Of course, my screen break would be on that top-left-hand corner. Thankfully with some extra prying, I was able to get the left edge pried up and the glued-down glass dust pulled out without too much blood loss. The replacement screen had some weird insulating film on the flex cables and its own home button, but after removing all that and swapping in the old button, it slapped back together without any hassle!

My own retrospective thoughts - having recently pulled apart my old Samsung Galaxy S7 to do a motherboard swap and battery replacement, I thought I knew what to expect. This bad boy was NOT as simple or straightforward as all that. It’s a very good thing I followed EVERY WORD of this tutorial (including taking the extra care around the charging port, going off the left-hand edge first, working on opposite sides of the camera, investing in the microwavable heating pad and extra picks and tools…).

T8 Torx screws - I had something like 16 before the black bottom cover removal was possible, and two (marked here as offset from the bottom edge) were not installed at all, so there are 5 total in places not marked in the above photo.

Heatsink removal is not necessary to take the fan out. You can remove just the fan with its two screws if that is the only thing needing replacement. Like for mine, the fan bearings were bad, but the heatsink was okay though a little dusty..

Remember, though, to have fresh thermal grease ready if you do decide to remove the heatsink anyway.

Keyboard removal was not necessary to remove the fan for me. Once you get the bottom shell off, the fan subassembly is completely accessible.