2300MP, Disassembly Plus

I recently repaired a 2300MP for my daughter. I thought I would share my experience in working on the unit with all that are having problems that may be attributed to dust.

The symptoms on the 2300MP were that if you turned it on with no signal cables attached, the lamp would come on and progressively get brighter and brighter. During this time the DELL logo would appear. Just when you thought it should be done getting brighter, the “Temp” (Over temperature) and “Lamp” LEDS would glow orange and the bulb shut off. Earlier, my daughter said they had replaced the lamp because they thought it may be bad. ($349)

Naturally, the warranty had expired, so I decided to give it a try at repairing it. I used to service and repair large mainframe computers and also did camera repairs.

I am inserting pictures I took as I proceeded to look into the problem. The first picture is the unit intact. I might add that the “white arrows” in the pictures refer to screws or cables that need to be removed as you proceed or to point out locations.

The 2nd picture shows the screws that need to be removed from the rear of the unit. The three lower arrows in the picture are where there are caps over the screws. These pop out very easily with a small screwdriver.

The 3rd picture shows the bottom, where seven screws need to be removed. The two screws in the lamp cover are captive and will not fall out.

In the 4th picture, once the lamp cover has been removed, there will be four screws underneath that will need to be removed. Two of the screws hold in the lamp housing. After removing them, remove the lamp housing. The screw in the bottom of the picture holds on the front cover.

In the 5th picture, you can see the plenum where the air exits to cool the lamp.

After you have removed all the previous screws, you need to separate the top cover from the front cover. To do this, you need to push down on the front cover just forward of where the top cover is snapped together with it. This takes a little care and perseverance.

The 6th picture shows the top cover separated from the front cover and tilted up from the backside. Be careful not to damage the flexible printed circuit cable that is attached to the top board. Disconnect cable at the board by pulling up on the ears of the connector and pulling out the cable.

This 7th picture shows the top after being removed.

In the 8th picture, looking at the front of the unit with the front cover loose, you will need to remove the six cable connectors from the card.

In the 9th picture, the leftmost cable in the above picture has been disconnected and the front cover has placed aside.

In this 10th picture, the front cover and connector have been removed and you can see closer up, the other cable on the card that need to be removed.

In the 11th picture, there are five screws that need to be removed in order to remove the card

The 12th picture shows two more cables that need to be removed from the rear of the card before you can remove the card

The 13th picture shows the card removed. It is removed by pulling up to disconnect two connectors that are located under the card.

The 14th picture shows the underside of the card that you just removed. You can see the two connectors that were separated from the cards beneath.

Picture 15 shows the two fans that are in the unit. This is usually where dust collects and causes problems to occur. The left one is a muffin fan and appears to supply cooling for the power supply board and others, while the squirrel cage fan supplies cooling directly to the lamp.

Picture 16 is a view of unit with all the previous items removed. You can see in this picture, the fans again and on the right side is the lens assembly with the black cover pointed out, over the rear of the assembly.

I used canned air to blow all the dust from the unit and especially from the fans. Blowing the dust from the squirrel cage fan solved my problem.

Other entries in this forum had alluded to cleaning the lens assembly when they were getting blobs and such in their projected displays. Removing the little black cover and cleaning out the inside with a Q-tip should solve those types of symptoms.

Picture 17 is a close-up of the squirrel cage fan. I found a large amount of dust in sectors of the wheel.

Picture 18 is a close-up of the cleanout cover over the rear of the lens assembly.