Introduction
This motherboard includes all ports on the right side.
What you need
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Use your fingers to push both battery release tabs away from the battery and lift the battery out of the computer.
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Remove the four identical Phillips 3.4 mm screws from the memory door. These screws have 4 mm diameter heads rather than the 3 mm heads on the body screws.
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Remove the three Phillips screws in the battery compartment near the latch. Apple was nice enough to tilt these screws at a slight angle to make them easier to remove. On the A1261 these screws have 4 mm diameter heads rather than the 3 mm heads on the body screws.
To Damon - possibly the thread on the bottom of the upper case is obstructed.
I found that I needed to fight the latch magnet with the right-most screw in the photo. The screw was pulled away from the hole so a magnetized screwdriver was not enough to place it. I needed tweezers to hold the screw in place until it bit.
No, these screws won’t bite going back in — struggled for an hour. Lost hope of success.
Case screw holes perfectly lined-up, neatly closed body, screw threads/head are fine (Apple quality screws), perfect screwdriver.
The left one is in, other two simply will not bite whatsoever. Slightly irritating eventually turned to madly infuriating. I have a similar, earlier model and that was smooth to replace these exact, slightly angled screws (so I have experience).
Q: Are the centre and right-hand screws absolutely essential — or can I give up and leave them out?
(By the time you read this, that’s what I’ll have done)(out of sheer frustration)
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Remove the following six screws:
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Two 14.5 mm T6 Torx screws on either side of the RAM slot.
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Four 3.4 mm Phillips screws along the hinge.
These instructions are actually wrong. The 14.5 mm screws are for along the hinge, the 2 on either side of the RAM slot are about 10 mm.
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Remove the four 3.4 mm Phillips screws on the port side of the computer.
When reassembling, please be careful not to screw into the wrong spot. I accidentally screwed into the DVI port and it was hard to remove the screw after that. I had to disassemble the whole thing again, only to find that I couldn't remove the screw from within as it was encased. After much scraping and prodding with a sewing needle, I was able to get that screw out. Phew!
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Lift up the back of the case and work your fingers along the sides, freeing the case as you go. Once you have freed the sides, you may need to rock the case up and down to free the front of the upper case.
Be very careful not to bend the screw tabs on the top case the perimeter screws attach to. Bending them causes them to quickly fatigue and potentially break off. When reassembling the top case, be sure the tabs are all *inside* the case before reseating it. If you get resistance, pull the case back up, check the tabs and reseat the top case again.
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Disconnect the trackpad and keyboard ribbon cable from the logic board.
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Remove the upper case.
Disconnecting this cable is optional, if instead you tip up the top case ~75 degrees, propping it up with something non-metalic (wedged in or by the battery compartment). Unplugging a connector from the main circuit board always carries slight additional risk.
It's not really necessary to disconnect the trackboard/keyboard ribbon cable. You can simply lean the upper case against the LCD.
After having successfully removed/reattached the ribbon cable several times while trying to revive this computer for back-up use the securing/release tabs on the connector broke. The connector then will not hold the cable properly and connecting fails. Tried various methods of propping the cable in the connector to get full contact but eventually all efforts failed, too. Result: essentially a dead motherboard as no replacement for the connector seems available. Sadly, not worth the extra effort to try further repairs.
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Disconnect the orange SuperDrive ribbon cable from the logic board, removing tape as necessary.
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Disconnect the ten indicated connectors from the logic board.
For model A1229, you have to disconnect the two additional connectors. Both are small with a black and grey cable, like the one in the top middle on the photo.

The first is located between the large display data cable and the fan connector, the second is located near the two connectors marked at the top left of the picture.
OK...connectors come out, but they are not going back in easy...is there a special way they get reattached?
Have an A1261 case but logic board connectors match A1229. Guessing wrong logic board was put in when new and board went out.
So on left side coming from display on A1261 case on left side in front of speaker assembly there are 3 small wires coming from display.they are black, blue and grey. The grey on is not connected. Don’t find place for it. Display backlights went out suspect inverter.
Now not sure what to do? There are no photos showing the 3 display wires with button down brass ends.
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Remove the following twelve screws:
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Seven 6.5 mm T6 Torx screws.
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Two 7.6 mm T6 Torx screws securing the battery connector to the lower case.
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Three 7.8 mm T6 Torx screws.
The upper five (5) 6.5 mm T6 Torx screws, marked in red, DO NOT need to be removed in order to remove the logic board assembly from the lower case. These screws secure the CPU/GPU/NB heat sink to the PCB and they should NOT be removed unless you intend to remove the heat sink.
