The first Teardown pics are here!

I always thought that the magnets on the previous iMacs were a very clean and clever way to hold the glass in place. Plus, it ultimately allowed me to modify the screens on my iMacs.

It will be interesting to see the iFixit teardown to see how this new "gasket" works.

OWC has a video showing how they opened the 21.5". It looks like more of a hassle than opening the 2011 and earlier iMacs.

http://bit.ly/11tqKZu

PatrickNSF said:

OWC has a video showing how they opened the 21.5". It looks like more of a hassle than opening the 2011 and earlier iMacs.

http://bit.ly/11tqKZu

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Dang! do you really have to shred thru all that adhesive? i thought all you needed was the magnets and boom it pops off.

Looks very annoying. The i7 and 16gb option sounds better and better... Then again all of these iMacs were a chore to get inside of. I'd rather deal with reapplying 4 adhesive strips after servicing it than dealing with getting dust and dirt out from between a glass panel and LED screen.

Johnf1285 said:

Looks very annoying. The i7 and 16gb option sounds better and better... Then again all of these iMacs were a chore to get inside of. I'd rather deal with reapplying 4 adhesive strips after servicing it than dealing with getting dust and dirt out from between a glass panel and LED screen.

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Agreed 100%. I've no idea what the fuss is about. A new adhesive strip is no issue.

It looks like the 21.5" and 27" iMacs are constructed differently. On the 21.5" the components are mounted inside the back shell. From Apple's interior picture of the 27", the components are mounted on a chassis plate immediately behind the display. The back has to come off for access. So, I guess the procedure would be; detach the display, then unfasten the chassis from the back shell. With the 27" one could forgo the fusion drive upgrade, and replace the the 1TB HDD with a 512GB SSD, or larger when available.

WilliamG said:

Agreed 100%. I've no idea what the fuss is about. A new adhesive strip is no issue.

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Have you seen anything about the putting it back together part? The slicing looks simple enough, and I wouldn't mind applying new adhesive, but how hard is it to get it seated back in position so that it looks right is my question.

After watching that video...note to self,have apple upgrade ram to 16 gig's from factory!

WilliamG said:

Johnf1285 said:

Looks very annoying. The i7 and 16gb option sounds better and better... Then again all of these iMacs were a chore to get inside of. I'd rather deal with reapplying 4 adhesive strips after servicing it than dealing with getting dust and dirt out from between a glass panel and LED screen.

Click to expand...

Agreed 100%. I've no idea what the fuss is about. A new adhesive strip is no issue.

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The dust was no issue, it took minutes to clean out, and if you missed a couple of grains the screen could be popped off again easily.

Re-applying the adhesive will be very very time consuming (emphasis on Re-). The old adhesive will cause a horrible mess unless it's thoroughly removed which can take several hours of painstaking scalping. Then, if you're a hair out of place when you re-attach the monitor, it's back to square one. Plus you better pray that all your upgrades work perfectly first time. For example, you might upgrade the ram on the 21" and then find that it fails memtest.

I think it will be rare that anyone even acheives a clean upgrade with a nice flush screen and no signs of adhesive or scratching.

This has me a little worried. So is taking the screen apart the only way to upgrade the RAM?

Did i understand it right and he said: Under Logic Board u can set an SSD? Has the Logicboard a msata Connector?

Theres s little compartment behind the stand that you can open to change the ram. It just pops out.

Source: CNET's review video on youtube.

iFixit teardown looks pretty thorough. 3/10 repairability (ouch).

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/4

bongpapst said:

Did i understand it right and he said: Under Logic Board u can set an SSD? Has the Logicboard a msata Connector?

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Looks like for the 21" you'd have to solder the msata connector on.

jediDev said:

Have you seen anything about the putting it back together part? The slicing looks simple enough, and I wouldn't mind applying new adhesive, but how hard is it to get it seated back in position so that it looks right is my question.

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Looks like a nightmare to re-seal it properly without the right tools. Maybe somebody can come up with a scheme to replace their adhesive with a set of super-strong magnets. Scrape off all the old adhesive, and put magnets on the four corners. Not sure if it'd be tight, and it'd definitely void your warranty - but it'd allow for future access if desired.

