that left my old one for parts and pretty much the only thing of any value to me was the hard drive. mine has a zif/lif connector which i hadn’t ran into before but after doing a little looking around, i found that you could find fairly inexpensive enclosures on ebay (search for ’1.8 ZIF LIF external usb’). from what i understand, some ipod hard drives are zif and others are ide. just make sure you know which one you own before ordering. the person i bought mine from on ebay had both types available.

1.8″ ide drive	1.8″ zif drive

the case that i bought is a hitachi mobile disk case. there really isn’t anything special about it as it is simply a plastic case with a circuit board which converts the connector to mini usb. i purchased it solely based on the plain look and small size. it is only about the size of a credit card (just slightly bigger) which is about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of a standard 2.5″ laptop hard drive in an external enclosure. the plastic seems to be much more sturdy than that of my 2.5″ laptop enclosure which needs replacing badly. that is how the whole idea of looking for an 1.8″ enclosure came to mind. if you can help it, i would try to keep the screwing and unscrew of the case to a minimum to prevent stripping out the plastic threads in the hole as they tend to easily break on enclosures. also do not over tighten them as that will definitely cause damage to the holes.

the case doesn’t come with instructions but installation was a easy and took about 2 minutes. if you have the ability to disassemble an ipod, you will easily be able to figure out how a zif connector works. if you don’t know how to disassemble your dead ipod, just do a quick google search and you’ll find plenty of assistance. the only reason the installation took 2 minutes was because the screws were so small, they were difficult to handle. once it was all buttoned up, i just plugged it in, reformatted the drive and it worked like a charm.

this time i was able to find the manual (Aspire 3620/TravelMate 2420 Series Service Guide). it took quite a while, but i was able to disassemble the laptop using the service manual as it has pretty decent step by step instructions including screw locations. in order to gain access to the processor, almost the entire laptop must be disassembled and the motherboard removed. from there, i was able to remove the heatpipe from the processor and northbridge, clean them and then apply some new arctic silver 5 thermal paste. another thing i noticed was that there was quite a gathering of dust on the heat sink of the heat pipe which certainly can’t help the temps. cleaning that out with an old toothbrush did the trick.

reassembly of the laptop went much quicker than the disassembly phase. it certainly helped that i used a piece of paper and made note of which screws went to what location. acer is one of those manufacturers that uses multiple screw sizes for anything and everything unlike many dells i have come across where there are typically 2-3 types of screws or so for most things. now that i have gotten the laptop back together, i am seeing temps around 50°C with it on my laptop. this seems to be about a 10-15°C drop in temps and the thermal paste hasn’t had any time to cure.

reapplying thermal paste on an older laptop can definitely help out if you are having overheating issues. i would just make sure you know what you are getting yourself into before trying it yourself as some laptops are much more difficult to take apart than others. most manufacturers publish service manuals that can be found online. you just might have to do a bit of digging to find them.