crwdns2915892:0crwdne2915892:0
Replace your broken optical drive to keep those disks spinning.
crwdns2942213:0crwdne2942213:0
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Loosen the two Phillips screws securing the access door to your iMac.
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Remove the access door from your iMac.
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Remove the three T8 Torx screws securing the front bezel to the rear panel.
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Use your thumbs to press both RAM arms in past the front bezel for enough clearance to lift it off the rear case.
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While holding the RAM arms in with your thumbs, lift the lower edge of the front bezel enough to clear the rear case.
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crwdns2935267:0crwdne2935267:0Plastic Cards$2.99
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Insert a plastic card up into the corner of the air vent slot at the top of the rear case.
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Push the card toward the top of the iMac to release the front bezel latch.
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Pull the front bezel away from the rear case.
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Repeat this process for the other side of the front bezel.
Using a strongish magnet will grab and release the latches.
crwdns2936937:0darkstar448crwdne2936937:0
Using a strongish magnet will grab and release the latches.
Are you sure it's safe to do this? How close is the hard drive, won't magnets interfere with it?
It's almost certainly fine. Modern hard drives are very resistant to magnetic fields.
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Lay your iMac stand-side down on a table.
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Lift the front bezel from its lower edge and rotate it away from the rest of your iMac, minding the RAM arms that may get caught.
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Lay the front bezel above the rest of the iMac.
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If necessary, remove the piece of kapton tape wrapped around the microphone and camera cables.
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Disconnect both the camera and microphone cables.
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Peel back the aluminum EMI shield up off the lower three edges of the rear case.
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Remove the two 5 mm T6 Torx screws securing the display data cable to the logic board.
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Using its attached black tab, pull the display data cable connector up off the logic board.
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Pull the inverter cable connector up off its socket on the logic board.
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Peel back the aluminum EMI tape from the two vertical edges of the display.
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Remove the four recessed coarse-thread 7.5 mm T10 Torx screws securing the display to the rear case.
No problem taking those screws off, HUGE problem trying to put them back in. Reassembling this step is a lot more complicated. Those 4 screws are impossible to reinstall if you don't have a magnetized screwdriver, which I don't.
I used some 'chapstik' on my t10 driver and it held the screws long enough to insert them.
crwdns2936937:0javiercrwdne2936937:0
No problem taking those screws off, HUGE problem trying to put them back in. Reassembling this step is a lot more complicated. Those 4 screws are impossible to reinstall if you don't have a magnetized screwdriver, which I don't.
Since I could not get a hold on a nice magnetized T10, I inverted the whole unit and worked upside down to avoid lost screws inside an iMac.
crwdns2936937:0javiercrwdne2936937:0
Since I could not get a hold on a nice magnetized T10, I inverted the whole unit and worked upside down to avoid lost screws inside an iMac.
Great, now my problem is to find a new cable that connects the panel to LB.
I'm from Italy and nobody has got it .
Please help me
Thanks for all
Carlo
I found a group of wires not mentioned on the instructions along the underside of the display at the right. They were connected to something at the right bottom of the display near the white plastic piece. I am unable to raise the display more than a couple of inches at this side of it and am wondering what do do.
The group of wires on the right side of the display is the inverter. Seems like a few steps were omitted, so I'll try to fill in the gaps. Use the T10 to remove the right speaker. It's the big white plastic squarish thing on the bottom right side of the iMac. It pulls stright up and you can either disconnect it or just leave it hanging. This should release the inverter cable from hanging up the right side of the display (it did for me, even disconnecting the inverter didn't help as the cable was under the speaker, the inverter doesn't need to be disconnected but it might be helpful to disentangle things and it's an easy one to take apart). The other step missing is to remove the perforated tape at the top of the LCD from the LCD, otherwise you can't really remove it. I found a spudger helpful for this task.
I know it's a couple years since the OP posted, but hope this helps someone.
Cheers
Jeff Kamis
I've found that 'coating' the tip of the screwdriver with glue from a glue-stick will help to keep the screws from coming off of a non-magnetized driver.
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Lift the display from its lower edge and pull it toward yourself to peel it off the EMI shield attached to its top edge.
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Remove the T10 Torx screw securing the optical drive flex cable mounting bracket to the logic board.
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Remove the flex cable mounting bracket.
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Lift the optical drive flex cable connector straight up off the logic board.
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Move the SATA data cable away from the edge of the optical drive.
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Disconnect the optical drive thermal sensor.
Alternatively unstick the sensor from the drive, and leave it connected to the cable.
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Insert the flat end of a spudger into the gap between the optical drive and its bracket until it contacts the chassis.
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Grab the spudger as close to the surface of the optical drive as you can, then depress the release tab with your thumb while pulling toward yourself.
I think the 10-year-old jab at "Apple’s ‘Engineers’” is pretty bad taste and unnecessary. Someone made a mistake. Nobody sat around at a board meeting drooling stupidly and saying “euyh we shudl just put stickbar in plastic make latch difficult to open euhh”. So I opt to remove the 15-year-old-kid level commentary from the beginning of this step to clean it up :)
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Remove the two T10 Torx screws from the side of the optical drive.
Removal of these screws can wait until the entire bracket assembly is out of the chassis. Remove the screws when you remove the bracket from the drive, step 23.
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Use the flat end of a spudger to press the bottom edge of the lower optical drive bracket release tab toward the lower edge of the iMac.
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Maneuver the optical drive out of the rear case, minding the two plastic pins molded into the rear case near the open end of the optical drive that can break off.
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Remove the two T10 Torx screws from the side of your optical drive.
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Push the two optical drive bracket tabs out of their slots in the top of the optical drive.
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Using the tip of a spudger, press the optical drive bracket tab out of its slot on the side of the optical drive.
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Use the tip of a spudger to push the optical drive bracket tabs out of their slots on the bottom of the optical drive.
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Pull the optical drive bracket toward the open end of the optical drive to free it from the optical drive.
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Remove the two T6 Torx screws securing the optical drive flex cable to the optical drive.
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Insert the flat end of a spudger into the gap between the optical drive flex cable connector and the optical drive.
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Twist the spudger to separate the connector from the optical drive.
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Pull the optical drive flex cable connector away from the optical drive.
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Use a spudger to pry the optical drive thermal sensor off the optical drive.
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Use the flat end of a spudger to remove the small piece of EMI foam from the underside of the optical drive.
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
crwdns2935221:0crwdne2935221:0
crwdns2935229:07crwdne2935229:0
crwdns2947410:01crwdne2947410:0
Excellent information that is timely for me because I need to replace my hard disk. Do you recall the name of the hard disk you used to replace the original, just quickly?
