MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display Late 2013 Left Fan Replacement

Woohoo, much easier than I thought... Just got confused with the bottom case screw driver but after figure out it was P5 then everything went smooth.... One thing I wanted to upgrade was the wifi to ac and got one on ebay!

If you have 54 Bit Driver kit, please use Star 5 driver to remove screw for rMBP 2012 Late

Where can I find the driver for the MacBook Pro Retina Display 15'4 i7 on your website iFixit please.

It took about 40 minutes due to an extreme measure of caution but I did it! The only real difficulty was reattaching the screen to the base (yes you have to pry the hinges open) and re-connecting the camera wires. After a few tries the camera wires finally came together. I'm hating Apple for all it's frailty and magical screws but I love ifixit!

Simple guide, but it solved my problem. Was wondering why the top two screws weren't going all the way down. Hadn't realized they were 0.7mm shorter.

Good to list the bit needed to open the case: P6

Much easier than expected. Sounds like several people had trouble with the backlight. It is possible that they damaged something by not first making sure to power down the computer completely with the “Shut Down” command. This should be step 1 before removing the back cover screws. Also as noted all the back cover screws are Apple Pentelope #5 bit, but 2 of the screws are shorter than the others. This bit is is hard to find in most stores. Buy it on line along with the Tork #5 and #8. 11/21/2017

Replaced my Magsafe 2 yesterday and it works perfectly on my MBP 15” ea13. However, when I plugged in the charger I heard the startup sound twice and then I got to the login page where I realized the keyboard didn’t respond.

So I thought I should restart the computer so I clicked ”shut down”. But the keyboard is dead. I can’t start it. I haven’t tried to use a USB-keyboard yet..

Any ideas what may have caused this to happen and what component ”handles” the keyboard? Thanks

/JD

Not sure if this has been listed.

PRO TIPS from a non-pro:

1 - Keep screws separated and labeled by step # and size.

2 - Be very careful to get screws in properly threaded, its VERY easy to strip the ccrew holes and screws. Especially the case. Not that it happened to me…

3 - It was impossible for me to get all the adhesive off the case from under battery, it left a lot on w/o issue (yet).

4 - Make sure you have Aluminium Foil before starting!

5 - Upgrade the SSD or HDD while your in there!

If you are following this how-to because liquid/coffee splashed in through the back vents, WAIT UNTIL THE END to clean any liquid spills on the bottom panel. Use them as your map for cleaning and QA guide for checking until you are finished with your cleanup of logic board and other items.

For rMBP 2012 Late, you don't need to remove this sticker.

Why is this step necessary?

67b5ebab Good question !

Why is this necessary ?

This step is necessary to prevent any discharging, arcing, friction/static charges from damaging any of the extremely delicate and intricate parts of this (or most any) electrical system. In practice, you should even be wearing an anti-static band or be working on an anti-static bench even with the battery disconnected so your body doesn't create any unintentional charges.

One of the first things you should learn in electronics repair and and electrical in general is to cut the power source whenever possible before performing any work. Some systems have schedulers/triggers set that will wake the system up (even when closed) to perform updates and other maintenance tasks as to not eat up CPU and RAM during 'peak hours'. The last thing you need is to have your $2,000 laptop turn on while pulling an SSD (which, correct me if wrong, isn't a plug-and-play based device) which could do some serious corruption and/or damage; when all you had to do was peel a sticker and plug.

Hope that helps!!

~the more you know~

I did not peel back the sticker. It is probably there to help unplug the battery. You can apply a gentle constant pull while you use spudger to lift the battery connector out of the socket as per the next step. It made this very easy.

Joel - the purpose of all of the trouble in removing the logic board is to make sure that you don’t damage anything when you start pull out the battery. After this step - it’s true, you have about 12 connectors and dozens of screws to unplug, but I didn’t have any major problems.

REASSEMBLY - I had to use alot of force to get the official IFIXIT battery connect to push into place to actually connect. I was worried that one of the wires would stress and break. It worked, but it was not super easy this part.

I also skipped down to step 50. I stuck a piece of 1/2 inch weather stripping across the middle of the top cover of the laptop to maintain a pitch on the unit so the adhesive remover stayed away from the other components. I applied the remover and used a piece of string to cut through the adhesive strips. I owed the plastic tool from the kit to position the string behind the top of each cell and cut through one ata a time. The battery came out in about 15 minutes. The directions were very informative and useful but I thought the risks associated with dismantling the laptop and reassembling it again were greater. I could not have done it without the details presented. Thank you.

