD.

There is also often screws down from under the keyboard which normally pop out easily but watch out for the ribbon cables as they are easily damaged, especially the connector clips.

oh and around the ports you often just have to distort the case off them as it clips over them tightly for support.

What an oddity – one of the few non-Apple laptops to hve a built in battery. Which means there doesn’t seem to be an after-market version of the battery, so you need to send it back to Samsung. I’d not go any further in case you invalidate anything else.

Thank you, guys – I forgot to mention that Samsung offered to swap out the battery for me, but it would take 7 working days, and as I work for myself using that laptop, I struggle to find 7 working days when I can be without it 🙁

Therefore they sent me a replacement battery and said I could swap it myself… now I can picture them laughing their heads off!

I thought at first it would be as easy as the Apple Mac thingies where you can replace the built in battery yourself, but it’s a real pain to try and get the cover off this one 😕

As I’m not an expert, I doubt whether I would be able to reassemble any bits that I disconnect accidentally – might have to wait until I can spare the laptop for 7 days and just stay near a socket until then!