Repair of the Week

ByMike Moffit

The MacBook Air and new unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros have been incredibly reliable. Very few are returned or exchanged for being dead on arrival—I’d say less than one percent. I expect that some of the product we ship won’t work right out of the box, but I also expect that the failure rate out of the box would be a tiny fraction of the number sold. I’m confident the new 17” MacBook Pro will show an equally low failure rate.

The repair of the week involves a 15” unibody MacBook Pro that lacked AirPort function. In all Apple laptops to date, the AirPort card has been a part that can be ordered individually. But in the unibody laptops, the AirPort card is located in the display module, which can be ordered only as a “kit” that includes the screen, screen enclosure, bezel, iSight, inverter board, and AirPort/Bluetooth card.

I installed the display module, reassembled the computer, and found that, while AirPort was working, signal strength was poor in my office where I usually enjoy a full signal. The new MacBooks are designed for serviceability, so I removed the bottom case and re-seated the camera/AirPort/Bluetooth cable. Success!

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    __Image credit: Wikipedia__