Recently I noticed that the laptop's main cooling fan was ramping up to it's highest (and loudest) speed during processor intensive activities such as encoding videos for this site.

I thought that this could be an early sign of a dust clogged heat sink, which would eventually lead to processor overheating.

The laptop never seems to overheat while it's on top of the Antec Laptop Cooler, but I didn't want to risk it overheating when I travel without the cooling pad. So I decided to completely take it apart to clean out all the dust.

First, I laid down an old t-shirt to protect the laptop lid from scratching and removed the Li-Ion battery.

(If you live in a static prone environment, be sure to wear an anti-static wristband.)

Put them aside somewhere safe away from liquids or static electricity prone surfaces.

Next remove the one small screw that holds the DVD-RW/CD-RW multi drive in place.

I had trouble getting the drive to slide out, so I used a paper clip to manually eject the DVD/CD tray and pulled the drive out of the laptop body.

Fifteen of the screws are the same size and two are slightly smaller.

Double check to make sure that you got all of the screws out before you continue.

There's nothing worse than trying to open up the case of a delicate electronic device without realizing that one screw is still holding it together.

Don't rush and be gentle or you will break the strip or cause damage to your computer's speakers.

Start by inserting a small flat headed screwdriver in between the keyboard strip and the laptop.

They are about half an inch back from the side of the laptop. Once you get the strip popped up on both sides, fold the laptop's LCD screen back all the way.

Then lift up the keyboard strip from the rear of the laptop towards yourself.

Take them off and then carefully lift the keyboard until you can access the keyboard connecting cable.

This type of connector has a lock that must be raised on each side before the cable can be removed.

I used a pair of tweezers to pry up the locking mechanism.

If you use a screwdriver instead, be very careful to not scratch or gouge the motherboard.

Then unscrew the four screws on the front side of the laptop that hold the screen to the lower half of the computer.

They can just be lifted out with tweezers or you can pry them out with a flat head screwdriver. 

I forgot to disconnect the audio connectors and had to stop my attempt to separate the top and bottom halves of the case.

It took me a few tries to get it apart.

I decided to dig a bit deeper into the motherboard by removing the cooling fan housing.

To reassemble my Toshiba Satellite A105, I reversed the steps above.

At first, the laptop wouldn't boot up. If this happens to you, don't panic.

Many times you just need to reseat the RAM chips.

After I reseated the RAM modules, the computer booted up and ran perfectly with a breeze of cool air flowing freely out of the side.

It took a lot of work to complete this procedure but it was worth the effort to keep my laptop performing well and extend it's useful life for a few more years.