MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar 2018 Teardown

Written By: Michael Degnan
Published: 17/07/18
  • Comments: 76

MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar 2018 Teardown

Published: 17/07/18

Teardown

Introduction

ICYMI, Apple’s having a midsummer’s nightmare:

  • June 22: Apple announced a free keyboard replacement program after mounting pressure from a class-action lawsuit over the faulty design of the butterfly keyboard in Macbook Pros.
  • July 12: Apple quietly discontinued the 2015 MacBook Pro after a three-year run—which means every laptop in their Pro lineup comes equipped with the controversial butterfly keyboard.
  • July 13: Apple launched the new MacBook Pro and carefully mentioned that its third-generation keyboard was re-engineered purely for quietude. We found a silicone membrane under each key cap, seemingly designed to prevent the ingress failures we keep hearing about. And then we found a patent to prove it—from 2016.
  • July 16: We teardown the MacBook Pro 15” Touch Bar 2018 and score it a 1.

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    • The trackpad can be replaced without removing the battery.

    • The processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board. Repairs and upgrades will be impractical at best.

    • The top case assembly, which includes the keyboard, battery, and speakers, is firmly glued in place—making all those components hard to replace separately.

    • The Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T2 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board.

Author

Michael Degnan

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76 comments

So.. where is the actual teardown? Or is it video only?

Zezhen Xu (XOD) -

Can’t wait to see it, very curious about new model.

Faberge Fabulous -

Dan, is the full write up for the 15” still coming?

ryanwgregg -

Then? Nothing?

dottorehouse -

It’s November and there’s still no teardown. What’s going on?

Rob Speed -

it’s not coming. ifixit bailed out. real teardowns are too much work apparently :( (see comment from Jeff in this thread)

adcurtin -

I hope when you do the full teardown that you give us the model number of the screen as i’d like to research the specs of it.

sadi porter -

IFIXIT won’t be tearing down the display assembly that would be pointless as its the same design for the last five years. The only thing different here is the TrueColor sensor built into the iSight camera logic board sitting next to the iSight camera at the top of the lid facing you.

Dan -

Dan - your statement is actually false. They updated the LCD on the 2016 USB-C/TB3 models to be 67% brighter than the previous generation, higher contrast ratio and a 25% wider color gamut that now includes P3 color space.

ryanwgregg -

You’re mixing your eggs! White & Brown eggs both use the same constuction in building the shell. Thats the same here!

The display assemblies design is the same. Apple glued the cover and panel together so you can’t take them apart as in years past when we had a independent cover glass.

Dan -

Wondering if there is any way to improve its cooling system…

Salt Sugar -

I believe a new high quality thermal paste will do a improve it a lot already

Stephen Law -

Yeah, apple applies trash thermo paste on their “pro” laptop. The thing is, with 2016’s new design, you have to take the whole logic board out to unscrew the heat sink(2012 model only needs to unscrew the heat sink). There are probably stickers somewhere, changing thermo paste would possibly affect your warranty.

Zezhen Xu (XOD) -

David Lee used his refrigerator’s ice box for his testing of the new i9 system! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx8J125s...) ;-}

While I’ll agree Apple’s choice of thermal paste is quite poor, I’m not sure if I would be so bold to re-paste it during the warranty period. Once the warranty had expired I think its worth the risk.

But the truth here is Apple messed up on the thermals big time on the i9 model (the testing done on by many shows this to be the case).

I’m not sure if the 6 core i7 is much better. I’ll need to spend sometime reviewing Intels tech literature to figure that out.

Dan -

I doubt thermal paste will help much, the cooling solution is essentially the same as in the 13”

Despite having a higher performance 45W CPU (vs 28W) and discrete AMD GPU (probably another 30-50W)

Vince Longman -

The cooling mechanism is to use a recessed sewing table as your computer desk. Get a cooling block from your camping cooler, put it in the recessed area of the table and place the laptop on top of the cooling block.

randyjackson1970 -

I think you should start thinking about a new kind of repairability score as systems will get increasingly integrated in the future, meaning even less repairability. That is simply the trend all companies are going, and the used scale is not representative for anything anymore.

