Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Computers?: Asus U46E-BAL5 Repair

I received an Asus U46E-BAL5 from a friend because the hinge mount on the LCD case was damaged due to the LCD screen being closed over a pen or pencil. The computer worked for a few weeks but eventually it stopped working. I advised purchasing a replacement LCD cover from ebay.com here or search. It's expensive at $175, but it's because the cover is made of aluminum. However, the hinge mounts inside the LCD are plastic and break very easily. I would suggest that additional epoxy be placed over the plastic closest to the LCD hinge mounts.

After getting the notebook computer together, it still didn't turn on, so I'm thinking something shorted the motherboard. I've ordered a replacement motherboard part here or search. At the moment, I've got the Asus U46E put back together with the replacement LCD cover, but it's not working yet. More to come as I get parts.

Remove the screws from the bottom of the case, the bay cover, the hard drive, the optical drive, and the top case comes right off.

The Asus U46E CPU fan and heatsink assembly are separate components and are combined together using the black tape. Pull up the tape to disassemble the fan from the heatsink.

The replacement LCD cover came with a LCD connector, but as far as I know the LCD is in good working order, so I kept the original LCD connector on the LCD. The LCD connector on the Asus U46E LCD is attached very tightly, so I left the original connected.

The CPU fan and heatsink assembly was really dusty, so I cleaned it out while I was working on it.

I replaced the stock thermal paste with Arctic Silver 5.

The heatsink over the chipset controller had a thermal pad between the heatsink and the controller. I replaced the thermal pad with a equally thick copper shim and placed Arctic Silver 5 between the controller, copper shim, and the heatsink.