Loosening or removal of any of these upper five (5) 6.5 mm T6 Torx screws, closest to the hinge, will disturb the thermal interface and requires cleaning of the heat sink along with the CPU, GPU, and NB dies plus reapplication of thermal paste.
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Lift up the left side of the logic board and disconnect the multi-colored power connector from the bottom of the board.
i can put board back in but getting the power plugged back in is difficult to see let alone know if it is fully seated.
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
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8 Comments
I haven't tried this (yet). However, one note that might be useful:
Note the heat sink compound on the tops of the CPU, video chip, and whatever the third chip is. You're going to need to clean that off the chips and the mating surface and carefully replace it with new compound. Mac's run hot, so it's important to do this carefully (for better heat conduction.
Buy a good quality thermal grease like "Arctic Silver" or "OCZ Freeze Extreme" (my favorite because its almost as good and easier to use). The instructions assume that you're putting the heat sink down on the CPU, but here you're putting the CPU down on the heat sink, so adjust accordingly.
Tried that. Rather helpful, but a few suggestions.
Step 18: I would suggest to avoid losen the screws that that fasten the heatsink to the board - unless your intention is to really replace the board or the thermal paste. It is possible to get the board in and out with the heatsink attached, but you may have to remove the fans first. Do not losen the five srews marked red towards the back.
Step 19: the mentioned coloured cable is not always coloured (it is not in my model), do not mistake that cable with the cable to the battery, which is also couloured and also connected to the bottom of the board. It may also be better to remove the left speaker assembly and the WLan card to get to the other end of that cable and disconnect it there.
Would it be possible to replace the logic board of an A1212 with the logic board of an A1261?
Look at Step 14, the connectors seem to be different, at least at first sight. Why do you want to take that risk, by the way?
Waldbaer -
The logic board's not working, and since it's an old computer I figured I could use this opportunity to upgrade the logic board itself to something that could cope better with today's apps etc. It might also be easier to find a replacement logic board for a more recent model.
1212 and 1261 don’t replace each other.
Been there, done that.
Before upgrading to a larger HD, you'll want to "clone" your original HD using the donation-ware program "Carbon Copy Cloner" (http://www.bombich.com/). Put the new HD in an external case; clone the original; test the clone (by starting up with it), then take apart the MacBook to put the new HD in the MacBook, and the original in the external case for use as a backup, etc. (You can't just drag the contents of the original HD to the new HD, and expect it to work; not since the days of OS 9 and before.)
amiller770 - Reply
Can I put more than two gigabytes of RAM in?
Noah Nsangou - Reply
mine has 2g*2=4 gb ram in. you should be fine
on mac forum it suggested to put 4gb and a 2gb in a1261.
david -
I made the mistake of wanting to do a clean install of OS and start fresh after installing a SSD. Now I can't install most browsers on OSX Leopard. Does anyone know what is the most current version of OS I can put on this system? (disk or download) Can I get to Snow or Lion?
2006 17" MackBook Pro Model#A1151
2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
Memory: Two 1GB 667 MHz
Hard Drive: Corsair Force GS: SSD 128GB
scannon - Reply
You can install OS X 10.7 LION and no later version. Although LION runs ok with 2GB RAM it does help to get 1GB + 2GB = 3GB. Even if you install 2 X 4GB you will only utilize 3GB. Installing a SSD seems to make no difference since the SATA bus is only 1.5GB/s. A good 5400rpm disk is good enough. I even run BootCamp and Windows 7. Works fine. Not fast but fine. My A1212 refuses to die :-)
asle -
There seems to be some discrepancy about whether or not installing a SSD will help. See Phil's earlier comment from October 2015: there, *he* claims that having an SSD increases the load times significantly, (even though -- of course -- 1.5Gbps is not ideal)...
His quotation, (re-)cited integrally:
Just replaced my old HD with a Corsair Force LX SSD (which is SATA 1-3 compatible as required by this model) with success now my old 'outdated' laptop has super fast loading times and is postively flying faster than the speed of 'sound'. Thanks for the guide. Only problem I faced was replacing the top panel which after a few minutes of panic realised the rubber mounted Mic next to the left speaker had risen up when I had removed the top panel so after carefully pushing it back into place the panel fitted back how it should, so beware of this possible problem.
Phil - 10/07/2015
at0gjm -
Bonjour j'ai besoin de cette bactérie que dois-je faire ?
basile kouamé YAO - Reply