How to Remove a Dell Inspiron 1525 Keyboard

Since most of the people visiting this site are probably rocking an Inspiron 1525, I figured we should write some hardware-related stuff. Having OS X running on non-apple hardware means nothing if your hardware doesn’t work. One of my gripes with the 1525 is that the keyboard is prone to getting dirty; the keys almost look like they’re designed to trap stuff beneath them, and every once in awhile, something gets into the mechanism of one of the keys, jamming it. To properly clean the 1525’s keyboard, you need to remove it.

First things first, you’ll need a small philips-head screwdriver. A kit like this should work. And these screws are pretty small, so get a bowl or something to put them in.

When you do this, you should shut down and unplug the power adapter to avoid getting shocked. Turn your 1525 over and remove the battery. There are two screws on both sides of the battery bay that you’ll have to undo. They should be pretty tight, so be prepared for hurting fingers:

Turn the laptop back over and bend the display back as far as it’ll go. Now you need to remove the Center Control Cover, which is Dell’s fancy name for that thing above the keyboard that houses the power button and media keys. There’s a little niche cut out by the right side. Wedge something in there to pry the cover off. I found that using one of the prongs of the power adapter worked pretty well:

Don’t be afraid to apply a little force to the cover, but be careful not to rip it off as there’s a wire going to the media keys:

Once the cover is off, you’ll want to remove the two screws holding the keyboard in:

Once that’s done, gently lift the keyboard up. The only thing connecting the keyboard now is the wire. To remove it, flip up the cover holding the wire in place:

And that’s it:

Now you can clean it properly. Obviously, you can just follow the same steps in reverse to put it back together.