[Music]
if you ever had the pleasure of cleaning
out a rain gutter you know exactly how
much a gunk can get stuck up there
overtime well this might surprise you
but computer fans are very similar you
would be absolutely disgusted to see
some of the stuff I've pulled out of
people's computers in the past
especially if they owned pets it's like
keeping a Furby inside your computer if
the idea of growing your very own cousin
it inside your computer gives you the
heebie-jeebies then I would suggest
cleaning out the fan hi I'm MJ with
iFixit and today I'm going to show you
how to clean and replace the fan in the
late 2010 MacBook Air if you own a 2011
version of this computer the process is
remarkably similar but of course you're
going to want to follow the step-by-step
instructions and the repair guide on our
site when you're doing your repair
before I can get started I'm gonna get
all of my parts and tools together for
this repair I'm going to need a plastic
spudger a t5 Torx driver and a macbook
air pentalobe driver now rather than
using separate drivers I'm just going to
use our 54 piece bit driver kit because
it has both the bits I'm gonna need plus
a ton more I'm also going to use an
anti-static wrist strap to protect my
macbook air from any accidental
electrostatic discharge during my repair
and a screw tray because it keeps all
those teeny tiny screws nice and
organized now I've got all the parts and
tools together I can get started by
taking out the 10 pentalobe screws that
are holding the bottom case in place
now that I've got all those screws out I
can begin to remove the lower case by
grabbing it right between the display
assembly in the lower case and rotating
it towards the front of the computer now
that the lower case is removed the very
first thing we're gonna do is disconnect
the battery and really that should be
the first step in any electronics repair
because we don't want any residual
electricity floating around in there
while we're doing our repair to
disconnect it we're gonna grab a little
pull tab and pull it out parallel to the
logic board you don't want to pull up
vertically because that'll break the
connector now that the battery is
disconnected I can disconnect the i/o
board cable and for that I'm going to
use my spudger
now that the i/o board cable is
disconnected we have access to the fan
cable that's connected via this teeny
tiny little ZIF socket I'm going to use
the pointy end of my spudger to flip up
the flap on the ZIF socket and then pull
that cable right out
now that the fan cable is disconnected
we can begin to unstick the gasket off
of the fan it's held in place by some
adhesive so all you need to do is is
gently lift it up and off
now we have access to the three screws
that are holding the fan in place so
I'll go ahead and remove those
okay now that the fan is completely
disconnected it should lift out pretty
easily and if all you're going to do is
clean the fan now is the fun part maybe
you've got some canned compressed air on
hand or maybe you have one of our fancy
rocket ship blowers in either case
you're going to use your air and shoot
it into the fan and dislodge any dust
bunnies that are in the fan and shoot it
into the area that the fan was placed in
including the little vent
making sure to get all the tiny dust
particles out and of course if you're
going to replace your fan now is the
time to install your fan and reassemble
your computer of course you can find all
of the parts and tools used for this and
many other repairs at ifixit.com and if
you run into any problems during your
repairs there are lots of solutions and
the MacBook Air repair guide on our site
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watching and happy repairing