6 ms·

Microsoft Surface Pro Teardown

72 points by dan1234 14y ago

benologist 14y ago
Are there any tablets that are actually easy to repair?
- foohey 14y ago
  This is not only tablets. Every recent hardware is made to not be repairable.
  - benologist 14y ago
    I just tried to replace a hard drive in a mac mini, now it's in the shop getting the fan I broke replaced heh.
  - networked 14y ago
    Recently my Nokia E5 phone had been malfunctioning in a common way for the model that involves the headphone jack [1] and since it was out of warranty I decided to take it apart. What I found inside filled me with a newfound respect for Nokia's engineers. The phone's mainboard attached to the case with just 4 Torx screws and the replaceable modules like the headphone jack module and the LED flesh simply set in small compartments inside the back cover assembly. The modules connected to the mainboard through exposed flat contacts that would be held against similar contacts on the board when the phone was assembled. There were no tiny ribbon cables except for the one connecting the display. Ultimately, I was able to repair the phone by rubbing the PCB contacts that corresponded to the headphone module with an eraser to clean them. I had previously disassembled an HP Palm Pre 2 and it wasn't pretty at all by comparison -- too much double-sided tape inside. With Symbian near dead chances are that my next phone will have a touchscreen, which makes me wonder if many touchscreen phones offer that kind of repairability. [1] The so-called "Select Enhancement" problem. See https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=nokia+e5+select+enhancement https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&#3....
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    For most people its not repairable. Some of us enjoy the challenge.
  - Someone 14y ago
    I think you are somewhat mixing cause and effect. Hardware is more and more made to be small and look good. Replacing a bracket by some glue helps make the package smaller (tip for Apple: make tolerances even smaller, so that batteries fit so tight that you don't even need glue) Also, labour costs are so high (or, alternatively, electronics are so cheap) that there is little pressure to improve repairability and lots of pressure to decrease construction costs (even for stuff made in low wage countries) I think hard-to-repairness mostly comes as a consequence of these. At the other end of the spectrum, Lego and Meccano are cool, but few people would buy stuff made from it.
- mtgx 14y ago
  The Nexus tablets are much easier to repair.
  - josefresco 14y ago
    As well as the Kindle Fire (8/10)
- networked 14y ago
  Well, Chinese brand tablets usually at least aren't held together by an adhesive. You can see a teardown of one here: http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/33614-window-n90-dual-core-ii-teardown-components-internals-w-pictures/ http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/33614-window-n90-dual-core-i.... Use a password from BugMeNot if you aren't registered.
- meaty 14y ago
  ThinkPad X220. Not a "newfangled" tablet, but about the most repairable thing out there and the hardware maintenance manual is 100% available here: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0a60739.pdf http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0...
  - networked 14y ago
    Sadly, it looks like they still have the fan placed underneath the motherboard, a design that has lingered since at least the 2006 ThinkPad X60 (both the tablet and the regular laptop version), meaning that you can't replace or grease the fan without taking much of the laptop apart.
    - JoshTriplett 14y ago
      Given that the vast majority of repairs turn into motherboard replacements (since the motherboard includes pretty much every electronic component and port), making the motherboard more quickly accessible seems higher priority than getting at the fan. Anecdotal evidence: I've gone through multiple keyboard, motherboard, and screen replacements for the last 3 thinkpads I've owned, but never a fan replacement.
    - meaty 14y ago
      Its quite easy to get it out. Took me about 20 minutes on one.
Cushman 14y ago
> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. I dropped my iPhone 5 on a tile floor recently. Looked fine apart from a small scuff on the bevel, but the home button wasn't working. Desperately hoping it was a software problem, I powered off the phone— and then noticed that not only was it not a software problem, but the screen and all of the attached internals had actually popped out of the case and were protruding from one long edge by like half a centimeter. Don't ask me how I missed that on a first inspection. I carefully pressed everything back into place, turned on the phone, and it's been working fine ever since. But yeah... I could deal with some more glue.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I don't know, it kind of sounds like without glue a lot of the kinetic energy from the fall was dropped into popping the phone apart. Were it not able to fail in a reversible fashion like that, there is a chance it could have broken in a worse way. It has always seemed to me that phones with removable batteries that go flying when the phone gets dropped are likely inherently more robust for that reason. Crumple-zones for phones.
  - Cushman 14y ago
    Yeah, I started wondering about that immediately after posting. Not curious enough to try it again, though :)
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    You don't have to use an epoxy that dries as hard as cement. Many glues are springy, which could absorb shock without having to come apart.
- FireBeyond 14y ago
  > We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience...
JDGM 14y ago
I find there's something very satisfying about a photoset like this of such a meticulous disassembly. From the text, the part I found particularly interesting was this: "We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary." I assume they mean "obsolescence", and can see two interpretations: 1. The hardware is assumed to be replaced with a newer flashier model before the battery needs replacing so it doesn't matter that the battery is heavily-glued. 2. Making the battery hard to remove encourages upgrading when the it dies instead of merely installing a replacement. I wonder which the author means, or both, or/and something else? [EDIT: I see I am not the only one for whom this particular phrase jumped out of the text!]
meaty 14y ago
So it's basically a disposable non-repairable piece of landfill fodder. Why do people accept this? Stuff breaks all the time either through accidental damage or otherwise. If it didn't, there wouldn't be literally millions of tech repair shops around. Glue is just fucking lazy poor engineering if you ask me. It's an instant recognition of not being able to produce a durable mechanical modular design. And for that price, they can fuck off as well. At the end of the day you can get a ThinkPad for that which will last literally YEARS (the T61 I'm typing this on is 6 years old in March and still going strong with very little maintenance done).
- skeletonjelly 14y ago
  If you're just realising this now I feel like I have some bad news for you. The whole hardware market (as green as it tries to be) is a big landfill creation machine.
  - meaty 14y ago
    I agree but there is a difference between throwing out parts and assemblies to having to throw an entire unit out due to what could be a failure of a $1 part.
- andrewfelix 14y ago
  I'm still running a seven year old core 2 desktop that periodically requires a new HDD or video card. It runs like a champ, so I agree with you wholeheartedly. Also +1 for passion.
revelation 14y ago
Can someone enlighten me as to why this thing contains an AVR microcontroller? This seems to be a trend; I remember one of the MacBooks had some ARM sidekick, too. Now I don't want to be paranoid, but I generally prefer if the only general purpose computer in my computer is the CPU. It's probably hopeless by now, since every other network, graphics chip and controller runs on some ARM microcontroller variant, but to see them alone on the PCB makes me wonder what their purpose is.
- dan1234 14y ago
  If you're refererring to the Atmel UC256l3U, it's in the same area as other touchscreen components so it could be something to do with them, possibly providing some glue between them and the main processor.
  - joezydeco 14y ago
    I would agree. The Atmel multitouch system seems to involve the other 4 chips in that zone, so this processor is probably working with the output and doing some of the work that a kernel driver would normally do (dejiiter, smoothing, track ID matching) before presenting it to the host.
  - unwind 14y ago
    I would (also) agree. A quick look at the handy product page that iFixit linked to (http://www.atmel.com/devices/atuc256l3u.aspx http://www.atmel.com/devices/atuc256l3u.aspx) shows that the controller has "25 touch channels", as well as supporting Atmel's "QTouch Acquisition" in hardware. As microcontrollers go, it's pretty beefy and would have made a decent computer all by itself not too many years ago. It's a 32-bit CPU running at 50 MHz, sporting 256 KB of flash memory and 32 KB of SRAM. Granted, it's a bit low on memory for a general-purpose computer. Maybe 20 years ago, then. :) It sure has a lot of I/O and other nice peripherals, though.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Not every controller uses ARM. Some use MIPS... :)
- 14y ago

