Introduction
Please refer to the iMac Intel 21.5" Retina 4K Display (2017) Adhesive Strips Replacement guide for the official procedure, including steps to accommodate the microphone.
This guide has been archived for historical purposes.
What you need
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Use scissors to cut off the part of the adhesive strip that will cover the microphone.
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Continue with adhesive installation and reassembly as instructed.
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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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5 Comments
I just bought the new custom iMac 2017 and it has very muffled microphone, kind of disappointed...
Yes, me too… I bought one 4k iMac 2017 and every-time when I try to talk to someone on FaceTime and Discord, the other people on the call never listen me… For me especially, is so much disappoint, because I'm from brazil and 1 iMac price here, it's like 3 or 4 at the USA.
Hey Oros,
It’s awesome that you’ve started a guide for this. It’s such an essential issue, and I never seemed to get around to doing it myself. I was wondering if, maybe, you could mention me somewhere. Not anything lengthy; it would just be a nice for me to feel like I contributed. Especially since I see that you used some of what I wrote from my forum post (Muffled Microphone - iMac 21.5" (mid 2017) - Following Adhesive Strips) directly in this guide, verbatim. Don’t get me wrong… I think it’s great and I have no problem with it. But it would be nice to see my name floating around somewhere. :)
Sorry but this solution does not work! I encountered this problem after upgrading my imac 27 2017, even after cutting these stripes, the sound quality is still VERY poor (as if you were speak into a pipe), Siri works bad, Skype constantly reduces the sensitivity of the microphone to a minimum (apparently because it registers some noise from inside)
I guess the problem is that the sound from the inside of the imac should not get on the microphone and most likely there are two microphones installed - one for noise canceling the other for capturing sound and they need to be separated, the original strips that Apple uses have a small cutout in the center, insulating the microphone somehow [|https://ibb.co/kABrEo], Dear iFixit I beg you to find a solution to this problem, at the moment it's very difficult to use the built-in microphone
Thank you!
Like Dmitry I have the same problem. First time I completely went over the microphone. Second time I cut out the pice over the mic and now its works but the quality is really bad indeed like an echo chamber. I wonder what was the original adhesive doing differently? I am waiting before i go in for a third time.
Would love it if somebody can post their solution! :-)
Thank you