Jonathan Schostak -

I agree with Jonathan Schostak. Mabey add 0 and negative scores to the scale?

Mining15 -

How difficult is it to swap out the hard drive?

newkiddintowne -

Impossibly difficult.

Faberge Fabulous -

Soldered flash chips - Not possible!

Dan -

Would you guys mind providing some high-res images of the motherboard, especially near the CPU area and on both sides? I’m quite interested in the VRM configuration.

Al2Me6 -

definitely the VRMs need to be changed, because they are not delivering enough power to drive the CPU. This ist the case why the CPU on the i9 clocks down after 1 second when workload is applied. The CPU is not getting warm. but the VRMs are.

Pavitarpal Singhlitt -

The VRM’s are undersized! But this is intensional! As the system does not have the cooling mass or heat dissipater design needed to cool the CPU & GPU effectively at the higher loads.

Dan -

A warranty void if removed sticker would be illegal. Hope Apple remembers this.

rockjapan -

Dittoing the VRM comment, there’s been some interesting speculation that it’s the VRMs that are underspecced and overheating before the i9 does.

tipoo -

Waiting for detailed teardown!

matiblaszczak -

Waiting for detailed teardown!

YUHAN FENG -

Waiting for the detailed teardown!

Sunjay Dhama -

Is that any good way to open the back case? I stuck there.

zhpenn -

Waiting for the detailed teardown!

孙景祖 -

why all 15 inch models with touchbar don't have an detailed teardown???

haoyang -

Still waiting

Lennart de Meij -

Still waiting….

Andrew Subali -

I hate to disappoint you all, but we have no plans for a written teardown—the video covers the highlights pretty well, and we did a deeper dive on the keyboard here (using the 13” model, but the keyboard is very similar on the 15”). Of course, we still have the 15” model and all its parts from the video—so if you have any specific questions, feel free to post them here and we might be able to answer them for you!

Jeff Suovanen -

Please reconsider. Youtube has many teardown videos, and the high quality writeups are what differentiate iFixit from others.

Miles Raymond -

Can you make a photo of the motherboard in high resolution on both sides? Thanks.

Hardfan -

Teardown! Teardown!

Ivan Zykov -

It would be nice to have a guide on removing the motherboard. I’d like to replace thermal paste, but don’t want to remove stuff that I don’t need to remove to get the mobo out.

Philip Thrasher -

iFixit should do teeardowns on every model. If they stop, they will lose viewers to someone else.

B Louis -

Base off this, does that mean future Laptop will also trend or become this way?

BTW the REAL question… Should I still buy this? If so, would I be better off getting a fix on third party or Applecare?

Jack Wang -

Hi-res photos and the breakdown of board-level components is an essential reason why I have always been a fan of iFixit. To allude a possibility of this, only to take it away later, is just the sort of tantalizing deceit that can make people find another source for info. If you “still have” the device and components, what’s preventing a quick take-off-the-shelf and snapping a few pics that millions of followers have become oh-so-accustomed to? The sudden change of mind just seems weird.

therealjayvi -

APPLE please return to models with memory and ssd upgradeable, the computer is a crap to repair

blanca lugos -

Has anyone managed to activate the Intel UHD 630 GPU while running bootcamp?

jyavenard -

T2 chip is gonna make hacking bootcamp a whole lot more difficult. It was already difficult enough on the 2016/2017.

Jaydan Thorpe -

How is the Radeon Pro Graphics attached to the motherboard? What package is used?

An image of the MacBook Pro motherboard with all ICs identified has been a staple of all previous iFixit teardowns, MIA

dtottle -

It’s soldered

Dan -

Just a WARNING to anyone looking at opening the backplate. There are stickers that I reckon Apple uses to determine whether or not it has had an unathrosied open. I think I’ve tripped 2 of the 6. I wish IFixit would have told us this before I opened my 3 month old MBP to clean the fans of dust.

