Today I will be taking apart a Macbook Pro and replacing the IO board (the board with the magsafe connector on it.) This notebook originally was unusable due to the magsafe connector being broken off.

This happened in one of the only ways the magsafe can cause a problem, as it is meant to prevent this from happening. As the notebook was charging in a high place, it was knocked onto the ground and the magsafe plug connected to the notebook was the first to make contact with the floor. The plug pushed the magsafe connector inside, and severely dented the notebook’s case. When my client brought this out-of-warranty notebook to the apple store “genius bar” (a 45 minute drive for them), they were immediately told it would be an $800 repair. The employees did not look in the laptop or even at it closely, as they should have realized that the notebook in question was a Macbook Pro, and not a Powerbook. The Macbook Pro notebooks have the magsafe connector on a separate board from the main motherboard (Logic board? come on apple. it’s not AI yet). So, thanks to the “genius bar” not being able to carry a decimal point, I not only saved the customer one full order of magnitude (the cost of the part was $80), but I also made quite a bit of money and wrote this cool post. Thanks Apple, Inc.

Ingredients: t6 screwdriver, p0 screwdriver, and a “spudger” (some nonconductive stick for prying things apart that won’t mess everything up.) apple calls it a “black nylon flat probe tool”

The steps:

Turn the laptop upside-down and remove the battery. Then remove the three screws on the memory cover with a size 0 philips head screwdriver.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Then remove the two philips head screws on the bottom lip of the battery bay.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

After that, remove the four philips head screws on the bottom near the hinge, and use a torx size 6 (t6) screwdriver to remove the other two torx screws on the bottom.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Now, on the sides and back of the laptop there are a total of 10 philips 0 (p0) size screws. four on each side and two on the back. remove each of these.

Turn the laptop over, open it, and remove the keyboard. remember the keyboard and touchpad are still attached with a ribbon cable so don’t break that unless you want a new keyboard tray. The keyboard comes of in the back (close to the screen) first, then pry forward. It is attached in the front with clasps. After prying off the keyboard tray and removing the ribbon cable, everything looks like this

 
 
 
 
 
 

=== Intermission!!! ===
At this point, I notice that writing a blog post with pictures while you are taking something apart increases the time devoted to the action tenfold. My hands are feeling uncomfortable in the nylon gloves and I’m getting hot because I’m sitting under a hot halogen lamp in a room that was 86 degrees F to begin with, so I turn off the light and take a break. Why don’t you get a snack or take a nap or something? I’m going to check my email and Google Reader, I’m sure there are already 80 articles in the “Tech” category already today. most duplicates thanks to the redundancy of subscribing to giz, engadget, wired, hack-a-day, and /. .

Take off the three ribbon cables that cross the left IO board, being EXTREMELY careful not to break the connector on the small ribbon cable. If this connector is broken you need a whole new motherboard. In this picture the small ribbon cable I am talking about is just above the tip of the spudger.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Remove the screw keeping the airport extreme card attached, and pull the card out (this card comes out similarly to sticks of memory, at an angle)
Now remove the connector at the bottom of the express slot. (with grey, blue, and black wires)

 
 
 
 
 
 

To remove the speaker and the ambient light sensor, remove the black torx at toe bottom left, and the silver torx at the top right of the speaker assembly. Then move this out of the way. There are still some wires taped down, I left the tape on and the wires where they are.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Now, remove the colourful I/O connector, and the four black torx screws holding down the I/O board. This apparantly is where you realize why apple’s directions suggest removing the fan first. Struggle with this for a few minutes, then realize you forgot to remove the post/standoff/riser in between the two sudio ports that holds down the IO board. In order to remove this, you *should* use a small socket wrench, but nobody has anything that small, and the t6 screwdriver fits perfectly inside it to take it off.

After that, the board should come out with little difficulty.

 
 
 
 
 
 

and that’s all I’m going to take apart because i’m in a hurry. This last picture is of all the screws that came out, in order, from right to left. When you are putting it back together, play close attention to wire management, because it is quite dificult to put the parts back in if wires are in the way.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Soundtrack to this repair:
The Great Escape – Boys like Girls
Hero/Heroine – Boys Like Girls
Everyday – Colbie Caillat
Days Go By -Dirty Vegas
Crazy for This Girl – Evan and Jaron
1234 – Feist
She’s a Lady – Forever The Sickest Kids
Do You Remember – Jack Johnson
Upside Down – Jack Johnson
Everything is Alright – Motion City Soundtrack

-aliencam.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.