Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

Never had this happen before.

This round "filler" I guess is what it is just fell off the bottom of my laptop. It looks as if it has plastic "pins" of some sort that "plug" into part of the bottom that have come off or broken off or something. There is seemingly no reason for this to have happened.

There seems to be no way to put it back on without completely disassembling this laptop which I am not in the mood to do, but, my question is what is the world is the purpose of this hole? It goes to nowhere! There isn't anything under it and seems to have no purpose other than to fall out like this just did and cause a headache!

By the way, the round part is right under the battery and to the left of the primary hard drive as you view the bottom case in the photo.

Thanks in advance.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8BscS ... sp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8BscS ... sp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8BscS ... sp=sharing

That's strange. I have never liked HP laptops. Their desktops aren't bad though. I really like/liked the case design on HP desktops. Do people even purchase desktop pcs anymore?. I am really interested to hear what Scott has to say about that strange part.

I was led to this particular laptop awhile back when I purchased my last PC laptop.

I had purchased a different brand. I cannot remember now which brand or model, but, it exhibited a very strange habit. I only had it for 1 day. I was setting it all up, and I would be using it, and typing on the keyboard, and it would all of the sudden shut off. No heat or power issue, just shut off.

I took it back to the store, traded it in for another one, and the new one did exactly the same thing. I even tried, though brand new, a fresh install of windows.

Without warning, no matter what was being done, plugged in or not, it would just shut off.

That's when I bought this HP. I've had virtually no trouble with it since then.

My guess is that it might have been used as a cooling vent or port on other models using the same base cover. In that case the solid plug might have been replaced with a vented plug of some sort. It appears to have been plastic welded in place initially, I would consider either leaving it out or gluing it back in place. Scott.

Thanks for the information. It makes sense. I've seen similar plug type things that have vents in them.

I've tried putting it back in place by removing the DVD drive and memory/drive panel, but, just to put this back in place is going to require a complete disassembly all the way down to removing the system board to gain access necessary to reattach this piece.

I'm actually more inclined to use some black tape as bad as that sounds, just to keep things from getting inside.

Not the best fix but if I was going to take the step of going deep enough to fix this I'd be tempted to use this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-PAVILION-DV7 ... Sw~gRV6BJ9

instead of trying to glue or reattach the piece in place.

Thanks Scott, for your wisdom!

Why not use that part?. It's cheap enough. It'll just be a pain in the butt and take a while to dissemble and put back together. I don't have much patience for all that.