HP 2133 Mini-Note Dissection
I felt a little daring tonight so I took apart most of the Mini-Note and took some pics along the way. Enjoy:
Mini-Note with the keyboard off
Keyboard and top shell off
CPU and North Bridge Heatsink
South Bridge
North Bridge
Empty!
Underside of motherboard
PCI Express Chipset I think
Backside of wireless card
Frontside of wireless card
And finally the money shot:
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:54 am
Do you think it’d be feasible to replace the fan with a slightly larger and slower one? I have the same MiniNote as you, the 1.6 GHz one, and the fan is constantly on.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 am
I hope you were able to put it back together.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
lol, yeah it’s back in one piece…it took a few tries though
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
you be almost famous!
http://www.small-laptops.com/
May 24th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Curious, how did you get the top shell off?
I was tinkering with mine earlier after seeing this, I removed the only two screws that I could see holding it after removing the keyboard. I dared not go any farther after that, it didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
You need to pull the rubber feet off and get the four screws there. Be careful because they’re actually attached by thin rubber piece to the inside of the case.
Also the front right screw (the one on the express slot side) is a pretty tricky to get back in, lol. I’m not sure if it needs to be removed to open the top though, so try it w/o taking that one out.
Once you get the screws up, open the top back up and grab on of the corners by the screen and work your way around.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Thanks for the nearly instant reply Josh!
May 24th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
So before I get too brave and do take mine apart, I’ll tell you what I was thinking the other day.
I’ve got some Antec Formula5 thermal paste. Using it in systems where I’d previously used the paste that came with the processor resulted in a nice drop in CPU temp.
I was wondering if it might not be benificial for the Mini-note as well?
Did you use a similar paste when you reassembled yours? If so do you have any impressions?
I’ve made sure and had mine warmed up and recorded CPU temps to compile a program. Planned to recompile the same one with the new thermal paste and see if there was any difference.
I’ve got all the screws out, just not brave enough to crack the top shell off of there yet.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
@sparky
Hehe, just caught me at the right time
I really wanted to try some new thermal paste as well, but didn’t have any. I just carefully scraped it back in a pile on the heatsink with the flathead screw driver on my pocket knife :/
It probably wouldn’t hurt to try it out. I’d do it if I had some… I would love to see the results either way.
Just out of curiosity, what temps are you getting right now? SpeedFan is reporting around 55c for me.
@mikael jannson
It seems like a pretty tight fit… I don’t know if you could get anything bigger in there.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
@Josh
It ranges depending on what’s going on.
I’ve seen it idle as low as 47 (unusual) normally around 56C or so. Running Ubuntu and Enlightenment – e17 window manager.
When I compiled the program it ran up to 72C.
Using the Antec paste dropped the temp of the computer I’m using right now from idling in the lower 40sC to idling in the upper 20s C. 33C right now as I’m using it. I figured it couldn’t hurt, that is, if I can successfully disassemble and reassemble my Mini-note!
May 24th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
They put waaaayyy too much thermal paste on the CPU. There should only be a very thin layer of paste on there. That is a ridiculous amount of paste on there, that would actually hinder cooling.
Thermal paste is designed to fill in the tiny microscopic indentations on the surface of the CPU die and heatsink that causes air pockets between the heatsink and CPU die, so only a tiny tiny amount is needed, it’s not supposed to be slathered on there like that. Too much and the heatsink and die won’t make proper contact and it will run hotter than it should.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Ok, so I got brave this AM, thanks for the pointers Josh.
I dissasembled far enough to remove the heat sink/fan unit and clean up the CPU and north bridge with some rubbing alcohol after carefully removing the paste.
I put a THIN coat of the new paste on and rebooted. Previously after boot the computer was at 59C and cooled off a bit at idle. This time it booted up at 40C and is climbing to 44C at idle. Wow!
Looks like it’s up to 66C while compiling the same program. 6C cooler than previously.
I’ll report back what it’s like under normal usage but seems encouraging.
May 25th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Well, now that I’ve run it a few hours and compiled the program again, I’m not seeing any gain from the new thermal paste.
It’s running the same as stock. So I’d say it’s not worth the effort.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Hi all,
I need a BIG help!!!!
I have just received my HP 2133.
Unfortunately the LCD was damaged. I´m in Brazil now and can´t get help at HP support.
Where can i buy a new LCD??
Sds
Roney Gomes
roneygomes (at ) gmail.com
Admin edit: if you know where please post a comment here or in this thread on the forums: http://www.hp2133guide.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=148
May 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
How hard do you think it will be to replace the wireless card with a 802.11n version? Any recommendations?
May 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Thank you for the dissection!
