michael jones

This is the bridge connector which sits between the motherboard and the cable connector. It is not held on by anything other than being sandwiched between the motherboard, the cable connector and the screw running through the connectors. It is a must have. The display or battery will not work without their bridge connectors.

I slowly removed the old adhesive watching out for glass shards. A spundger and razer blade didn’t really help. In the end, I just used my fingernail and finger to roll the adhesive like I was removing rubber cement. It too about 30 minutes but I was able to get it cleaned off. I replaced the adhesive with 2 mm Tesa tape. This worked great.

A plastic card and non-metal spudger were too flexible to work. I used the metal spudger working the outer edge (right and top) getting about half way through these three cells. I then used my hand to pry up at about 60 degrees with a firm slow steady force. The adhesive slowly separated. The batteries were double sided taped to the back of the surface pro. The tape is very thin. It came off with the battery cells and could not be reused. Therefore, I used several lines of Tesa tape for the new battery cells. Make sure the connector on the new battery reaches and fully squares off to the bridge connector on the motherboard. First time I was off by a tiny fraction of an mm. The battery cable has zero give. I had to remove and reset the new battery.

The instructions do not mention the bridge connectors under the connectors - tiny little rectangle boards with gold connector dots. There is one under the battery connector and under the display connector. It is sandwiched in between the board and the connector. You may not even notice the bridge connectors. In fact the pictures here with the cable connectors off are showing the bridge connectors under the cable connectors still lying on the motherboard. Go ahead and remove the bridge connectors with tweezers. These connectors are just lying on the motherboard and WILL FALL OFF getting lost without noticing it. The cable connectors do not work without the bridge connectors installed. Good news is the connectors are keyed and fit only one way.

BTW: Both screws on the battery and display connector were T3’s and the same size.

I used an inexpensive variable heat gun with a dial. It was perfect. My fixed temperature gun would have ruined it. There are two small vents on either side of the screen near the top. Start there and work down on each side. I didn’t have opening picks to keep the glass separated from the body. So, I used blank Cards Against Humanity I found lying around.

I watched two popular videos. Neither helped and were no better than these instructions. In one video, the guy heats and smashes his way around the display with metal tool. Mistake! Don’t do this even if the screen is broken. This causes glass shards to go everywhere and will force you to replace the adhesive before installing a new screen. You can’t reuse adhesive if it is full of glass. Another video uses a heat gun one side at a time and simply sliding a pick along the edge working around the Surface. This didn’t work. The person had already removed the screen once before and started the second removal before the video.

I just replaced both my screen and battery. It took four hours and a couple of wrong turns but I was successful learning what to do next time. However, I am not sure I would do it again.

It takes more heat than one imagines - all most too much and made me queasy fearing I was going to damage something. I would say it actually too hot and likely to damage something so be careful and do not prolong the removal. To get started I used a glass top warming/buffet heating tray set to about 200 degrees.  I turned the surface pro glass side down before turning it one so it would heat gradually with the tray. I let it heat for 15 minutes. In end, I am not sure it helped or not by starting this way.  This was not an easy removal so I shudder to think how worse it would have been if this didn’t help. I used a variable heat gun for the remaining steps. My screen was broken so breaking it further while nerve racking was not going to be catastrophic.