72 points by dan1234 14y ago

benologist 14y ago

Are there any tablets that are actually easy to repair?

foohey 14y ago
This is not only tablets. Every recent hardware is made to not be repairable.
- benologist 14y ago
  I just tried to replace a hard drive in a mac mini, now it's in the shop getting the fan I broke replaced heh.
- networked 14y ago
  Recently my Nokia E5 phone had been malfunctioning in a common way for the model that involves the headphone jack [1] and since it was out of warranty I decided to take it apart. What I found inside filled me with a newfound respect for Nokia's engineers. The phone's mainboard attached to the case with just 4 Torx screws and the replaceable modules like the headphone jack module and the LED flesh simply set in small compartments inside the back cover assembly. The modules connected to the mainboard through exposed flat contacts that would be held against similar contacts on the board when the phone was assembled. There were no tiny ribbon cables except for the one connecting the display. Ultimately, I was able to repair the phone by rubbing the PCB contacts that corresponded to the headphone module with an eraser to clean them. I had previously disassembled an HP Palm Pre 2 and it wasn't pretty at all by comparison -- too much double-sided tape inside. With Symbian near dead chances are that my next phone will have a touchscreen, which makes me wonder if many touchscreen phones offer that kind of repairability. [1] The so-called "Select Enhancement" problem. See https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=nokia+e5+select+enhancement https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&#3....
- orangethirty 14y ago
  For most people its not repairable. Some of us enjoy the challenge.
- Someone 14y ago
  I think you are somewhat mixing cause and effect. Hardware is more and more made to be small and look good. Replacing a bracket by some glue helps make the package smaller (tip for Apple: make tolerances even smaller, so that batteries fit so tight that you don't even need glue) Also, labour costs are so high (or, alternatively, electronics are so cheap) that there is little pressure to improve repairability and lots of pressure to decrease construction costs (even for stuff made in low wage countries) I think hard-to-repairness mostly comes as a consequence of these. At the other end of the spectrum, Lego and Meccano are cool, but few people would buy stuff made from it.
mtgx 14y ago
The Nexus tablets are much easier to repair.
- josefresco 14y ago
  As well as the Kindle Fire (8/10)
networked 14y ago
Well, Chinese brand tablets usually at least aren't held together by an adhesive. You can see a teardown of one here: http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/33614-window-n90-dual-core-ii-teardown-components-internals-w-pictures/ http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/33614-window-n90-dual-core-i.... Use a password from BugMeNot if you aren't registered.
meaty 14y ago
ThinkPad X220. Not a "newfangled" tablet, but about the most repairable thing out there and the hardware maintenance manual is 100% available here: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0a60739.pdf http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/0...
- networked 14y ago
  Sadly, it looks like they still have the fan placed underneath the motherboard, a design that has lingered since at least the 2006 ThinkPad X60 (both the tablet and the regular laptop version), meaning that you can't replace or grease the fan without taking much of the laptop apart.
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    Given that the vast majority of repairs turn into motherboard replacements (since the motherboard includes pretty much every electronic component and port), making the motherboard more quickly accessible seems higher priority than getting at the fan. Anecdotal evidence: I've gone through multiple keyboard, motherboard, and screen replacements for the last 3 thinkpads I've owned, but never a fan replacement.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Its quite easy to get it out. Took me about 20 minutes on one.

