iMac Intel 21,5" EMC 2638 AirPort/Bluetooth Karte austauschen

Instead of using the wedge, I placed the iMac faced up with the top side (web cam) facing me while I ran the pizza roller around. It worked out great!

“All iMacs also come with a traditional hard drive” mine doesn’t!! it’s HDD bay is completely empty, no SATA cable or anything. I guess I’ll have to upgrade the PCIe SSD instead.

There is no replacement glass for this model, it is part of the LCD and impossible to remove or replace- the entire LCD has to be replaced unfortunately if the glass is cracked or damaged. You will have to Google search for a replacement. Also be careful with some of the lock tight tork screws as I broke one of my screw mounts taking one out.

I used this service wedge but also found it a very tight fit. The same stabilization can be achieved by using a big rolled up towel.

While this is a good instruction guide, I recommend to also look at OWC’s instruction video about drive installation, before starting the exercise. Those install videos are very detailed and useful.

Main advice: TAKE YOUR TIME with the pizza roller.

Make several passes, until you really feel like there's no more sticker in the way. Stay away from the camera though (approx. 1inch / 2.5cm on both sides). This will reduce the work left with the plastic card. Adhesive is really on the edge of the screen so there is absolutely no need to go any further than the recommended 1cm / 3/8inch depth.

Where are the sensitive parts?

Facing your iMac, imagine you're looking at a watch. There are antennas on 1, 2 and 4 o'clock. Do not insert any metal piece there (nor anywhere else, btw). Other than that AND the screen cables underneath the camera, not much danger.

This part of the exercise should be done with extreme patience. I took my sweet time with the opening tool, rolling it through the entire panel and enclosure gap over and over again, until I was very sure no parts were sticking together anymore. And when I thought I was I done, I decided to do it over again.

You can "warm up" the adhesive before try to cut it with the tool using a hair dryer. Heat the edges for about a minute, keep moving it so you don't cause stress in the glass. Also the above note.. use the tool and then the cards. Do not use a guitar pick or other objects as the thickness will cause you to break the front glass, which is a bonded part of the display (expensive).

You can add a SATA SSD if you already have a PCIe SSD Factory?

The key thing is to never put any force on the opening tool when working through the tape. Just roll it back and forth with ease.

@ifixit The next batch of cards you create should have a line printed on the card 3/8” in from the edges. Would make a nice reference.

Here’s where OWC provides glass removal suction cups, which is a better solution than plastic cards.

The suction cups help to easily lift the glass panel, without risking the damaging of any internal wiring that the plastic cards could cause.

Better to remove stand wedge at this point? Can’t see from pics

bstaud - The display power cable has two squeezable levers on each end of the cable’s width.

Squeeze the left lever with your thumb while you simultaneously squeeze the right lever with your

index finger, and gently pull the cable straight back and out, and the cable comes out very easily.

When reassembling, make sure you get a “click” confirmation that both the levers have locked AND the pins have seated on this connector. I was treated to a black screen upon startup, and had to re-cut my newly installed adhesive strips to get back in to firm up this connection. Better would be power up with the bottom adhesive in place, screen resting in place and held on top with blue painter tape to confirm connections, THEN pull off screen-side adhesive tape covers for final re-bonding.

Can someone post a link to actually purchase these cables?

E-bay had one for me

Just replaced the hard drive and RAM with SSD and 16GB respectively and did NOT remove the power supply or logic board. Tricky is a word to describe putting the RAM in without removing the logic board. You work in the dark with little room to get your fingers in between the logic board and the back of the case. I put the first RAM chip in without a problem (the one next to the logic board), but the second to four tries and dropped it behind the logic board three times before finally getting it to position correctly. Just impossible to see and must work but feel. Still it was faster than removing all the components… though did remove the fan (needed cleaning anyway). All in all I can’t say enough about the help the guide was through the upgrade ! Thanks !

I found this connector to be very tight and was afraid of breaking it off. I just kept slowly working on it—it did eventually come out.

I did try to sneak the RAM in without removing the logic board but my fingers were too big. I found it too difficult and just continued on with this guide.

I was not able to install the memory without removing all the components. My fingers are too big and I could barely get in that tight spot to swap out the memory. The hardest part about the power supply is that one connector under the chin next to the Apple logo. Once it is out, you are home free because it is so easy to plug it back in when you are putting it all back together again. Ridiculous that Apple did not put a simple access door behind those memory slots because they are on the backside of the Mac! They did an access door on the PowerBooks and it did not ruin the appearance. They could have designed a cool looking pop out door that only had a thin seam around it so it would still look good. Then you could remove the access door to upgrade the memory easily.

