How to replace the Inspiron 1525 Coin-cell CMOS battery

If you’re a Dell Inspiron 1525 owner, replacing the coin-cell battery all by yourself is a quite hard work than the other models. Here is the full procedure. But still it doesn’t requires any advanced prior hardware knowledge, that means it is harder than the other models, but not that harder either.

1. A Phillips screw driver

2. A small flat blade screw driver

3. Plastic scribe

4. Dell documentation of internal hardware map.

5. A pen

6. A paper sheet

7. Plane surface

8. CMOS battery( type:CR2032)

9. A lot of patience

1.       Every time you take any of the screws, put it on the paper sheet, and mark it by a pen.

1.       Stick the paper sheet with glue on the plane surface. This will help you to mark the screws that you took out of your laptop, so that you can put them back in the right order.

2.       Disconnect the AC power adapter cord.

3.       Turn your laptop off. And take the battery out of the battery bay just by pushing the battery latch, and pulling the battery out.

4.       Take out all the SD card, pen drives, USB hubs, express card etc.

5.       Open the lid of your laptop and press the power button a few times for 5 sec.( This will drain out the power inside)

6.       Print out the dell documentation, or if you have any other internet device, you can just watch the documentation from there.

1.       Close the lid of your laptop and turn it upside down.

2.       Take out the two screws securing the hard drive. Pull the hard drive out of the laptop casing.

1.       Take out the eight screws located around the Microsoft sticker, and take over the cover from left to right.

2.       The memory module is located exactly under where the Microsoft sticker was located on the cover. Use your index finger and the thumb to remove the lock around the two terminals of the memory module; it will jump automatically after you remove the lock. Then push the module out of the lock at an angle around 45 degree.

3.       After that, there is another module located right under. The same procedure. Remove the lock pull the module out of it.  

1.       Take out the two screws located at the battery bay.

2.       Open the lid of your laptop, as far as it would open.

3.       Take the plastic scribe. And push it inside the opening located at the right side of your media control keys, and an angle of 45 degree. Don’t try to use it as a liver, just push it inside at the angle.

4.       Take the board carefully from right to left. There are a lot of plastic locks inside. So when you turn the board out, there will be some particle breaking noises. Don’t pull the board too high from the laptop casing as the media control boarding connector (the ribbon wire which is connected to the system board) may get torn apart.

5.       After you took the board, just place it carefully on the LCD carefully and concentrate on the media board connector. There is two part of the lock, one is white in color, and the other is black. The black parts and located on each side of the white part. They black part is the lock. You have to pull a little the black part away from the white part, on the both side on the same time. Be extremely careful with the lock. Refer to the diagram in the dell documentation. The ribbon wire connector will come out. Separate the media control board.

6.       Take out the two screws securing to keyboard, located around the F3 and F12 key. Notice the two temporary join lock by side of the Del and esc key.

7.       Pull the key board slightly upward, keeping one side of the board (where the spacebar is located) touched with the ground (laptop casing).

8.       After getting rid of those temporary join locks, look under the spacebar, there is the keyboard connector ribbon wire. To disconnect it, just touch the black plate with your index finger on its middle part and try to take the side (which is away from you, and not joined to the white part) up, the ribbon will come out. Refer to the documentation.

Step 4: Getting Inside (Palm rest, system board)

1. After the keyboard is removed the whole palm rest platform will appear. Dell recommends removing the display assembly before removing the palm rest, but you can ignore that, I didn’t removed that. But you need to take extra care while working your laptop with closed lid, or underneath the laptop. Remove the two screws on the upper side of the board. Close the lid and take your laptop upside down. There’s a screw located (refer to the dell guide) around the mini card. All other screws are located on the edges, including the display screws marked as D (also need to be taken out) Take them out. There is another screw that needs to be removed which is located in front of the display at the left corner (not the other two display hinge screws please refer to the diagram). Before you remove the palm rest you need to disconnect all the ribbon wires and wires that went underneath the laptop. To do that disconnect the display connector, the touch pad ribbon connector, then the LED display connector (Just above the touch pad). You may have problems with the ribbon connectors. Don’t get confused. Just follow the procedure when you disconnected the media control board ribbon connector. At the middle of those speakers there’s a channel through what a bunch of wires went underneath the laptop. You need to take them out over the system board. Before pooling it, be sure nothing is connected to any of those mini cards. And don’t just pull them out. Refer the diagram please. Now the palm rest is ready to be taken out. Take it out from left to right (Don’t pull too hard, if you suffer resistance, just try to do the rest with patience, and find out the resistance). You may get it stuck near the optical drive casing, just take it from left to right, all will be right.

2. Now to system board is clearly visible. Dell recommends taking out the processor cooling system and the processor, but you don’t need to disassemble the processor.

3. Now to we need to work a little underneath the laptop. I’ll recommend that make an angle of 90 degree between the display and the system board, instead of closing the lid. Then make the laptop lying on its display assembly. Take the screws of the processor cooling system one by one (Yup. One by one and of course sequentially) (Refer to the diagram please). Then take out the system very carefully, and don’t force.

4. Express card slot is located at the right (away from display) corner. There are three screws securing the slot. Take them out, disconnect the ribbon connector and remove the slot.

5. After finishing with the express card slot we need to disconnect all the wires connected to the system board, before taking out the system board. They are-
a. Processor heat sink fan connector
b. Button board connector
c. Speaker board connector
d. Wireless sniffer connector

(Please refer to the diagrams. They are marked out there)

6. After disconnecting all the wires, then take all the screws on the system board, and take it out carefully only by holding its edges, and turn it over.

Locate the coin-cell battery slot. Then take it out with the plastic scribe, and then put the new one.

It may seem that all done. But it’s just the halfway. We need to put them together in the right order.Just read this article in reverse order. And check the screws that you labeled, after each step, so that you don't end up with 2 sockets and 6 screws. 

Note: There’s no responsibility of mine of you make mistakes and end up with a broken laptop.