Disassembly of the NEC Z1 for motherboard/CPU access
I fought this and gave up several times, but finally had to knuckle down and "crack the case". It's amazingly simple once you have the magic key.
USE THIS ADVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK- UNPLUG THE PC AND ALL THE NORMAL SAFETY STUFF YOU NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO
At the top rear of the unit, push the screen latch to the left while pulling up on the screen unit
Slide the LCD screen up and off of the unit
Now, the magic key; the flat gray front panel slides up. Pull up on the cover using the top of the openings as shown
If it doesn't want to move, you may try nudging at the left and right corner with a small screwdriver until it starts to move up
A picture of what you're trying to accomplish is shown below - note the hooks on the back of the gray cover to the left.
A close-up of the hooks and holes
With the gray cover set aside, remove the three front case screws
Turn the unit around and lift up on the cover latch to remove the outer cover
Inside the back outer cover you'll see three more case screws you need to remove.
After removing the outer cover, you'll see the RF shielding. Remove the two fan screws as shown
On the left side of the unit there are two shield screws to remove
And two more on the right side (show already removed here)
You now have the case open. This Z1 had begun making constant loud fan noise and shutting down very frequently. As suspected, there was a huge amount of dust built up in the case, power supply, and CPU fan. I held the blades of the fans in place and blew everything out with a 90psi compressor, put it all back together, and it's running fine.
RF shield removed, shows with base also removed.
The hard drive is under the base of the unit and very easy to get to. Let me know if you need pictures and I'll post them.
Good luck!
Copyright 2007, Michael Huebener, Inc.