[Music]
if you know me at all
you know that I am pathetically reliant
on keyboard shortcuts on my Mac so much
so that if my option key ever quit
working I would flip out fortunately I
am well versed in the art of DIY repair
and this is the kind of thing that I can
fix without much hassle
unfortunately on these white unibody
MacBook s' the keyboard is built into
the upper case so in order to replace
the keyboard you got to replace the
entire upper case hi I'm MJ with iFixit
and today I'm going to show you how to
replace an upper case in a white unibody
MacBook this is one of the most involved
repairs you can do on this computer and
if you attempt to perform this repair
without first going to ifixit.com and
pulling up the repair guide you are
crazy this video is a great overview of
the process but there is no replacement
for step-by-step high-res photos to
guide you along the process while you
pull up that repair guide I'll get my
parts and tools together so I can begin
for this repair I'm going to need a
plastic spudger and a whole bunch of
drivers including a phillips double zero
screwdriver a t6 Torx driver a t8 Torx
driver and a y1 tri wing driver rather
than spending a ton of money in getting
all those drivers separately I'm going
to use our 54 piece bit driver kit
because it has most of the bits I'll
ever need for any kind of electronics
repair to begin I'm going to flip over
my computer and begin to remove the
lower case by taking out all eight of
the Phillips screws along the bottom
with all those screws out I can begin to
take off the lower case by lifting it up
towards the rear of the computer and
just sliding my fingers underneath until
it pops off like that I'll just set it
aside with the guts of the MacBook
exposed the first thing we're going to
do is disconnect the battery to prevent
any power surges and to do that I'm
going to use my spudger and kind of lift
up one end of the socket and then the
other like rocking it out of place
with the battery disconnected we can
actually begin the disassembly process
and we're basically going to remove
every single thing that you see in front
of you to get started we're gonna take
out all the screws that are holding the
battery in place starting with the Tri
ring screws it's really important that
you use a tri wing driver otherwise
you're definitely going to strip the
screws and if you have a hard time
finding that third driving screw it's
hidden under this do not remove sticker
that we're just gonna ignore
with all those screws out we can remove
the battery but just lifting up on the
tab pretty easy now that the battery is
out we're going to get to work on this
rear vent which is held in place with
eight more screws
the next thing we're going to take care
of is the fan but before we can do that
we've got to disconnect this airport and
Bluetooth cable that runs across the top
of it I'll use the flat end of my
spudger and just kind of twist
underneath it and it pops right up the
fan is held in place by three Phillips
screws and a cable be very careful when
you're disconnecting this cable because
it's very fragile and you want to make
sure you're prying up on the connector
and not the socket itself
with the fan-out we can get to work on
the logic board which is held in place
by several screws and cables I'll start
by disconnecting the cables here in the
lower left corner and just work my way
around the board just connecting cables
as I go
once you get to this upper right corner
you're going to run into the display
data cable what you're gonna disconnect
by flipping up this little black tab and
then sliding the cable out parallel to
the logic board with all of those cables
disconnected I can use my
t6 driver to begin to remove all the
screws that are holding the logic board
in place
with the logic board out we can get to
work on the hard drive and the optical
drive we'll start with this hard drive
bracket which is held in place by two
Phillips screws they won't come all the
way out though because they're just
retaining screws with the bracket out we
can remove the hard drive by just
lifting up on this little tab and it
should come right out but be careful
because it's still attached via this
cable right here and I'll just go ahead
and disconnect that before we can get to
the optical drive we're actually going
to remove this cable entirely by
removing the Phillips screw that's
holding it in place now that the hard
drive cable is out the first step to
removing the optical drive is to remove
the speaker assembly and to do that
we've got to disconnect these airport in
bluetooth cables first with these cables
disconnected I only need to remove a
couple of screws to get this speaker
assembly out now that the speaker
assembly is free we have access to all
of the screws that are holding the
optical drive in place once those are
out the drive should just lift right out
but the optical drive out I can move on
to the display assembly to do that I'm
gonna lift the computer up on its side
and open it up using my t8 Torx driver
I'll remove the last two screws that are
holding the pieces together with those
screws out I can begin to separate the
display assembly and the upper case the
very last thing you might need to do is
transfer your trackpad from your old
upper case to your new upper case and to
do that you just need to remove all the
screws that are holding the trackpad in
place
now this repair might seem like a lot of
work but honestly it's not that bad
and if it gets that keyboard back in
working order again I think it's totally
worth it of course you can find all of
the parts and tools for this and many
other repairs at ifixit.com and if you
run into any problems during your
repairs there are lots of solutions as a
Macbook repair guide on our site for all
the latest tear downs and repair videos
be sure to subscribe to our youtube
channel and follow us on twitter at
twitter.com/zeromd