MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2010
Released April 2010 / 2.4, 2.53 GHz Core i5 or 2.66, 2.8 GHz Core i7 Processors
MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2010 Logic Board Replacement
Replace the logic board in your MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2010.
- Author: Andrew Bookholt
- Difficulty: Difficult
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Use this guide to replace your bare logic board. This requires removal of every component attached to the logic board.
Sections
- Lower Case 2 steps
- Battery 4 steps
- Left Fan 3 steps
- Logic Board 17 steps
- Heat Sink 2 steps
- Logic Board Replacement 6 steps
Tools
Tools (continued)
Relevant Parts
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Step 3
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Battery
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Remove the two 7.4 mm Y1 Tri-Wing screws securing the battery to the upper case.
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Note: For certain repairs (e.g. hard drive), removing the battery is not necessary but it prevents any accidental shorting of electronics on the motherboard. If you do not remove the battery, please be careful as parts of the motherboard might be electrified.
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You do not necessarily have to follow steps 3-6 to remove the battery in order to replace the hard drive. However it is recommended to remove all power sources from electronics before working on them.
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Step 8
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Use the flat end of a spudger to disconnect the left fan connector from the logic board.
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It is useful to twist the spudger axially from beneath the fan cable wires to release the connector.
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The fan socket and the fan connector can be seen in the second and third pictures. Be careful not to break the plastic fan socket off the logic board as you use your spudger to lift the fan connector straight up and out of its socket. The layout of the logic board shown in the second picture may look slightly different than your machine but the fan socket is the same.
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Comments
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A 1/16th flathead screwdriver easily removes the tri-wing screws in this step. I could not find a Y0 Tri-wing driver at any local stores.
Jon Daniels, · Reply
I'd like to add that for me, a 1/16th flathead screwdriver did NOT allow me to remove the tri-wing screws holding the battery in place. After several careful attempts, it became obvious I was perilously close to stripping the screw(s), so I abandoned the attempt to unscrew the tri-wing screws with a flathead screwdriver altogether. As it turned out, I didn't need to remove the battery to do what I needed to do (keyboard replacement), but it would have been a whole lot easier had the battery been easily removable.
The Tri-wing screw driver is impossible to find in retail, amazon and ebay are great bets but they vary wildly in quality... I ordered two, and both were so cheap, and barely got the job done. It could be worth getting it here. When you do get it, make sure you push, the Y0 screws were very tight in my macbook, pressing hard prevents you from stripping the Y screw.
It is not strictly necessary. As mentioned above, removing the battery is the only way to be sure that no parts of the logic board are electrified. It is very easy to replace the hard drive without removing the battery, but it is safer to remove the battery first.
Step 1 (technically step 9 - replacing the base plate) Apparently one of my screws was a micron or two smaller than the others. This screw belongs to the hole above the optical drive, which is also apparently a couple of microns smaller than the others. It took seven attempts to figure which screw had originally been in that hole; all the other screws were too large, but fitted perfectly everywhere else.
Bizarre much?