MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Early 2011-Mid 2012) Upper Case

Mon problème

Over a month ago my son spilled a full pint of milk into his laptop. After 9 months of hectoring him to treat his new macbook pro with care he paid the ultimate price, it was completely dead. The chickens (or cows) had come home to roost. I took it to the expert repairers who delivered the final blow, the milk had caused total obliteration and the soggy laptop was uneconomical to repair.

The laptop sat forlorn and unloved for a month on a table while the culprit moped around avoiding eye contact with the once cherished item and displaying pained expressions every time someone mentioned milk. Worse yet, the tragedy reached Facebook and his friends mercilessly traded milky jokes.

I hate waste so even though it wasn't a great financial decision I decided to fix it. I fixed it for the reasons some people climb mountains - because it was there and I thought it might be fun. As a generally inquisitive person it was an itch I had to scratch. My wife thought I was crazy, my son was quietly hoping for a miracle.

Ma solution

The parts arrived really quickly and the first good news was that I had identified and ordered the right parts. The repair went really well considering the major brain surgery of replacing battery, motherboard, upper case and the swap over of several parts. I did have one moment which was nearly was my undoing. One of the screws was stiff and rather than turning i damaged the Phillips head so it wouldn't turn or release. I was devastated, the motherboard was loose but I couldn't release or remove it as the retaining bracket holding the display cables in place was holding it in position. My wife was going to kill me.. :(

In desperation I was thinking of drilling out the screw or snapping off the cable retainer. In the end and after 40 minutes of sweating I managed (by a miracle) to release the screw with the use of some small narrow nosed electrical pliers and a spare Phillips Screwdriver (the iFixit screwdriver was damaged by the initial efforts to remove the screw). After that it was a breeze. The only fiddly part was feeding the keyboard cable and keyboard backlight cable back into the retaining clips on the motherboard, it took a while as the cables kept bending rather than sliding into the retainers. I got there in the end with the help of the spudger thingy and some plastic tweezers liberated from my daughter's junior medical kit.

It was a slightly tense moment when I switched it on as I was concerned the small circuit board on the power connection might have been damaged - the one major component I hadn't replaced but ominously had a lot of dry milky residue on it. I screwed the back plate on tensed myself for a small popping and fizzing sound followed by nothing ... but instead I got that warm familiar boot up fanfare. It was a great moment... seriously.

As I mentioned, it wasn't a great financial decision but it was very rewarding. I probably wouldn't do a total rebuild again (unless I want to give my wife grounds for divorce) but considering we have 3 Macbook pro's in the family and potentially one more this Christmas it gives me the confidence to carry out other repairs, upgrades or modifications. The iFixit guides were fantastic and made the whole process really easy, I couldn't have done it without them.

Mon conseil

Okay these may be obvious but :

1. Most important, warn your wife up front before you buy the parts on your credit card. This is really, really important.

2. Give yourself plenty of time and don't rush it.

3. In the absence of a proper organiser, ice cube trays are a great substitute to keep all of the removed screws sequenced for re assembly.

4. It's also handy if you have some back up tools (plastic tweezers, screwdrivers etc)

5. Educate your kids to keep milk (and any other liquids) away from electronics, cheesy laptops aren't nice to rebuild.

6. Think hard about what could go wrong and be prepared to adjust your approach. Sitting back and thinking about a problem is better than going in with brute force and damaging your device further.

7. Be prepared to be treated like a rock god by your son (well at least for five minutes).

Mon problème

I was replacing the heat sink material, when in disassembling the computer the plastic connector to the keyboard on the logic board broke. So I had to replace the logic board. Then it turned out I also damaged the keyboard ribbon cable when trying to jam it into the broken zif connector - who designs these things, anyway? And you can't just replace the ribbon cable, it's the whole keyboard or nothing.

Ma solution

ifixit instructions are always fantastic - where they color code the screws and then use the same colored circles on the photos to show screw placement? Brilliant. They also sent me a new spudger and (either with this or the new logic board) a great 3-bit driver with a rotating cap that is *perfect* for almost every screw in there except for some reason the torx.

Repair went fine. I have to say, if the web site didn't say "used" when I bought it, I would swear in court that the topcase they sent me was brand new. The computer looks like new, so basically I can enjoy it as a "new" computer for just a couple of hundred dollars

Mon conseil

There's a few screws and/or parts that need removing from the old top case into the new top case that aren't shown in the instructions - be sure to read the comments too.

I rated this "moderate" because honestly you're just removing a ton of screws and manipulating a few connectors out, it just takes patience and perserverence rather than any advanced skills

Mon problème

I'd inherited a 2012 MBP that had pancake batter drip into the keyboard, rendering half the keys inoperable. Wanted to fix it to send to high school with my daughter - runs MacOS High Sierra, and the battery is still decent.

Ma solution

It took a while, and there were support structures that I needed to transfer over from the original chassis that weren't included in the original instructions (keyboard support brace and one tiny metal brace under the SD card slot), but the comments made sure to point them out.

Mon conseil

Read the instructions carefully. Read the comments associated with each instruction! There are a couple of gotcha's that could really mung-up the repair. Go slowly. I used an empty egg carton to sort the screws by step. Read the instructions again.

Once everything is apart, compare the two cases, and make sure there's nothing on the old that needs to go into the new.

