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Mac Heads

Mrs. Tech’s Apple MacBook Teardown

I’m not sure why, but one day, Mrs. Tech’s white Unibody Apple MacBook would not take a charge. Now, there are a ton a reasons why this issue could occur, but based on the condition of her laptop around the MagSafe port that charges her laptop, I immediately guessed that the port went bad. Since her laptop was suffering from some additional wear and tear, I decided to roll up my sleeves and replace the MagSafe port, as well as the lower and upper body of her MacBook.

macbook teardown
BrothaTech the MacBook Repair Guy?

I’m the techie in the family. As much as I want her to be, Mrs. Tech is NOT as tech-savvy as I am. So I can safely say (without any concern of backlash from a woman scorned…or a side-eye from a sistah, not sure which one is worse) she doesn’t take the same pride in her gadgets as I do.

I’m not sure why, but one day, her white Unibody Apple MacBook would not take a charge. Now, there are a ton a reasons why this issue could occur, but based on the condition of her laptop around the MagSafe port that charges her laptop, I immediately guessed that the port went bad. Since her laptop was suffering from some additional wear and tear (and I was itching to open up a MacBook just to see what was inside), I decided to roll up my sleeves and replace the MagSafe port, as well as the lower and upper body of her MacBook.

The additional wear and tear on Mrs. Tech’s MacBook included:

  • The rubber bottom was pealing from the lower body portion
  • The plastic around the MagSafe port was chipped off
Now, the lower body is no sweat, just remove the screws, and replace the old with the new. But, fixing the chip meant that I had to replace the whole upper body (keyboard and all). Earlier, I tried to reattach the broken piece with the help of some super glue. For a while, it worked. Sometime later, the piece was broke and gone.
Fixed MacBook with Superglue
Superglue to the rescue?
So I did some research on via ifixit.com on what it takes to replace the upper body portion of a MacBook, found all the parts, and went to work. Below is some video before, during and after.

Took me a little longer than normal because I wanted to make sure I didn’t break anything in there. But alas, I took everything out, replaced the MagSafe port, and lower and upper housings without any major issues.

Note: The reason why it took so long for the Apple logo to show up while it was booting up was because I actually forgot to connect the hard drive to the logic board, so the processor couldn’t find any information, lol! That was the worse thing that happend for my first time digging into a MacBook, so I am more than happy.

It went so well that I may just expand my brand to PC & Mac repairs/upgrades, etc. Shoot, I’m looking at my iPhone right now and envisioning ways to customize it.

Hint, Hint.

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