I opened up a base 21.5 last night and it came apart with very little effort. The adhesive transfer tape needs to be replaced but it peels away from both surfaces without leaving any residue. I was able to replace the ram with two 8gb sticks i had laying around without removing the logic board but i had to remove the fan. Here are some pics i took during the process.

R.OG said:

I opened up a base 21.5 last night and it came apart with very little effort. The adhesive transfer tape needs to be replaced but it peels away from both surfaces without leaving any residue. I was able to replace the ram with two 8gb sticks i had laying around without removing the logic board but i had to remove the fan. Here are some pics i took during the process.

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Thanks for the photos. What replacement transfer tape did you use? Do you have any after pics of the iMac, any gaps?

R.OG said:

I opened up a base 21.5 last night and it came apart with very little effort. The adhesive transfer tape needs to be replaced but it peels away from both surfaces without leaving any residue. I was able to replace the ram with two 8gb sticks i had laying around without removing the logic board but i had to remove the fan. Here are some pics i took during the process.

Image
Image
Image
Image

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I'm curious... How did you go about opening it up? Did you use owc's method of a guitar pick or did you do something else?

maharajah said:

Thanks for the photos. What replacement transfer tape did you use? Do you have any after pics of the iMac, any gaps?

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I have not sealed it up yet. Apple used adhesive transfer tape with foam in the middle to act as a gasket, i know i have some 3m VHB transfer tape with foam in the middle but i can't find it. Once i find it and put it back together i will let you know.

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Zackmd1 said:

I'm curious... How did you go about opening it up? Did you use owc's method of a guitar pick or did you do something else?

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I cut a credit card into a small circle.

R.OG said:

I have not sealed it up yet. Apple used adhesive transfer tape with foam in the middle to act as a gasket, i know i have some 25mil 3m VHB transfer tape with foam in the middle but i can't find it. Once i find it and put it back together i will let you know.

Click to expand...

Thanks.

R.OG said:

I opened up a base 21.5 last night and it came apart with very little effort. The adhesive transfer tape needs to be replaced but it peels away from both surfaces without leaving any residue. I was able to replace the ram with two 8gb sticks i had laying around without removing the logic board but i had to remove the fan. Here are some pics i took during the process.

Click to expand...

Thank you! I feel greatly more confident opening this up. Do let us know what tape you use to stick it back down and how it looks when you're done. Hopefully it looks like Apple's OEM tape, for warranty purposes.

Also, are any special screwdrivers needed? I want to replace the hard drive. Not sure if you saw any funky connectors for temperature monitoring, too.

Thank you!

Thanks a lot R.OG.

I had been worried ever since apple used the term 'laminated', and I still have the awful memory of scraping away adhesive from an iphone1 screen. It's good to know that the adhesive strips peel off without a problem. My purchase depended on being able to avoid apple's storage prices. That seems perfectly doable. I won't be cancelling my order.

Panic over.

WilliamG said:

Thank you! I feel greatly more confident opening this up. Do let us know what tape you use to stick it back down and how it looks when you're done. Hopefully it looks like Apple's OEM tape, for warranty purposes.

Also, are any special screwdrivers needed? I want to replace the hard drive. Not sure if you saw any funky connectors for temperature monitoring, too.

Thank you!

Click to expand...

You only need torx screwdrivers.

R.OG said:

You only need torx screwdrivers.

Click to expand...

Thank you. Just waiting to hear how putting back the display goes.

(And if you can check the 2.5" drive and see if anything weird is going on there in terms of connections, many of us would LOVE to know)

Stop keeping me waiting!!!

Seeing the ifixit images and the movie,
I wonder how apple fix things in the iMac when it need to repair it???
Do the lab have diffrent tools?
The iMac while beautiful is pain in the ass to fix.
Look very scary

Considering how expensive Apples upgrade options are on their site this just feels like a way to rip you off up front.

You can literally save $250 upgrading the SSD and ram yourself.