Cushman 14y ago

> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. I dropped my iPhone 5 on a tile floor recently. Looked fine apart from a small scuff on the bevel, but the home button wasn't working. Desperately hoping it was a software problem, I powered off the phone— and then noticed that not only was it not a software problem, but the screen and all of the attached internals had actually popped out of the case and were protruding from one long edge by like half a centimeter. Don't ask me how I missed that on a first inspection. I carefully pressed everything back into place, turned on the phone, and it's been working fine ever since. But yeah... I could deal with some more glue.

jlgreco 14y ago
I don't know, it kind of sounds like without glue a lot of the kinetic energy from the fall was dropped into popping the phone apart. Were it not able to fail in a reversible fashion like that, there is a chance it could have broken in a worse way. It has always seemed to me that phones with removable batteries that go flying when the phone gets dropped are likely inherently more robust for that reason. Crumple-zones for phones.
- Cushman 14y ago
  Yeah, I started wondering about that immediately after posting. Not curious enough to try it again, though :)
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  You don't have to use an epoxy that dries as hard as cement. Many glues are springy, which could absorb shock without having to come apart.
FireBeyond 14y ago
> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience...

JDGM 14y ago

I find there's something very satisfying about a photoset like this of such a meticulous disassembly. From the text, the part I found particularly interesting was this: "We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary." I assume they mean "obsolescence", and can see two interpretations: 1. The hardware is assumed to be replaced with a newer flashier model before the battery needs replacing so it doesn't matter that the battery is heavily-glued. 2. Making the battery hard to remove encourages upgrading when the it dies instead of merely installing a replacement. I wonder which the author means, or both, or/and something else? [EDIT: I see I am not the only one for whom this particular phrase jumped out of the text!]

meaty 14y ago

So it's basically a disposable non-repairable piece of landfill fodder. Why do people accept this? Stuff breaks all the time either through accidental damage or otherwise. If it didn't, there wouldn't be literally millions of tech repair shops around. Glue is just fucking lazy poor engineering if you ask me. It's an instant recognition of not being able to produce a durable mechanical modular design. And for that price, they can fuck off as well. At the end of the day you can get a ThinkPad for that which will last literally YEARS (the T61 I'm typing this on is 6 years old in March and still going strong with very little maintenance done).

skeletonjelly 14y ago
If you're just realising this now I feel like I have some bad news for you. The whole hardware market (as green as it tries to be) is a big landfill creation machine.
- meaty 14y ago
  I agree but there is a difference between throwing out parts and assemblies to having to throw an entire unit out due to what could be a failure of a $1 part.
andrewfelix 14y ago
I'm still running a seven year old core 2 desktop that periodically requires a new HDD or video card. It runs like a champ, so I agree with you wholeheartedly. Also +1 for passion.

revelation 14y ago

Can someone enlighten me as to why this thing contains an AVR microcontroller? This seems to be a trend; I remember one of the MacBooks had some ARM sidekick, too. Now I don't want to be paranoid, but I generally prefer if the only general purpose computer in my computer is the CPU. It's probably hopeless by now, since every other network, graphics chip and controller runs on some ARM microcontroller variant, but to see them alone on the PCB makes me wonder what their purpose is.

dan1234 14y ago
If you're refererring to the Atmel UC256l3U, it's in the same area as other touchscreen components so it could be something to do with them, possibly providing some glue between them and the main processor.
- joezydeco 14y ago
  I would agree. The Atmel multitouch system seems to involve the other 4 chips in that zone, so this processor is probably working with the output and doing some of the work that a kernel driver would normally do (dejiiter, smoothing, track ID matching) before presenting it to the host.
- unwind 14y ago
  I would (also) agree. A quick look at the handy product page that iFixit linked to (http://www.atmel.com/devices/atuc256l3u.aspx http://www.atmel.com/devices/atuc256l3u.aspx) shows that the controller has "25 touch channels", as well as supporting Atmel's "QTouch Acquisition" in hardware. As microcontrollers go, it's pretty beefy and would have made a decent computer all by itself not too many years ago. It's a 32-bit CPU running at 50 MHz, sporting 256 KB of flash memory and 32 KB of SRAM. Granted, it's a bit low on memory for a general-purpose computer. Maybe 20 years ago, then. :) It sure has a lot of I/O and other nice peripherals, though.
tedunangst 14y ago
Not every controller uses ARM. Some use MIPS... :)
14y ago