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It's Sean's fault that the repair didn't happen until Monday. The hinge arrived on Friday and, though I was anxious to get to it, Lyle was throwing Sean a LAN party on Saturday, and there was a lot to set up on Friday night. I brought my son, who played a few games until we noticed a horrible burning smell coming from our Windows PC. Apparently a bad power supply had taken out a bunch of capacitors on the mother board, putting that machine out of commission as well. It was a bad week for computers in the Tracy household.

 

Lyle graciously offered me use of his department's electronics room on Saturday, with an excellent soldering iron, tools and electronics bits. So, Saturday I brought the wounded PowerBook, the new hinge [purchaced from the PowerBook Guy], and every electronics tool I'd thought I'd need, ready to play a little and work on the PowerBook a lot. It didn't happen though. With friends, food, zombie flicks, and a Star Wars first person shooter, the day became evening and then night. The PowerBook remained untouched.

Sunday I spent with my family, after being away all Saturday, and tried not to think about the fact that I had all the parts and was itching to go.

Monday morning I took Quinn to school, gathered some last minute items (sorry, but if you're looking for a T-6 torx wrench, I bought the last one in Santa Cruz county) and set up on the workbench at home.

I had purchased a Take Apart Manual from www.powerbookmedic.com. It was about $10, and came as a downloadable PDF. This was great since I printed out only the 46 pages that pertained to this repair. Um... that was a lot of pages.

The manual was wonderful, showing step by step how to remove the components needed to get the screen off. Turns out you need to take almost everything apart before you can separate the display from the keyboard/processor. The culprit was a set of wires that plugs in under the logic board, which means the logic board needs to be removed. To remove the logic board, you need to take out the modem, the modem filter, the inverter board, the Airport card, the memory, and the keyboard. Well, reverse that order and that's actually how you're SUPPOSED to do it.

 

So, I removed piece after piece, following the step by step instructions. I was able to skip the sections on removing the hard drive and optical drive. Also, it turns out I didn't really need to remove the modem or the inverter board. Oh well, it gave me a chance to dust under them.

 

Ever Growing Pile of parts,

 

Bits Cataloging System

 

There was a tricky bit, getting the largish video connector out through the small opening near the hinge. Fortunately, the manual hinted that it could be taken out by turning the connector sideways, but warned about the sharp edge that could potentially strip the delicate video cables. With that warning, I was able to remove the cable without damaging it, but it was still a pain to get out of there. I feel for the person in Taiwan whose job it is to run that cable through the tiny hole all day.

 

On the other hinge, the broken one, I was pleasantly surprised to find the black cable that had snapped had a service loop of about 3 cm! A service loop is a loop of extra wire, left there in case you needed to cut and splice it; it prevents the wire from being too short after maintenance.

 

I pulled the last wires out, and the display came free. I now had two halves of my really expensive PowerBook, and an impressive pile of components that wasn't in either half. For just a moment, I despaired of ever getting all the bits together again correctly. My manual, after all, was a 'Take Apart', not a 'Put Back Together'. In fact, the last line in the manual was 'now reassemble your PowerBook'. Oh, thanks.

I put the chassis down and started to crack the seal on the display half. If you ever do this, please make sure the panel is flat on the table, and that you're sitting down. It's not for the faint of heart. In fact, the only warning in the entire Take Apart Manual was in the section detailing opening the LCD case.  

This is the warning in the Take Apart Manual. Scary.

I pulled and pulled with just my fingers. The only place to really get a good grip is where the hinges used to be, and it's really sharp in there! I pulled and pulled and sweated and pulled. There was a loud CRACK!, and part of the case bent up, just a bit. It was scary, and I had to check the display to make sure it had been only the epoxy seal, and not the LCD that had made that loud noise. All was good, however, so I jammed a flat screwdriver into the crack and opened up one side.

I opened the cladding up to where the hinge stopped, about 5 cm, and then just a little further so I had some wiggling room. Every time the case opened a little more, there would be another loud cracking sound. Eventually I had enough room to pry the broken part of the hinge free. It was epoxyed to a strip of metal that ran the length of the display casing, and was a struggle to free. In the end, I used pliers and mangled the metal strip a bit. The manual said this was no problem, since with just a bit of prodding it would slip back into place.

 

Now that the hinge was removed, I dug around for the other end of the broken ground wire. I traced it under a large white piece of tape running along the bottom of the LCD. I cut it out, and was surprised by its length. That gave me plenty of room to work on splicing it! I stripped the ends, soldered them together, and used my small butane torch to heat the shrink tubing (kids, always remember to put the shrink tubing on BEFORE you solder. Like me.)

With the wire repaired, and the hinge out, it was time to glue everything back together. I'd purchased some GOOP, which is very strong, doesn't require mixing, and can be pulled apart easier than epoxy. So, in went the GOOP, in went the hinge, and on went the clamps. After making sure the seal looked good and wiping up the excess, my daughter wanted to go play. I checked the package thinking I'd have an hour or two while this cured. Lets see...warnings, directions... cure time 24 hours! Ack! I plopped the clamp-display assembly in front of a heater to speed the curing process and headed out after my three year old.

   

My daughter watched most of the procedure. I highly recommend using three year olds during the repair process.

 

The repaired hinge and wire.

 

The chassis during the repair. I was bored waiting for the glue to dry, so my daughter and I skipped out to play in the yard.

Five hours later, I couldn't wait any longer. I released one of the clamps and was pleased to see the glue held. I released the other and began the short re-assembly process. It was amazing how easily everything went back together; part after part simply snapping back into place. I must hand it to Apple; as lousy as some of their products are to work on (and here I'm thinking of the old 8500 that you had to remove the mother board from to upgrade the memory), the pieces are generally well machined and fit together very easily. The only problem encountered during assembly was dropping one screw for the bottom plate. It's somewhere in the garage, probably around the workbench. I'll never find it, though.

As I was putting the memory and the battery back in, my wife happened by. She held my hand as I pressed the power button. The start up chime sounded, informing me that everything had been put back together well, but the display didn't light up. I told her (and myself) it was due to the logic board having been without power, so the PRAM and NVRAM had to reset. It took about 5 seconds (or two years subjective time), but the display flashed to life, the grey Apple logo appeared, and my machine booted up. It's Alive!

 

And that was it. My PowerBook is working wonderfully. In fact, I'm writing this article and editing the pictures on it right now, uploading them wirelessly, while listening to my tunes. All is good. The only signs of the entire incident are a slightly wider gap on the LCD case, and some GOOP that hasn't yet been rubbed off. Everything else is as it was.

If you ever do this, you must get a take apart manual [www.powerbookmedic.com]. It's essential! Without that, I'm sure I would have stripped the display wires, which would have been another $60 some odd, and another week waiting for parts. It made this job a routine, step by step disassembly - reassembly project instead of my typical 'unscrew-a-thon' where I see how many parts can be possibly removed from the machine. And yes, next time I'll take the extra 10 steps across the living room to place this on the table instead of the floor. Lesson learned.