Does anyone know if this is the same situation as in the 2017 model? I just changed RAM in the 2017 version and also skipped taking out the logic board. I just bent a pair of tweezers and put some tape around the tips to make them less scratchy and used them to place the RAM modules into the slots. Worked supereasy and much much quicker than performing the complete tear down of the whole machine.

This step is impossible!

When I pulled the disconnect, I pushed down on the disconnect, instead of pushing down on the tab on the disconnect and bent those pins… tried to straighten the bent pins and two of the pins broke off the logic board. Will I need a new logic board or can I purchase the pins…?

I could not disconnect this cable without fear of breaking something (as previous posters did). I found that I could skip this and the next step by wrapping the power supply in a couple layers of a small towel (to prevent shorting with any other metal surfaces), and laying the power supply on the aluminum face of the iMac near the Apple logo. This got it out of the way enough to do what I needed on the logic board (changing PRAM battery) after completing removal of the other items in this guide.

Au ja. Du kannst so was selbst ausbessern. Einfach auf “Übersetzen" gehen und loslegen.

I would like to thanks Dave Hallett for his tip of not removing the AC inlet connector of the power supply. I simply wrapped the board in bubble wrap and taped to the iMac case, out of the way, thus giving access to the remaining disconnection procedures and preventing the board from scratching to the iMac case. It also made reassembly much simpler.

Yeah, that AC inlet plug was a nasty one to unplug, mainly because I was trying not to bump the solder joints on the PSU. After a few wiggles and pulls while manipulating the spudger tool to release the clip, it finally unplugged. Made it easier by removing the PSU completely so you don’t have to worry about it. Don’t worry, plugging it back in is a breeze!

With the right tool this plug comes out very easily. Forget about your tiny computer tools, go to the garage and grab a regular old needle nose pliers. Grab the clip and the plug at the same time. The plug will come right out.

Carin Ann— The most helpful comment on this procedure. After reading what you wrote I maneuvered the board, grabbed the clip with my left hand (a little awkward because of the cooling enclosure), squeezed the front of the plug, and got it out.

+1 for needle nose pliers!

I found the easiest way to connect the SATA cable was to not screw the plastic hard drive tray down until you plug the drive in. That way you can easily push the connector in and due to the cable you’ve got some wiggle room. You can position the tray then just lift one end of the drive up and secure the screw. Then just push the drive down.

This was the step that I had the most trouble with. I’m used to replacing a hard drive in a MacBook Pro, where the “plug” that you plug the drive into is a rigid thing that you can firmly press the hard drive into.

With the iMac, the plug is situated on the end of a non-rigid cord, so the plug moves back when you try to snap a drive into it. Also, those two rubber gasket things that you adhere to the side of the drive really make it difficult to maneuver the now-overly-chubby drive towards the plug.

After must frustration/concern, what I ended up doing was temporarily removing the rubber gasket things, using the “spudger” as kind of a lever behind the “plug on a cord” so that it didn’t move as much, and then pushed the gasket-less SSD into the plug.

Once I got it connected, I put the rubber gaskets back on the sides of the SSD and kind of coaxed it down into place, using the pointy end of the spudger to get the chubby corner pieces to “sit” correctly in the rigid plastic tray that the SSD kind of rests in.

From another comment elsewhere on this repair, I *highly* recommend removing the two screws holding the left speaker in place, then sliding it just a tad out of the way to be able to easily attach the SATA cable. You don’t have to move it much to make the whole process so much easier!

Agreed, I broke one connector. The airport seems to work anyway. But what to do to fix it? Change the airport card or try to weld it again?

I mark each cable tip with a different colored sharpie and then take a Pic. This gives me the order and the angle of orientation in order to reconnect these pesky connectors.

OK, so when did you remove the RIGHT speaker? Suddenly it is not in the photos. I s there anything besides it's plug to remove?

There are two connections underneath, where the HDD cables plug in. This should be pointed out; they pulled loose when I removed the logic board and I didn’t notice until I had most of it put back together.

Take out the two screws that hold down the right speaker, and push it up a little, before removing the logic board. It makes things a lot easier.

Also: there’s a cable on the right side of the logic board that isn’t called out. Nor are the two HDD cables that plug into the underside of the logic board.

Photo shows right speaker removed, but this is not in the steps. I loosened it and disconnected its cable. Otherwise, the logic board wasn’t going to come out safely.