HP Pavilion M4 disassembly and RAM, HDD upgrade options

In this guide, I will explain how to disassemble the HP Pavilion M4 to remove the battery, DVD drive, hard drive, palm rest, RAM, cooling fan, speakers, wireless card, and motherboard.

In my case, the laptop model is Pavilion m4-1009TX.
Slide the battery switch to the left, and then slide the battery downward to remove it.

Remove the white ”No Dismantling“ sticker from the bottom cover. If you only want to upgrade the memory, you do not need to remove the label. Please note that removing it will void the warranty.

Remove the screw securing the memory cover.

Open the memory cover with your fingers.

This laptop has two memory slots, but comes with only one memory module. You can add another memory module to upgrade the memory.

The HP Pavilion M4 features a Micron 4GB DDR3L 1600MHz memory module.

Remove all screws from the bottom case, and then use a pry tool to open the service cover.

Under the service cover, you can access the hard drive and wireless card.

There is no screw securing the hard drive, making it easy to remove.

The cable is still connected to the hard drive. To remove the hard drive, you need to disconnect the hard drive cable from the motherboard.

Disconnect the HDD cable from the motherboard.

The HP Pavilion M4 features a 1TB Seagate hard drive, HP part number: 665259-002.

Unplug the two antenna cables and remove the screw securing the wireless card. You can remove it.

Ralink RT3290 wireless card, HP P/N: 690020-001.

Pull out the DVD drive.

The laptop comes with a Samsung SU-208 DVD burner.

Insert a plastic pry tool under the keyboard and slowly pry it open. Please note that there are clips securing the keyboard to the palm rest; you must release these clips to remove the keyboard.

Disconnect the keyboard cable from the motherboard.

Insert a plastic pry tool under the palm rest and wiggle it to separate the palm rest from the laptop. There are several clips on the palm rest that need to be released in order to remove it from the laptop.

Remove the screw under the LCD hinge cover.

Turn the laptop over, pry it open, and lift the palm rest.

When the palm rest is removed, you can access the heat sink, cooling fan, USB board, speakers, and motherboard.

The USB board is connected to the motherboard via a data cable.

Speaker modules

Close-up of the ports on the motherboard

Remove the six screws securing the heat sink and disconnect the fan cable. You can remove the heat sink.

HP Pavilion M4 motherboard

LCD hinges

HP Pavilion M4 internal parts