Repair This Thing!

You remember my old iBook G4, the one that suffered numerous Kernel Panics due to a dodgy Airport card? It's LCD frame broke after it fell off my bed a few months ago, so instead of forking a couple £100 for Apple to fix it, I decided to do it myself!

The Damage
Here's how the laptop looked. The LCD couldn't even stand on its own.







Ordered my parts from Mac Recycling and printed instructions from iFixIt and began work.

The Plan
It was simple enough in theory, replace the broken one with the good one.



In reality, I had to go through the Battery, Keyboard, RAM, Lower Case, DC-In Board, Upper Case, Modem, Display then finally the Hinge Grill. Remind me to get a really long warranty for my next computer, I'll have to buy one soon anyways since this iBook, although still functioning, just can't keep up with the heavy Applications I need to use.

The Repair
- Shutdown the computer, and remove the battery.



- Take the keyboard out, done this loads of times.



- Open the bottom case, wasn't in a panic yet since I saw my friend do this before.



- After removing the shield, I had to unplug some cables from the Logic Board. Then open the top case and shield.





- The Airport card I mentioned earlier, all it needed was something to hold it in place.



- A couple screws later, I had to remove a delicate wire which I kinda broke by detaching it off the Logic Board. It was for the in-built microphone, I don't use it often so I'm glad it wasn't some other important cable.



The Dilemma
After all that the screwdriver I was using got in really bad shape.



Which meant I had to get a new one in the morning, and I was so close too. All I had to do was replace the broken part and put it all back together again.





The Completion
After getting a new screwdriver in the morning, I replaced the frame and put the LCD back in place. Had to be extra extra careful with all those cables. I have no soldering experience and ruining them would mean selling my laptop for parts.





I had a bit more screws left at the end but who cares. My iBook survived yet another operation... can't wait to do it again!