Steps 1–24: Teardown
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MacBook Pro 17" Unibody Teardown
Introduction
Our MacBook Pro 17" Unibody arrived on February 17. We immediately got to work disassembling it and posting teardown photos here. We comment on interesting changes and show some comparisons with other MacBook parts.
Tools used in this guide
Teardown
Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.
Paginated Single Page Steps
Step 1
—
Teardown
We have it! Our patience has been severely tested by the month-long wait for this MacBook Pro 17".
We'll post updates on twitter about interesting things that we discover as we go. We'll also post interesting notes in our blog over the next few days.
Feel free to comment on specific steps as we go. If you have requests to see specific parts, we'll do our best to accommodate. There's also a discussion going in our forum.
Step 2
Look at all the accessories you get for $2799!
An 85-watt power adapter
An 87 page user's manual
Two software restore DVDs
One small black cleaning cloth
We were half-expecting Tim Cook to jump out of the box. Didn't happen.
There is NO Mini DisplayPort adapter included. That'll be $29, please.
Step 3
Physical dimensions: 0.98 x 15.47 x 10.51 inches and 6.6 pounds.
For comparison, the 15" model measures 0.95 x 14.35 x 9.82 inches and 5.5 pounds.
There's something almost spiritual about the blackness of that screen. Much to our dismay, it is not full of stars and David Bowman is nowhere to be found.
Step 4
Tidbits from Apple System profiler:
12,820 mAh capacity. Yes, that's 12.8 AMP HOURS. Let's hope it actually lasts the 1,000 discharge cycles that Apple claims.
Our battery already had 3 cycles on it! I wonder if the famous factory girl tested ours.
A 2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz RAM chip is installed in each slot, as expected.
The hard drive is a 320 GB Hitachi HTS543232L95A02 SATA drive using the NVIDIA MCP79 AHCI controller.
The model that we bought has the 'low-end', 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB on-chip shared L2 cache.
Step 5
The lower case. Apple's using wide, thin black rubber feet on the Unibody Pros, a departure from the small stubby bumpers on the Aluminum revisions.
There are ten Phillips screws around the perimeter of the lower case to remove:
Seven 3 mm screws
Three 14 mm screws
Apple's user manual for this computer has instructions to remove the lower case. But they got the length of one of the screws wrong. We promise to get them right in our repair guide.
The computer's serial number is engraved in the aluminum lower case, not the upper case like the other Unibody machines.
Step 6
We removed the screws, and we're rotating off the lower case now.
The second picture reveals the beautiful internals. Look how huge that battery is!
Step 7
Disconnecting the battery connector.
It's probably a good idea to disconnect this cable before continuing to disassemble the machine.
The second photo is removing a 2 GB DDR3 RAM chip.
Step 8
To remove the hard drive, unscrew the two small Phillips screws holding the black plastic hard drive bracket to the chassis. Pull up on the white plastic tab and lift the hard drive out of the case, being careful not to strain the SATA cable.
Carefully disconnect the Serial ATA cable.
I wonder if the battery can be fitted to the 15" by moving the harddrive to where the superdrive is located and completely removing the superdrive. I would rather have more battery life than the superdrive. Anyone up for the challenge? Can someone please measure the dimensions of the battery?
Where are the accelerometers located?
There are none! the only ones are the hard drive sensor which park it for impact but people also use it as accelometers!
Someone please run SwitchResX on a 17" unibody and use the "Export DDC" function to extract the display information. Please post the model number of the LCD panel used.
Hi I just did it is an LG Philips LP171WU6-TLA1. No Info could be found via google on this, seems to be too new.
Hi, I could not see the wifi module, can you identify it?
iFixit Staff
"He [Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design] understands that it's not about the object itself. It's about the experience the object will create"
– Victor Ermoli dean of the School of Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Dec. 08 Mac|life Magazine, Meet the top 10 Apple Influencers
Can u put up a side by side comparison of the different models? I can't visualize just #'s.
iFixit Staff
Locke, we'd love to do that but sadly we don't have a 15" unibody right now! If you find a picture online, I'll post a link to it.
Was there anything stopping you from changing the battery, what is that sticker like tag, does that break or indicate you've removed the battery?
iFixit Staff
No, the sticker doesn't break. I don't think there's any way they could tell you took it apart if you were careful.
http://www.sizeasy.com/page/size_compari...-Apple-MacBook-Pro-17-1-vs-Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-1-vs-Apple-iPhone
Thanks! It's a cool site, but the comparison didn't load for me, I just got a spinney wheel. I'll try again later.
Worked for me in Firefox, not tried any other browsers.
Yup, better now, thanks!
Many thanks, I had and identical question (probably badly formulated) on page 2
That's exactly what I wanted to know.
didn't recieved mine, but for setting the Glasspad "click", removing the batery seems to be the only way
Thanks again
iFixit Staff
The 25th anniversary of the first Macintosh computer was January 24th, 2009... I enjoyed looking at the Evolution of Apple Design Between 1977-2008.
could you take a picture of the motherboard at an extreme close up view and then maybe a straight overall view so that we get an idea of how things are organized inside?
iFixit Staff
Here's a high res closeup.
OMG!! thanks!
Can you try running the laptop without the battery, i.e. using only the power cable. Would it run?
Since I only use my laptop while its on my desk, thus always connect to the AC adapter, why shorten my battery's life if it can work without it.
iFixit Staff
Yes, it would work fine.
You can work without the battery, but it's quite useful to have it in there. The battery's essentially a "backup," powering the computer should anything happen to the AC power. If you accidentally unplug the computer and don't have a battery, you risk ruining your hard drive or just losing information.
It's also not good for the battery to sit there with no charge. Read up on how to prolong the life of lithium ion batteries if you'd like more detailed information.
Do you have any idea who makes the 256GB SSD that comes as a build-to-order option?
no evidence, but pretty sure It's the same manufacturer who provides the 128GB SSD : Samsung
A budy recieved his UB17 with a 256SSD
It looks like it's a Toshiba
Picture of the Apple's UB17" 256GB SDD : Toshiba 256GB Unibody SSD
Model number :
Screenshots of www.serialata.org validation references
The customer who recieved It, seems disapointed, the SSD max out @ 100MB/sec and is 2.5 less performant than the Intel X25 (80GB MLC)
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Puresilicon-936099.html
Does anyone know if the the 1 TB SSD would fit inside? That would be an upgrade!