MacBook 13.3" LCD Panel

Mein Problem

We gave my old MacBook to my father-in-law's caregiver so she could work on some language courses and connect to some safety monitors. But it turned out that my optical drive had gotten flaky since I'd last used it and I already knew that the screen had a vertical bar with a different intensity, probably from dropping it a while back.

Meine Reparatur

I ordered the drive and a display data cable, and discovered that A) the cable alone was not the problem and B) I have a rare transitional Santa Rosa/Penryn model that is a sub-variant of that variant that has a different optical drive (see picture). The folks at ifixit took a return on both items, added the weird drive configuration to their data base, and dug up the correct drive for me. So I upped the ante to replacing the LCD panel and the optical drive.

The guides are just fine and all went well, taking a few hours over all. I used the 26 bit kit (Tools/26-Bit-Driver-Kit/IF145-028). The computer now has a lovely new screen and functional optical drive. Also, the caregiver is a mad Hello Kitty(TM or R or whatever) fan so I traced a HK face, printed it on transparency film, and attached it to the inside of the apple lid light. She's thrilled all around.

Mein Rat

The top of the display assembly guts, the bar across the top of the camera mount, fits into a slot in the plastic case, and should go in first.

When peeling the white diffuser off of the inside of the lid, you need to get between the thin white diffuser and the lid shell itself, not between the black rubbery "gasket" and the think white diffuser. The adhesive survived the peeling pretty well, and I only taped down the corner that was curled from me getting started.

You can get 3M Foil tape type 3311 at the hardware store. It's rated to 149C/300F which seems sufficient to the task of replacing the tape mentioned in the MacBook Core 2 Duo Optical Drive Replacement guide.

My local art and architecture store has Alvin and Co 2400-B, which is a double-adhesive tape on a light-weight substrate, although I know nothing about it temperature tolerance. I used it to replace the tape around the screen bezel, the adhesive on the little foam blocks, and under the bluetooth antenna clip and the metal bracket on the optical drive in step 26 MacBook Core 2 Duo Optical Drive Replacement guide.

Some 1/2" Kapton tape, although spendy, is great in place of the old yellow film tape used to secure cables to the back of the LCD panel and elsewhere.

Mein Problem

I was asked to fix a backlight issue on a 2008 13" black MacBook Penryn by a client. The screen was showing, but the backlight wouldn't turn on and would only flicker when you played with the F1 & F2 keys.

Meine Reparatur

I tried replacing the display inverter first, but that only worked for about an hour. That's when I knew that I had to replace the screen. All in all both repairs took me about 4 hours. I used the "fast" method for the LCD after I had already done the inverter and closed the machine back up.

Mein Rat

If you're going to attempt to fix a backlight issue, get both the inverter and the LCD simultaneously. My in shop rate is $60/hr for consumers, and if I had done both at the same time, I could have saved my client an hour of labor. You have to take the whole thing apart to access the inverter board and to replace the LCD panel at that point it SO MUCH EASIER THAN THE FAST METHOD. If I ever get one again, I'm going to automatically purchase both parts and fix them as one repair instead of two. There's no guarantee that it's the inverter, and for a computer thats almost 6 years old now, it's just a good idea to replace the LCD. It also makes you look better because you don't have to take it back to your shop again for a second repair. Do it all at once. It's just better.

Mein Problem

I had my wife's Macbook with us on vacation. We travelled in a van through Australia. One time I accidentally stepped on the Macbook which was underneath a pile of clothes. The only thing that was broken was the LCD screen. A serious area contained dead black pixels.

I ordered recently a new LCD screen since my wife wanted to use her Macbook again - we had an iPad by then.

Meine Reparatur

I didn't know there were so many and such tiny screws in a laptop!

What I learned from replacing a part in my iPhone 4 was you really have to read the instructions, don't jump from image to image as you will destroy something.

The disassembly took me over an hour, being very careful not to break anything.

Reassembling the LCD was easier, but when the entire laptop was built again, I noticed a part that was not installed correctly. Not having the patience to go back to step 61 (yes, really, one of the first steps of putting it back together) I gently convinced the part to snap into place. No further damage.