Mon problème

So, I had a friend over, and we were doing some drinking, and I had my Macbook (Mid 2012 Unibody) plugged up to the tv. Apparently after I went to sleep my friend started feeling sick. He ended up vomiting and I suppose he couldn't make it to the bathroom, because he ended up throwing up in the empty pizza box beside my Macbook... well... mostly... I woke up the next morning to a puddle of puke about the side of a pancake on my open computer, right on the keyboard, and by the looks of it, it'd been there for a few hours. I immediately shut it off and pulled the battery, but the damage was done. I cleaned it off and let it dry for a few days before turning it back on (amazingly, it still ran). Several keys were inactive or triggering other commands, my trackpad was being janky, my hard drive was making weird noises, my battery life had decreased by about half, and my optical drive was completely broken. I'm a working DJ, and learning music production and sound design, so obviously this was a very big issue for me.

Ma solution

I ordered all the parts (at least I thought I did) and got them in the mail a few days later. I downloaded iFixit's mobile app for iphone (SUPER HANDY!) and got to work. I had to disassemble the entire machine in order to replace the upper case, and then as I was putting it back together I was able to just swap out old parts with replacements. I opted to get a hard drive caddy and swap out my optical drive with a second hard drive (now rocking 2tb of storage, it makes me very happy) since I have the external superdrive for the Macbook Air. With iFixit's guides on the app, it was a breeze from start to finish and I got it all done in a matter of hours. I consider myself a handy person, but I know nothing about computer repair, so for me to be able to flawlessly repair it to fully functioning status was a pretty great feeling. Couldn't have done it without the step by step guide with greatly detailed pictures. I discovered a couple days later that my airport/bluetooth card was also damaged by the incident, which is not a huge deal, just an inconvenience and I plan on replacing it when I get my next paycheck.

Mon conseil

If you're replacing your upper case on the Unibody model A1278 (not sure about other models) the guide doesn't mention it, but you need to pull the battery level indicator off of your old upper case and transfer it to the new one. Another thing I didn't know that fortunately didn't bite me in the hind quarters, was the risk of static shock. I didn't know this was a thing, but a simple static shock discharged from your body to your computer's sensitive inner parts can practically destroy your computer, so before going into your computer's innards, make sure to look up online how to ground yourself so that you don't risk killing your beloved computer. Lastly, if you decide that you also want to replace your optical drive with a second hard drive and intend to use apple's external superdrive, be aware that the drive was only intended for use with Apple computers that do not originally have an optical drive, so it's not a "plug and play" accessory. You have to go online and find directions for rewriting one of the scripts so that it will allow the drive to be used, just be careful because an incorrect sudo script can seriously mess up your computer.

OH! And for the love of all things holy and unholy alike, MAKE SURE YOU KEEP ALL THE SCREWS SEPARATE AND WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE COMPONENT! I cannot stress this enough. You will save yourself a major headache. I used sandwich bags and labeled them with a sharpie.

Mon problème

I put the laptop in a bag that had some sand vestiges on it (without realizing), some of it got on the keyboard. At first I tried to clean it, but it didn't go so well - had to end up changing the keyboard.

Ma solution

Went well, took a little longer than other reports I saw. Maybe 5h total.

Mon conseil

When putting the speaker back (under the optical drive), make sure it's really tight. First time I opened the laptop it wasn't 100%, and it was interfering with the drive (blocking DVDs). Had to open it again and in the end worked. I didn't see much difference in the two attempts, so I'm guessing the difference it REALLY small.

Mon problème

A bottle of sprite was foolishly left with the cap unfastened and was knocked over. It was picked up in less than a second but the massive splash of soda landed on my macbook pro keyboard. I was able to quickly dab up the spillage before any damage to major internal components occurred but the keyboard effectively ruined, thus warranting an upper case replacement.

Ma solution

It went perfectly. I had most of the tools I needed, I just needed the Y1 Tri-wing screwdriver. I followed the instructions on ifixit.com and completed the repair in about 45 minutes. It was meticulous work but well worth it to have my computer back fully functional.

Mon conseil

Don't be afraid, take your time and follow the instructions. Most of the steps include multiple pictures, look at all of the accompanying pictures before proceeding with a step as the additional photos can provide useful context.

Mon problème

Typical case of water spill on the keyboard. Did everything right to cut power, allow to dry, but some weeks later my keyboard starting acting possessed. The 7 key would not work, but the computer knew how to type it, intermittently, ad-nausea. A few weeks later and the upper right keys on the keybord would shut down and the multitouch swipe would shift my screen left and right without me actually touching the pad. I thought my computer was a goner. I sent it into Apple, free of charge, for an assessment. They came back wit an $800 estimate. I had them send it back. I came to ifixit.com, found the upper body replacement, and ordered it with the complete toolset.

Ma solution

I took my time to do everything right. I had already snooped around in my MBP before, so I was not afraid; however, I have never gone this far. This repair will require you to take apart the whole assembly, but it is not that daunting, and with patience, it can be achieved. My MBP is backup and running smoothly as ever.

Mon conseil

The hardest part about the reassembly is the small keyboard ribbon. Getting it back into its socket is a pain, but is doable with patience and help from the Spudger tool. You MUST buy the Tri wing screwdriver as it is proprietary to your battery screws, but I highly recommend, at a minimum, you purchase the Spudger with this replacement. It was the most used tool through the whole repair. Second would be the T6 Torx screwdriver. Be patient and do things right...you will be rewarded.