MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display Mitte 2012 AirPort/Kamera Kabel austauschen

The order of the cables doesn't seem to matter when re-attaching. It also might be helpful to unscrew and eject the airport card. Having it free can give you a better angle.

After reading so many reviews on ifixit and other sites regarding the difficulty of replacing my MacBook Pro retina screen assembly, I was a bit nervous. Using this walk through made it super easy. Thank you so much for taking the time to create it!

travismlive is right, you do not need to remove these cables or the airport card. Just remove the I/O board cable, undo the screws, and detach the antenna cables from the fan where they are glued with a spudger. Unlock the ZIF-socket and the you can wriggle the fan out. Probably saved my airport card, thanks travismlive!

I only successfully reattached 1 of the 3 AirPort cables, I just taped the other two. But the AirPort seems to work fine. Do these also have anything to do with Bluetooth though? I do seem to have trouble with Bluetooth after this operation. In any case, it was worth it... I replaced the screen with a new Apple screen for less than 1/2 the Apple Store wanted! Thanks!

Would soldering them back in place be better than taping? I certainly don't want spare solder on my motherboard, so I figure that'd be a last resort only if I lose AirPort connectivity.

Assembly is a nightmare. If rightmost cable is not connected, BT will not work.

the hardest step is reconnecting the airport antenna cables. just have patience< and use tweezers, spluger and a q-tip.

The three cables have different lengths. The longest should to the farthest pin, medium to middle, short to nearest.

Also, having the right tools will make the job really easy. I used a spudger similar to the one recommended on this web site. But i had ordered a complete kit from amazon.com. I did not have any problem removing or re-attaching the pins.

tweezers to hold the cable and the flat part of the spudger to push down on the connectors is the easiest way to re-assemble

Use leverage with tip of a spudger, it’s not that difficult to pry the cables.

When you reassemble, use a tweezers to put the connector on the right position and push it down with a finger on the other hand.

Grab the neck of the cable when using a tweezers.

Several of the people above mentioned not disconnecting these three wires. You must remove and replace these if you are replacing the entire display which is what these instructions are about. This is the most difficult step as others have noted. Just be careful and make sure you have the cable level before you start pushing down.

If you are not replacing the display case assembly, you can opt to leave all 3 connectors attached and remove the Airport card with them connected. You will need to carefully manage the card and attached cables so as not to damage them(masking tape) as you proceed with disassembly/reassembly. Step 6 will need to be done carefully (camera cable connector). I did it after step 8. I took a picture of routed cables as well before I removed them from channel.

Reassembling: What makes this so hard? From all appearances I’m just pressing a squat sleeve-and-pin connector down onto the female counterpart. It appears to be circular and therefore not needing to be oriented radially in any particular angle. It doesn’t look hard at all! Does anyone understand what the subtlety is that causes everyone so much grief?

Reassembling: as so many as commented, this is incredibly hard - and inexplicably so. From all appearances I’m just pressing a squat sleeve-and-pin connector down onto the female counterpart. It doesn’t look hard at all! But I couldn’t do it.

Here’s what seems to have worked for me: with my left fingertip on the cable holding the connector directly above the female, I used the spudger to press down the flat back of the connector, initially at the top and then sliding along toward the neck. I used normal pressure, and voila, when I lifted the spudger away the wretched wire didn’t spring up again. It was like it wanted to be rocked, or stroked, once, from top to neck, rather than pressed straight down.

I skipped to step 34. Just pushed up the speakers so that they don’t touch the body.

Can anyone help me? I would like to replace my speakers. Which steps can i skip?

I have completed replacing my speakers and this step was not needed at all.

I just completed the full screen assembly replacement with 90% success I guess. Like many others noted, this was the hardest step, and one them (leftmost) was extra hard, but I eventually got them all back in. However, I don’t have 5G wifi anymore. 2.4 g works fine, bluetooth works fine, and the screen, camera, and mic are all perfectly functioning. I just can’t connect to 5G wifi. Is there a fix for this?

Putting these 3 cables back was a lot of work. I bent the outer side of the middle cable, but was able to fix it with fine tweezers from the repair kit.

I did a screen replacement recently using this guide and the disassembly/assembly was fine - very good instructions. But when I turned on the machine there was a very fine flickering, snow-like interference, especially noticeable on black backgrounds. I assumed it was a faulty replacement screen and continued to use it. Recently, I had to change out the battery so I dissasembled the screen again to see if reconnecting it would fix the problem. Now it is perfect. I think the problem was that the left-most (shortest) airport cable connector was touching the black screw next to it on the board and shorting out. Be careful to position this connector well away from that screw.

I found placing the spunger under the part of the connectors AWAY FROM THE WIRE (top and/or side depending on which of the three you’re finessing), and then rocking them gently from side to side pops them out gently.

I read the note above and managed to fold the card out of the way. I’d put it in a paper envelope to stop it touching anything as it flaps around. The bag also stops static build up and reminds you it’s there ! The wires on mine were held down with two strips of tape, the pointed spudger? pushed along the length of the wires widened the tape loop when I pushed firmly but carefully. Once widened, tweezers can open it fully .

I skipped the step of removing the airport antenna cables and removed the airport card with the cables since so many users said it was extremely hard to get the airport cables back on properly. By skipping the airport cable removal I save a lot of potential headaches and performing this task was not any more difficult to do.

