Laptop Assembly | laptop body parts and hardware components
This page describes Laptop body parts used during laptop assembly. It also mentions hardware components of a laptop used in laptop parts manufacturing.
Introduction:
The laptop is a computer designed to be portable with flat screen and lighter in weight.
A laptop can be lapped while desktop cannot be lapped.
It consists of hardware and software.
Hardware is any physical device which can be touched and can be moved from one place to the another. Examples of hardware laptop components are motherboard, CPU, memory, I/O (e.g. keyboard and screen) etc.
Software includes system softwares, application softwares and operating system. Operating system is interface between user/application and computer hardware. It performs all the tasks such as file management, memory or process management, input/output handling, control of peripheral devices such as disk drives, printers etc. Examples of operating systems are MS-Windows, Apple MAC-OS, Linux etc.
Functions of Laptop parts and components
Based on the make of the laptop viz. Microsoft, HP, Dell,Lenovo, LG, SONY, ASUS the parts or components vary inside the laptop. Following table mentions common laptop parts with their functions.
Let us understand functions of various laptop body parts and its hardware components.
| Laptop part | Label (as in figure-1) | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Display | "A" | It works as output device which is used to display output to the user in desired format. It is similar to monitor used in desktop PC. The display are available in two types viz. touch screen based and non touch screen type. |
| Hinge cover | "B" | It protects the hinge from outside damage. Hinges are used to connect two solid objects which are laptop base and laptop display screen. Hinges help user to rotate the display screen for ease of viewing till maximum supported angle as per design. |
| Keyboard | "C" | It works as input device. It is used to provide data or commands to the laptop for further processing by OS. There are different types of keyboard as per the layout of keys, shape and size. |
| Palm rest | "D" | It provides support to mount or fix keyboard, touchpad and base panel along with other hardware components. It helps user to keep palm on it in order to operate keyboard keys as well as touchpad with fingers. Moreover it prevents inside of laptop from external dust, water and other unavoidable things. |
| System board | "E" | It is the main board which houses CPU, GPU, RAM, ROM, hard drive slot, cooling fan, CD drive, battery, chip antenna and connectivity for various ports (USB, HDMI, Ethernet, Power port) and so on. It is also known as "motherboard" of the laptop. |
| Optical drive | "F" | It uses laser light or EM waves for reading/writing of data to or from optical discs. It allows reading/writing at very high speed than normal CDs. |
| Main Battery | "G" | It is used to provide power to the laptop when AC supply is not available. Based on the type of battery (i.e. Li-Ion, NiCad, NiMH), different periods of power backup can be used by the user. Common battery voltages available are 10.8V, 11.1V or 14.8V. |
| Laptop base | "H" | It provides positions to mount laptop parts which can be mother board, hard drive, RAM, Fan, Battery, CD drive and so on. It makes the system look beautiful. |
| Hard drive | "I" | It is used for data storage. They are of two types viz. HDD (Hard disk drive) and SSD (Solid State Drive). SSD offers fast access time which is about 0.1 ms than HDD (5.5 to 8.0 ms). SSDs have average I/O wait of 1% than HDD of about 7%. SSDs consume 2 to 5 Watts than HDDs which consume 6 to 15 Watts. |
| Speakers | "J" | It is used to produce sound waves. It is used to listen music or audio files or video. Laptop speaker supports volume control (either up or down). |
| Microprocessor or CPU | "L" | It works with operating system installed in order to control the laptop computer. It functions as brain of the laptop. It produces lot of heat. |
| Microprocessor thermal cooling assembly | "K" | It is used to maintain temperature inside the laptop. The small fans, heat sinks, heat spreaderd or heat pipes are used to dissipate heat from CPU. Some laptop models use liquid coolant kept in channels alongside the heat pipe for the same purpose. Some laptop CPUs are mounted near the edge of the unit so that heat is driven out of the laptop directly into the air. |
| Fan | "M" | It is used to maintain the temperature of the CPU as well as inside of the laptop body parts. |
Table-1
Following figure-2 depicts ASUS laptop assembly parts with model Fx504.
As shown it shows four ports on the right side and wifi SoC on the left side. Battery (11.4 V) is mounted on bottom left where as Seagate HDD is on bottom right. Two fans with heatsink assembly is mouted on top side across the motherboard.
Other hardware components of a laptop
Following table mentions other laptop hardware components with their functions.
| Hardware components | Functions |
|---|---|
| WiFi SoC and WiFi Antenna | It is embedded on wifi SoC itself. The WiFi provides wireless lan connectivity for users in the office or home premises. With wifi more than one users can share the single broadband internet connection simultaneously. WiFi is based on IEEE 802.11 standards which include 11b/a/g/n/ac/ax. The different versions of wifi support different range and data rates. They are mainly used for high throughput internet browsing usually at fixed locations. |
| Cellular SoC and antenna | It is embedded on cellular SoC itself. The common cellular ICs are based on 4G LTE and 5G NR standards which are based on 3GPP specifications. The laptop based on cellular SoCs are usually expensive. They are mainly used for very high download and upload data throughputs during travel (or in motion). |
| Eye Tracking Sensor | It is usually built in the bottom part of the display screen. It consists of cameras, projectors and algorithms. It determines data about user, his/her presence, attention (i.e. gaze point) and focus, position of eye and his/her pulil size. Refer benefits of Eye Tracking Technology >>. |
| NFC technology | It has evolved from RFID. NFC is the short form of Near Field Communication. It allows laptop notebook to share content with NFC enabled mobile phones, tablets or other laptop PCs. |
| Fingerprint sensor or reader | The fingerprint reader allows authentication of laptop user. The sensor uses scanned image of fingerprint to verify his/her authenticity. The image is pre-stored by the laptop owner or user. It offers better security compare to username/password method. |
| Bluetooth IC | The bluetooth is ubiquitous wireless technology which offers wireless data transmission between laptop and other wireless peripherals such as keywboard, mouse, speaker and so on. These peripherals also need to support bluetooth to pair with laptop. It benefits laptop users as it helps to get rid of wired USB devices. |
Table-2
Conclusion: Above tables are very useful for laptop disassembly, laptop debugging and laptop assembly processes. It helps one understand which laptop part to debug first during troubleshooting to resolve the issue. Many different types of sensors are evolving which offer benefits to human beings by integration in smart devices such as laptop, tablet, mobile phones, watches and so on.
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