Mein Rat

iFixit's guide's are golden. I feared in the dismantling process that one key item might not be the same as in the guide. But it wasn't. They really know their stuff.

Tape every set of screws on a piece of paper or something. Also I find it very useful to use a white desk as you will notice any little parts that escaped.

Mein Problem

The screen in the MacBook (Early 2009) had no light. First I changed the inverter and inverter cable but still no light. So I decided to change the LCD panel as well and this did the trick.

Meine Reparatur

I followed the guide to change the LCD panel and had no big problems.

Mein Rat

Invest in proper tools! Screwdrivers and spudgers are mandatory!

Two of the threads in the panel were covered by plastic so it was necessary to punch through the plastic with a sharp tool before fastening the screws.

I purchased two small plastic boxes with many small compartments. In each compartment I placed a small piece of paper with the number of the step in the repair guide. When disassemblng the MacBook I kept the dismounted screws in the correct compartment. In this way it is very easy to assemble the MacBook (reverser order in the guide). Note that not all steps includes loose screws so read the guide before you start!

And - yes it is fun to repair!

Mein Problem

My dear lappy's screen has been broken for three years. I've had a PC monitor hooked to it, effectively making it the world's only desk-bound laptop. Frankintosh still ran well, though. I had to do something.

Meine Reparatur

"Oh, this is pretty easy, doot doot doo. I mean, if I can do this without--what the !&&* is an inverter cable?? No. I can't see that! IM FLYING BLIND." *Yosemite Sam noises for 45 minutes* "I friggin hate every %#*@ crap--yes, children dinner, I know Mama is busy dealing with this stupid ugh--oh, hey. It's in. Cool. That wasn't so hard." Then we made love. In the form of various display tests.

Mein Rat

The spudger on it's own was very little help on seating that inverter (I assume I'm calling that little pink and white bastard its proper name.) A paper clip, bent would have done the trick if I had it, but my final effective solution was to put a weeeeeee bit of stickum (used the bits of tape inside the unit, to be exact) that wasn't TOO sticky to get the plug parked more securely on the spudger. Used the plastic cards as spreaders. Cried out to the gods.

Mein Problem

Older macbook, but still a nice computer. After being dropped there were several cracks obscuring the display.

Meine Reparatur

I used the "long" technique completely removing the display from the laptop. It took me 2 hours to complete the disassembly and 90 minutes to put it back together again. The instructions were right on target, there are just a lot of little screws.

Mein Rat

I had an array of small metal parts cups to use as screw sorters. I ended up using 22 of them. It made re-assembly easy.

Don't be afraid, but don't be in a hurry. There were a couple of discrepancies with the instructions and I took notes to ensure error free re-assembly.

Mein Problem

The backlight on my wife's MacBook Core 2 Duo was burned out - the computer turned on and worked well when plugged in to an external display, but the built-in display did not turn on. Actually, it did - as you could see the image on screen from a certain angle, but the backlight was not working. I had previous ordered the inverter board and cable, thinking that they were the problem, but after replacing them, the issue still remained. It was at that point that I returned those parts and ordered the LCD instead.

Meine Reparatur

The repair went pretty well - I had already done quite a bit of work on the inverter board replacement, so the second time around I was able to do things much more quickly. The two biggest hassles for me were dealing with all of the tiny plastic clips getting stuck to the display bezel, and getting the clutch cover back in place properly. The display worked great once everything was put back together. However, I apparently damaged the fan while I was working, as the fan now does not turn on. So that's another repair I'm in for... :-)

Here is my gallery of photos from my repair:

http://gallery.prwdot.org/Computers/MacB...

Mein Rat

Use a daily pill organizer to keep track of your screws. They have individual segments that are perfectly sized to keep track of screws, as well as closing/locking lids for each segment.

Make sure you're using the proper sized screwdrivers. The most useful one for me was a minuscule eyeglass-sized screwdriver. It was smaller than the phillips 000 screwdriver and worked wonders with many of the small internal screws, especially the ones holding the top case and display bezel on.

Also, everyone mentions this, but it can't be overemphasized, be really careful with the tiny plastic clips around the display bezel. They break really easily and can come flying off and skitter into a far corner of the room if you're not careful.