Use a #1 Philips, Refrigerator Magnet, During Disassembly

A few months ago just upgrading the memory was daunting. Now I am replacing hard drives!

A #1 Philips screwdriver works well on the panel and case screws; it's hard to find a #1 by itself, but Radio Shack has an under $7 set of flat and Philips screwdrivers sized just for netbook work.

A magnet is a mixed blessing. Our screwdrivers are supposed to be NON magnetic so we don't disturb anything electronic (I don't know what would get messed up by the mild strength of a magnetized screwdriver, but I'm not taking chances ... yet) but a magnet, just a refrigerator magnet, is a great place to put the screws you remove so you don't lose them. On several occasions I've had screw bounce off the kitchen counter onto the floor. I found all of them...but one...my harddrive carrier now has 3 instead of 4 screws, don't make the same mistake!

When you remove anything, make sure you note and remember whether screw tabs go over or under, same with wires, and remember order of disassembly.

Fortunately netbooks are electronic widgets and not grandfather clocks or aircooled VW's, so there really aren't many thing you have to unscrew to to significant replacements and upgrades (upgrade memory, replace HD with SSD, add mini PCIe video accelerator card).

If you order a Broadcom Crystal HD BCM70012 card, ask for mounting post screws!

 

I'm an ISCET certified electronics technician, senior level (8+ years field experience) and I've been using magnetized screwdrivers around electronics for over 30 years without a problem. The only exception was working around magnetized tape (cassette, reel to reel, VCR, etc) but that's all pretty much went the way of the dodo bird. All my workbenches have an old magnet knock off a speaker hanging on the pegboard just so it's handy to magnetize screwdrivers and tweezers. I also use an old tape head demagnetizer to demagnetize the tweezers because sometimes you don't want stuff sticking to it when you release it

It's high voltage static electricity that is your enemy, not low intensity magnetic fields ... If magnetic fields were a problem anything with a transformer or coil would be dangerous which includes about every AC transformer and wall wart out there

 

Thanks for confirming my netbook is, in fact, magnet safe. Now I will magnetize my screwdriver so I don't lose as many screws....

Yeah, I knew about the static issue...but thanks for reminding, I should have mentioned it.