Having broken a connector on a logic board in the past, I worried about all the steps. But I understand the disaster that can occur if cleaning fluid contacts the logic board. Weighing costs and benefits, I also did not remove the logic board. I loosened up the speakers (since only two screws could be removed) to give me space to slide the cards under the battery cells. Using the two cards, sometimes sliding one over the other, I was able to remove the battery in 15- 20 minutes. Removing the remaining adhesive was VERY tedious. Eventually I settled on CAREFULLY applying small amounts of remover with the syringe and using the spudger (both pointy and broad ends) to scrape the remainders off. I cleaned the residual with Q-tips dipped in remover (buy a big box of Q-tips), refastened the speakers, installed the new battery, closed the case and voila.

Question, on the first image above you can read a serial and other information ... The creator of the guide could you confirm if it corresponds exactly to the Apple serial on the box? I wonder why I had the laptop in assistance to replace the GPU, and other problems were born once I returned ... to which removed the cover I saw this sticker and I immediately had doubts about it.

I too found the need to completely teardown the laptop onerous and risky. I’m not certified in anything hardware but I’ve been doing my own repairs for a while. I watched the video referenced above and read the comments there. With some changes, here is what I did, which worked perfectly and minimized the risk, for a whole additional $3 in parts, just myself and in under an hour:

1. Go to hardware store and get 2 4” bolts ($1 each) and a coil of 20 gauage galvanized wire.

2. Wrap one end of the wire a few times around one bolt, then tie it off with a knot. Do the same with the other bolt, leaving about 10” of wire between the two.

3. Follow steps 1-4 in this guide

4. Slip the wire under one of the outer batteries (use a card or spudger to help get the wire underneath

5. Grip both bolts with one hand and rock them back and forth, pulling the wire under the battery, using your other hand to hold the case. This should take about 2 seconds (seriously). Repeat for other outer batteries

(continued)

6. Pull the plastic frames away from the left and right sides of the center batteries.

7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the two center batteries.

8. Jump to step 55, then reassemble.

Note: when installing the new battery, ensure the part closest to you is UNDER the two plastic tabs.

Worked perfectly.

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fupkPz55...

Note: using the nylon thread with that much effort is crazy. Use the wire or fishing line.

i just got my Kit and started the procedure, i decided to try if i can get the bulged batteries out with a fishing line, which worked fine. No need to use any solvent and even not too much force was needed to get the line under the batteries. I was able to remove the batteries in about 5min, used another 10min to clean the case from the residue, and put in the new battery. All togehter about 20min of work. I´m very happy with the result, Macbook stays now back on its feet, closes correctly and trackpad works as expected.

Also departed from procedure immediately after STEP # 4 as per JOEL’s recommendation …used a small chunk of fishing line and it worked sans solvent…easily ! Spudger worked quite well to initially position the string /line & the ifixit ( ‘credit’ ) cards were nice for final dislodging of each battery segment from the last bits of residual gooey adhesive , AFTER working the fishing line back & forth down the length of the battery as much as possible. With the old battery out of the way, I used a razor blade to clean out the remaining bits of adhesive gunk. ( Decided NOT to use solvent here, either.) Took me every bit of 1-hour.

One thing that helped ,too, was a cheap pair of cotton gloves coated on the palm side w/ latex. This kept my fingers comfortable from the pressure of the fishing line & allowed more of a range of force …since I wasn’t wincing from saw-cutting myself !

This came of super easy as the glue seemed to have dried up or something of that nature; anyone know if this is an issue?

Also it seemed like there are clips on sides of the rubber heat sink which I couldn't work out how to clip it back on, so I placed it back where it was after and it seems to be ok; maybe it isn't meant to clip on hard and rather just to be a security measure. Anyone else had this?

I had the same experience as you this was super easy to remove as well.

Glue was long gone. It just flops over by itself.

I have this feeling that my “noisi fan” was actually the loose end of this rubber cover. So verify that you insert rubber clips back to its slots on under the edge of the sink.

check if screw marking here is right

seems like T5 is the wrong screwdriver for the "3.9 mm T5 Wide Head Torx screw"

T4 seems to have worked for me

i tried unscrewing the screw with a yellow circle around it but it is not unscrewing i think it is stripped

a question out of curiosity is it possible to remove that left fan completely and use and external fan instead of it?

and what is that fan for? is it for CPU or VGA? i noticed someone was referring to that fan as vga's fan.

I can't imagine any scenario why one might want to do that Einstein. An external fan on a laptop? Seriously?

be nice, silly

I would say that my cable was permanently adhered, or at least requires chemistry to remove the adhesive. Definitely check if fan parts are in stock before attempting to remove the cable that doesn't seem to be coming loose from the motherboard.

Couldn’t manage to “flip up the retaining flap on the left fan ribbon cable ZIF socket.”, in fact think I may may broken a piece off. In the end just pulled out the cable by sliding it down and out (maybe I did manage to loosen it after all). Cable didn’t appear to be glued down thankfully.