Robot Surgery

Hey there,

I thought somebody might appreciate a post about the near heart attack experience of completely ripping your mac laptop apart and trying to remember where all the little screws went afterwards when putting it back together... run on sentence?

Step 1:

Make sure you have some sort of container for the screws from each part of the computer that you are removing... LABEL each container appropriately. I could only find 4 bowls to use... and I also did not label them. Big mistake.

Oh look! there's my modem, DC-DC board and keyboard turned upside down!

Step 2:

Ensure you have a 'static free' surface to place important vulnerable parts onto... such as a drum stool.

Shown here are the top tray from the casing with the trackpad, logic board, heatsink, and my hard drive!

Maybe I should point out that prior to this step it would be a good idea to back-up all of your important files... such as any files you may use in your live show/recording samples etc... I did not see the relevance to this and love living on the edge so I threw caution to the wind and said, I dare you to static shock my HD.

I'm blogging from the little guy right now, so far so good. All files in place.

The goal of this entire robot-surgery project was to free my brother's CD that was jammed inside of the optical drive in my mac... it has resided inside of Mr. Mactop's belly for nearly a year now. I was afraid to take it apart for obvious reasons, but decided to face my fear with aid from our video artist Jamie Usas, who had taken apart his Mac to replace the screen in the past.

Seen here is the 12" Powerbook completely gutted except for the Optical Drive... the smell of triumph was tickling our nostrils.

Step 3:

Take a break. Ensure your throat is well moistened with your favourite poison. Rye was the closest thing available to us at the time.

Seen here: Jamie muggin' it and Mactop's bigger brother with the .pdf guide on ripping out Apple intestines. (Step 0.1)

Step 4:

Put it back together. Properly. Pay very close attention to what size screw went where and this is where the labeled bowls come in handy.

In this photograph: The leftovers.

Hint: If you have any leftovers, you have made a mistake.

Needless to say, next week Jamie and I have a date with the mac laptops again.

There is a dimple on the underside of my laptop from a screw that must have been 15 mm when it only required one of the 13.5 mm ones. And the RAM plate on the bottom is slightly lifted due to another screw that was too long in the wrong spot.

Oh and keep track of all the 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 6, 7.5, 10, 12, and 13 mm ones as well... Fuck.

My brother's CD was removed successfully. Sorry it took so long Matt.

- Emeri

Robot Surgery