Toshiba Portege R835 Keyboard Repair and Upgrade

A Toshiba Portege R835 keyboard was having issues with the "A" key. When attempting to fix the key, I pulled off the "A" key and readjusted the rubber actuator for the "A" key. This made the situation WORSE. Not recommended. This resulted in the purchase of a NEW Toshiba Portege R835 keyboard.

Originally, I thought that the Portege R835 was well built, but after replacing the keyboard, I take it back. Why? THE KEYBOARD IS GLUED ON. What a mess. Taking off the keyboard damaged the original keyboard.

Follow these the instructions here on forums.toshiba.com to replace the Toshiba Portege R835. Additionally, I recommend using a hairdryer or a heat gun to loosen up the glue to remove the keyboard. WARNING, the keyboard will get very HOT.

Additional upgrades and mods

See specifications here:

• Intel® Core™ i5-2435M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.00 GHz)
• 4GB memory (8GB max)
• 640GB HDD
• DVD SuperMulti drive
• 13.3" TruBrite TFT 1366x768
• WIDI ready

For help disassembling your Toshiba Portege R835, follow this link.

On top of replacing the keyboard, the following upgrades were performed:

• Mechanical HDD was replaced with SSD
• Clean off heatsink and fan assembly
• CPU thermal compound replaced with Arctic Silver 5
• Replaced optical drive with 2nd HDD caddy

First flip the Toshiba Portege R835 over and pull off the battery. Then, remove all the bay covers.

Underneath the narrow long bay closest to the batter is a missing port. This is where a the docking port would be. Not sure what connector would fit it, but I THINK it's the 100pin JAE Electronics WD2F100WB3AR300:

The hard drive can be replaced with a 2.5" SSD.

To the right of the memory slot, there is an unused ribbon cable slot. I'm not sure what it's used for yet.

Typical of most laptops, the chipset controller is uncooled.

On removing the bottom case, I found that the fan is NOT part of the heatsink, in fact it's attached separately. The fan was mostly clean, so a simple cleaning was performed.

Note the half height miniPCIe WIFI card with 2 antennas (Intel Centrino 112BNHMW Wireless-N 1000). This can be replaced with a different Wi-Fi adapter.

To the left of the Intel Centrino 112BNHMW Wireless-N 1000 is a space for a ribbon cable. Not sure what it's for yet, bit it's interesting.

Replace the stock thermal compound on Intel Core i5-2435M with Arctic Silver 5.

Over the chipset controller, place a thermal pad and a 20mm x 20mm x 0.5mm copper shim.