Dell :: Studio 14z 1440 Disassembly And Bluetooth

I thought I'd post this in a new thread instead of replying to my other one since the disassembly pictures could be helpful to people.

Right off, in my other thread I mentioned that Dell told me there were 2 rev's of motherboards (one if you order through the Home portal and a different one if you order through the Small Biz portal), and that the Home rev doesn't support Bluetooth (or WWAN, which is why these things didn't show up for me as options when ordering the laptop). So this morning I took the thing apart to see for myself.

Conclusion - From what I can tell, it appears that any 14z has a full size mini-PCI slot (for WWAN), a half-height mini-PCI slot (for wireless networking), and the mini plug necessary to install the Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth mini-card. Dell support is a bunch of morons.

Steps to disassemble:

1) Remove battery. Here is what the computer looks like with the batter removed.

2) Remove keyboard trim ring. This is totally held in by plastic snaps (yuk...I seem to have an easy time breaking these if not careful). If you flip the laptop upside down and look under where the battery goes, you can see a could of little tabs that show through. You can use a small flathead screwdriver to pop these loose from the backside.

Then flip the laptop keyboard up and carefully work your way around the rest of the trim ring until you have it totally loose.

keyboard cover removed.jpg .....