I was a happy MacBook Pro 15" user for almost three years, until the other day when I was tempted by iFixit's MBP 15" optical drive removal guide.
Snow Leopard came out, so I decided the time had come to fix my optical drive (having not checked first and therefore not discovered you could use the DVD drive of another machine to install). I'd been putting up with the duff drive, a wobbly screen hinge and a deteriorating opening action for two years - none of them show-stoppers, just gently annoying. I'd taken it in for service once but they'd taken too long to get the parts in and I've not been able to spare it for longer than a week ever since. The drive had lost its appetite for DVDs about nine months after I bought it. I read this guide, which sounded plausible because I noticed recently that my MBP chassis was badly bent. The best disassembly guide I found was iFixit's, or so I thought at the time.
I'd disassembled a laptop before. How badly could it go? Grabbing my trusty Torx 6 and Phillips #0 I went to work. The iFixit guide made it trivially easy to tear the 'book apart - my only concern was VOIDING THE REMAINING TWO MONTHS' WARRANTY (educational purchase!). In no time I had parts scattered all across my bed.
Turned out my problem wasn't the bent chassis though, because after bending it back the DVD still wouldn't go in. Thinking I had very little to lose, I took the cover off the drive. It was jammed in a way that's hard to describe, and it took me 20 minutes of poking with a screwdriver to free it. I gingerly tried a sacrificial CD, and it popped in and out perfectly. While I had the case off I thought I might as well take a look at the loose, wiggling screen hinge that had been bugging me ever since I bought the MBP. Two minutes later I'd tightened the relevant wayward screw, and as an added bonus the 'book now popped open properly when I pressed the latch. I put it all back together, turned it on, and inserted my precious Snow Leopard DVD, holding my breath.
NOW I'M FORCED TO WRITE THIS POST FROM MY NEWLY SNOW LEOPARDED MACBOOK, WITH ITS SCREEN THAT NO LONGER WOBBLES AND ITS WORKING DVD DRIVE, because everything worked PERFECTLY. My plea to anyone considering using an iFixit guide to disassemble their treasured device: BEFORE you dive in with tools, spare some thought for how you'll live with yourself knowing you went months/years putting up with broken parts you were perfectly capable of fixing yourself, with the aid of WELL-WORDED, EASY-TO-FOLLOW instructions.
Thanks a bunch, iFixit :)
[quote|messy]I was a happy MacBook Pro 15" user for almost three years, until the other day when I was tempted by iFixit's MBP 15" optical drive removal guide.
Snow Leopard came out, so I decided the time had come to fix my optical drive (having '''not''' checked first and therefore '''not''' discovered you could use the DVD drive of another machine to install). I'd been putting up with the duff drive, a wobbly screen hinge and a deteriorating opening action for two years - none of them show-stoppers, just gently annoying. I'd taken it in for service once but they'd taken too long to get the parts in and I've not been able to spare it for longer than a week ever since. The drive had lost its appetite for DVDs about nine months after I bought it. I read [http://cubicledenizen.blogspot.com/2008/08/saga-of-broken-macbook-dvd-drive.html|this guide], which sounded plausible because I noticed recently that my MBP chassis was badly bent. The best disassembly guide I found was iFixit's, or so I thought at the time.
I'd disassembled a laptop before. How badly could it go? Grabbing my trusty Torx 6 and Phillips #0 I went to work. The iFixit guide made it trivially easy to tear the 'book apart - my only concern was VOIDING THE REMAINING TWO MONTHS' WARRANTY (educational purchase!). In no time I had parts scattered all across my bed.
Turned out my problem wasn't the bent chassis though, because after bending it back the DVD still wouldn't go in. Thinking I had very little to lose, I took the cover off the drive. It was jammed in a way that's hard to describe, and it took me 20 minutes of poking with a screwdriver to free it. I gingerly tried a sacrificial CD, and it popped in and out perfectly. While I had the case off I thought I might as well take a look at the loose, wiggling screen hinge that had been bugging me ever since I bought the MBP. Two minutes later I'd tightened the relevant wayward screw, and as an added bonus the 'book now popped open properly when I pressed the latch. I put it all back together, turned it on, and inserted my precious Snow Leopard DVD, holding my breath.
NOW I'M FORCED TO WRITE THIS POST FROM MY NEWLY SNOW LEOPARDED MACBOOK, WITH ITS SCREEN THAT NO LONGER WOBBLES AND ITS WORKING DVD DRIVE, because everything worked PERFECTLY. My plea to anyone considering using an iFixit guide to disassemble their treasured device: BEFORE you dive in with tools, spare some thought for how you'll live with yourself knowing you went months/years putting up with broken parts you were perfectly capable of fixing yourself, with the aid of WELL-WORDED, EASY-TO-FOLLOW instructions.
Thanks a bunch, iFixit :)[/quote]
