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Is it safe to remove bottom of the MacBook Pro?

S

speakforme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2013
2
0
I have a Macbook Pro from 2010 and just recently two of the foot pads have fallen off. A little piece from one of them, I guess, broke off into the laptop itself, so when I move the laptop around I can hear a rattle from the little piece.

Is it safe to remove the bottom of the Macbook so I can get that little piece out? I don't know anything about the hardware of computers beyond whats on the outside, so I don't want to touch anything or shift anything around that will make it stop working.

Is it as easy as unscrewing the little screws and lifting it off just to find the little piece of plastic and screwing it back into place?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
speakforme said:
I have a Macbook Pro from 2010 and just recently two of the foot pads have fallen off. A little piece from one of them, I guess, broke off into the laptop itself, so when I move the laptop around I can hear a rattle from the little piece.

Is it safe to remove the bottom of the Macbook so I can get that little piece out? I don't know anything about the hardware of computers beyond whats on the outside, so I don't want to touch anything or shift anything around that will make it stop working.

Is it as easy as unscrewing the little screws and lifting it off just to find the little piece of plastic and screwing it back into place?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Yep, you should be fine
 
Sure, just be sure you remember the order and the correct screws are in place when re-assembeling.

Also try not to directly touch or expose any of the internals to any fibre materials, just to be sure you don't cause any static damage.

Otherwise go ahead ;)
 
something that helps would be to position the screws on a flat board the same way its in the macbook so you wont need to figure which screw goes where.
ensure all cables are unplugged and the mac is shut down and let to cool down before you open it. You could even clean the macbook of dust near the fan and heat sink while its open but do read up on it before you do so.
 
Thanks everybody for your suggestions.

I had to buy myself a set of small screwdrivers and got all but one screw out of the bottom. It won't budge and actually started to ruin the end of the screwdriver.

At the risk of stripping the screw and breaking the tip of the screwdriver, I put all the others back in.

In my first post I said there was a rattle from the broken piece of footpad, but in the last day the rattle disappeared, but now the fan won't come on, and it get really hot if I play a video or something that takes that much power. I'm guessing it's jammed from the broken footpad.

I don't have an Apple Store close by. What's my best option? How much does something like this cost to repair? I feel like it's something I could do myself, but the final screw just won't come out.
 
Try to use a thin rubber band between the screw and the screwdriver to give it little grip. It works for larger stripped screws... Not sure about these tiny ones.
 
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