I skipped steps 5 - 40 and removed the old battery with the plastic card and a palette-knife after heating the adhesive strips cautiously with a hair dryer. After that removing the adhesive strips with the solvent was by far the most time consuming part.

so what happens if you damage 1 of the 3 connectors because you didn’t read all the comments first? Does it work at all or just diminished wifi reception?

Can someone at ifixit update the main instruction page to advise removing the airport card instead of the super fragile cables?

YOU DONT NEED ANY OF THIS!

it is SO stupidly risky to remove all this. Who the HECK wrote this guide?!? Thank God I checked on youtube and found guys who did NOTHING of these steps and simply removed the battery in under 1 h.

Steps 5-33 are not really needed if you are careful with the speakers, not to spill the fluid onto them. It saves a lot of time and potential dangerous operations. I did it without any problem.

Please be extremely careful, I just ripped out one of the sockets for the cables. I fixed it with Tesa until I can buy a new Airport-Card.

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH THIS STEP both when disconnecting the cable connection points and while doing the reconnection. I damaged the J2 connector (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are working just fine, though) while trying to reconnect it to the AirPort card. I’ll suggest, as others have here as well, to not disconnect the cables and just have them connected to the card the entire time as this is, IMHO, a completely unnecessary step to take while doing this whole procedure.

Well, this is the step that (just through reading these comments) I decided NOT to fix my right speaker. Anytime I have to remove these delicate Airport and Camera wires and connections, I get very nervous. (I've done it before, successfully, on a MacMini [ugh; never again!] - just to replace the two slow HD with SSDs! What a hassle!

I'll just my headphones or computer speakers through the headphone jack.

I'm an amateur, so what do I know - but to replace a battery I skipped this step, and all other steps until step 36, I've no idea why they include all these other steps for battery replacement. Literally all steps from 5 - 35 aren't needed.

Why do I have to remove the airport antennas?

Hi! Camera flex cable is from MBP Retina Mid 2012 & Early 2013. Not Late 2013 :) Edit it please.

Push on the little wings, from right to left.

This is the hardest part of disassembly! Arguable hardest part of re-assembly too, other than the airport cables

The instruction is not clear to me at all. Frankly the comments mentioning things make me uneasy about proceeding further.

The wing closed to the edge of the chassis is completely stuck. I’ve worked on it for an hour. The other wing moves freely. I’m not sure what to do now.

The connector is very tight - I couldn’t even see the join between cable end and the socket and couldn’t see the “ears” on the end of the socket. And, of course, pulling didn’t help. I eventually used tweezers to start things off, gripping on the metal of the socket right where the invisible join was. What a delight to have the join open enough to see! After that, it was easy.

Thank You Jerryl - The tweezers did the trick. They want to pop out so you can use your other hand to apply slight downward pressure to keep them in place. Work both ends of the tweezers gently back and forth and you should start to see the gap get bigger.

I used tweezers and the spudger. Take the point of the spudger and push on one side of the “dog ear” while supporting the other side with the closed tweezers on the cable side of the dog ear. (Could use a second spudger) work one side the move to the other repeatedly until the connection disconnects.

This is allows You to push and support simultaneously and minimize the chance damaging the connector.

Removed cover (Step 7). Released adhesive. Pulled directly out of socket to the left.

Pushing out of this connector is ill advised, as no mechanical ledge to push.

The late 2013 Macbook connector is slightly different to the picture, I used tweezers to loosen up first and when the joint appeared used the flat edge of the spludger to push the connector using the gap. Don't rush push this from each side gently till it comes out.

I found this step to be difficult due to the picture and instructions being incorrect for MacBook Late 2013. Unfortunately, I damaged the pins during this step and my camera no longer works. :^( Please update this step.

@xtstoll I looked at two separate Late 2013 units today, and both are indistinguishable from what’s shown in the instructions. Are you sure you’re working on the right model? A photo of what this cable looks like on your laptop would be helpful.

A MAGNIFYING GLASS really helps on this. The cable’s sheathing may need to be pushed back a tad to find a place to get leverace to work the pin out.

DO FIRST

STEP 7 : Untight the rubber heat sink cover on the right fan.

Lift the cover and flip it back so that you can access the cables underneath.

STEP 8 : Carefully de-route the cables from the plastic cable guide.

So you can easily disconnect the connector.

Tweezers saved me on this one! Take your time and keep trying (gently) if you're still struggling

gently set pointed tweezers at the ears on either side and walk it back toward the fan

I have jewellers glasses and they were so helpful. Without them I would have broken plenty of bits. I really recommend getting some magnification for this job, some of the bits are sooooo small!

I have a late 2013, and using the tweezers to gently create a gap worked excellently. I used the tip of the spudger to push it out the rest of the way, alternating right and left on the edge exposed by the gap, pushing gently even when it wasn’t apparent there was any movement.

The way I did it took less than a minute. Ensure the AirPort card is not in place on the board. Get a pair of tweezers to squeeze the ends of the cables into each holder on the card. Apply pressure on the back of the card and the cable end at the same time. If it works, the cables will swivel easily in their slots. Then put the AirPort cable into the board.

I did it in less than a minute. Used a pair of tweezers. First thing is to take out the AirPort card from the slot. Hold it in one hand while using the tweezers to squeeze each of the cable ends into their sockets. Ensure that you are squeezing the back of the card at the same time as you are clipping in the cable ends. You will see that each cable end will swivel around and not come out of their sockets.

As per other comments, recommend referring to steps 7 and 10 before attempting step 6.
I found it helpful to remove the airport card first, then use tweezers to gently pull cable 0.5 m from socket, then use pointy end of "spudger" to push connector out of socket.