Dropped my MBP Unibody on the cement...

I was using my mac to guide me through some auto repairs in the garage. I had it sitting on a box in the corner and it took a tumble onto the cement. About a 2ft drop I'd say.

The corners of the upper unibody case (not the display case but the case that houses the keyboard and trackpad) are beat up pretty good. But it has been working great still for the past two months. The screen itself was not damaged other than some minor indentation in a corner. I'm really very lucky in that respect.

Here are some photos:








and one more...


that last photo is of my new replacement case from ifixit that just arrived today. This weekend I'm going to swap all of the guts over into it. Should be a nice fun little project. I'll post a final photo or two once I get everthing moved over along with any roadblocks that I may run into. It should be fairly straight forward and I don't expect any issues.

Thanks,

Ben

 

Ouch, good luck with the switchover!

 

I just shed a tear.

 

I'm typing this from my newly assembled Mac. This replacement case from ifixit comes with new keyboard, touchpad, and some of the ribbon cables for things like drives, infrared, battery level indicator, etc. My Mac is now almost like brand new.

One thing to note: The hinge screws are in very tight from the factory. I think they used superglue instead of loctite. ha. I could not get the little T6-Torx screwdriver to supply enough torque to break the hinge screws loose. So I clamped the vice grip onto the screwdriver driver and I used it like a wrench while I had a friend apply pressure to the screwdriver straight down from above. There is a ton more torque this way and in a controlled manner without worry about stripping the heads. Prior to that idea I was close to giving up and putting it all back together in the old case, but I had everything gutted out already.

Here are the photos:

 

made some of the photo links as attachments to make it a little easier to view them.

 

Looks good!!

 

Cool! Thanks for sharing this.

 

Nice recovery there.

 

My friend had the same problem with their laptop and dropped it down a flight of stairs (well a few steps like 4 - 5 ) and i was surprising to see how nice the laptop still runs... and I am amazed that it held up so well...

 

how much did the charge you for all that?

 

Great question I am wondering that too... how much was the cost of parts on this?

 

The cost for this was $299 plus shipping from ifixit... plus whatever my time is worth I spent about 3.5 to 4 hours on it but I was working very slowly and carefully, makeing sure everything was kept organized.

I have seen them for as low as $260 elsewhere but I knew that iFixit was reputable and so I did not mind spending a bit more for a quality case.

The Apple part number is 661-5041 if anyone wants to google it. It comes with trackpad and keyboard assembled in the case.

ifixit's website says that the cases it sells are used and tested but it looked absolutely perfect. I thought it was brand new. They used masking tape to secure any loose bits and ribbon cables, etc inside the case. The case was packaged in a pink bubble wrap envelope. And that was wrapped in a thin foam sheet. The whole thing was packaged in a box filled with foam peanuts. A very well packaged product. I shouldve taken more photos of it. Even the keyboard looked new (it wasn't shiney).

If anyone needs a replacement keyboard or a replacment trackpad, just let me know.

 

amazing recovery *_*

i was wondering is this possible with the MBP lid as well?

 

Excellent work! Those hinge screws are a complete b****.

 

Hi,

MyService – MacBook Case Replacement - Mac Laptop Casing

aluminum display housing/case (without the screen itself). About $179 USD for the 15" Macbook Pro aluminum lid. I didn't see anything there for a 13" or 17" though.

You can find writeups online on how to replace a screen in the display case houseing.

The Macbook Pro display assemblies are also available online. I see that ifixit has them (with everything preassembled such as the aluminum lid, the display itself, bezels, glass or antiglare, iSight camera, airport antenna, etc). But they are alot more dough: $750 - $899 USD.

In that situation though, I'd probably put a cool skin print on the display case lid instead of spending that much money.