I was looking at the site to download the drivers from VIA (http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action), and I wasn’t sure what driver packages I needed to download, since they were listed by chip numbers.
Suse’s built-in ‘Hardware Info’ screen didn’t help. I ended up googling for “hp 2133 south bridge” and found this page, and I could clearly read the North/South bridge chip numbers CN896 and VT8237S. Now I have downloaded the correct open source drivers from VIA for the graphics and IDE devices, and will try to build .deb’s from them.
David
May 31st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Does anybody know if the C7-M can be upgraded to the new 64 bit L2100 CPU? Where would I buy the new CPU?
May 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Technically the Nano and C7-M are interchangeable, but you need special equipment to get the CPU off the board. VIA uses Ball Grid Array soldering which needs special equipment to do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array
June 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
to make the 2133 30c or more cooler
simply remove the inside grill on the side with a screwdriver.
airflow increases by 60-70%
my temps went down to 35c-40c
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Hi…the ven grid can be removed from outside without open de mini note? please help…
this is a wondwrfull machin under xp, the only issue is the heat and the fan working all the time.
Sorry for my bad english.
July 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
This site is probably to far above me but maybe someone can tell me. My music (i tunes as well as my own recorded music) is skipping on my 2133. They did not on my Pavilion. Why is this? Is there any way of fixing it? Thanks for any info.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
my did not come with Bluetooth, how do I get up and be the same as the original?
September 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Hey, i m hitting 85c when this little dude is up and running, and if i am listening to something (winamp for example) i hear some cranky sound (thats a SIGN) if i run qip1 and qip2 (yes i m using 2 qips becouse i need my presonal profile and company profile) my little dude will just hook on and he need a reboot : (
the event log is clear, so its just me with this problem ?
October 5th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I am definitely interested in taking off that damn mesh as well. How exactly did you do it? Did you have to take of the top shelf as well as I dont know if im willing to go that far. Just upgraded RAM and it was very easy to do. Want to now get those temps down to reasonable.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:26 am
I’d be glad to have a photo of the grill where ever it was before you removed it to increase the cooling.
I think that every 2133 owner will then do it!
January 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
@jds
What you’re looking for is plastic mesh that goes behind the actual vent openings on the case. And there are three total – one on the side and two on the bottom. The bottom ones you’ll have to take the whole thing apart to get at. I guess the side one can be removed by sticking a small screw driver in there and pulling it out. I took my apart to get to the other two, so I just removed it then though…
I think I saw somewhere the newer versions 2133’s don’t have them any more though.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 am
I actually went as far as to get rid of the vent grills, changed the thermal paste to ‘Arctic Silver 5′, replaced the OEM 120GB 5400RPM HDD with a 100GB 7200RPM HDD and finally, I took the mini entirely apart and drilled a hole ‘grid’ in the cut-outs on the inside of the bottom casing as you can see in the ‘Empty’ picture.
After all of that the temps seem to be pretty stable at around 40 – 50C idle and up to around 60 – 65C when surfing the web with Firefox, listening to music and writing up a small doc. When I first got the mini it would idle at around 60 – 65C so I consider this a decent temp drop…You just have to be brave(or dumb
) enough to completely void the warranty and take a chance at ruining your mini in the name of modding 
- danrel
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hello everyone!
Can someone tell me if the 1.6 Ghz VIA procesor can be replaced??? Thanks
March 6th, 2009 at 8:10 am
From Feb 2009 all 2133s are shipping without these plastic grille vents. It looks like it’s a good time to buy, as the price is down and the only real problem issue solved. My 2133 certainly runs cooler now than my old hp dv1000 laptop.
Perhaps HP took advice from the brave modders on this site!!
April 21st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
thanks for this guide, it gave me the confidence to dismantle my lads 2133 and remove the plastic mesh from inside also upgrading the ram and hard drive while i was in there. A+++++
April 24th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I am considering purchasing the hp2133. I am questioning if the speed is fast enough to do what I need to do. There haven’t been any comments about the 800ghz being slow.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
hi…got a 2133 and some functions keys are not working…how can i fix this without a tech to help me out? The fn is not working and so is the ctrl key at the left…ctrl key at the right side functions well…one thing also….the booting time really takes 3min…have already change the start up prgs but nothing had changed…
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Do you think that the white protuding catch at the back of 2133 for the battery can be removed?
June 8th, 2009 at 2:47 am
With regards to the upgrading to N-Wireless (Paul, 30th May); I solved that problem by simply removing the wireless card and getting a USB N-Wireless adapter. I realise that it can simply be disabled in the BIOS, but found that the wireless card still drew a little power in that state(Figured I want to squeeze as much battery juice as I can working remote)