Jaydan Thorpe -

Hey @thorpyworpy ! Any warranty stickers you see are not legally relevant! Repair during warranty is not illegal. Check out our explanatory blog post!

Sam Goldheart -

@sam I do know this but unfortunately that is a ruling made in the US. I’m from Australia and our lawmakers have no standpoint on it.

Jaydan Thorpe -

@thorpyworpy I could be mistaken, but I believe the Australian consumer rights bureau protects your device even more strongly than in the US, regardless of sticker or manufacturer warranty. Here’s a press release with the quote

“Consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law exist independently of any manufacturer’s warranty and are not extinguished simply because a consumer has goods repaired by a third party,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.

…

Under the Australian Consumer Law:

• when consumers buy products, they come with a number of guarantees, including a guarantee that they will be of acceptable quality and a guarantee that they will be reasonably fit for any disclosed or represented purpose.

Sam Goldheart -

Hmm, thanks for that @sam , I have read over our consumer protection laws and whilst the chairman has said this, it is not specifically stated in the guarantees themselves. It is left very ambiguous. But I guess it’s safe to say that the warranty is not necessary voided immediately and I would be able to make a case to apple should an issue arise with my laptop.

Jaydan Thorpe -

No one realize it doesn’t have a PCH? It’s only the T2 chip. So T2 is a PCH technically.

Xizhi Ma -

@danj can you confirm this?

Xizhi Ma -

There is still a PCH chip the T2 connects to it accessing the PCIe lanes

Dan -

The teardown was good, but it didnt show more detail on where the clips are and how to pop them open on the back cover.

Ty

Tom Jackson -

It is now January 27th 2019 and there is not teardown for this computer. What an absolute joke iFixit.

DrMacintosh -

@ifixit Is there a strategy for owners outside of warranty to preserve the flex cable? (ie: Manual shielding, taping, etc)

jblongz -

IFIXIT did two articles on the flex cable issue in the 2016/17 with a follow up on the 2018 model which has a slightly improved design.

● The design flaw behind the MacBook Pro's "stage light" Effect

● Apples 2018 McBook Pro's Attept to Solve Flexgate, Without Admitting It Exits

Sadly you can’t fix this or offer additional structure without effecting how it works. Apple needs to fix this just like the keyboard issues which effect both the MacBook & MacBook Pro models which use the Butterfly design. Basically, the designs where over reaching the limits of the physics and use.

Dan -

Hi there,

Is the logic board removal/replacement as easy as shown in the video?

Remek Debski -

No teardown video?

marcosgrimm -

Please post the writeup with pictures. Videos are UNPLAYABLE on older computer equipment in the detail needed to view certain specifics.

Yes, I understand that taking and posting your video takes far less effort on your part, but the teardown writeups are why I come to iFixit. If I wanted to waste my time with teardown videos, I’d go to any amateur on Youtube.

Miles Raymond -

To everyone still clamoring for more info on this model, we’ve long since posted extensive guides for removing/replacing the major components. The battery guide includes logic board removal. iFixit guides are much more detailed than teardowns, with the exception of identifying individual ICs—so don’t get too hung up on the fact it doesn’t include the word “teardown” in the title. @hardwarefan @obanawev @therealjayvi @tomj65 @revenuee

Jeff Suovanen -

Aug 20th 2019, no write up yet. Definitely, eagerly waiting to see it! :)

Tom Jackson -

@tomj65 See my post directly above yours.

Jeff Suovanen -

How does Apple replace the touchbar and keyboards, if they are built into the case?

Tom Jackson -

They can be replaced! It’s just a lot of work.

Apple over did the design thinking no one would need to replace these parts. It has in fact hurt them as well with the keyboard failures. So instead of having a product thats designed to be serviceable from the get go, Apple needs to waste lots of man hours to carefully disassemble the case to replace these parts. Or, they need to eat the part putting a new full assembly in its place $$

Hopefully the next major design goes back to a more serviceable design not only these parts but also the display! Apple has a ribbon cable failure issue and there is a new one which is the T-CON boards are failing due to heat as they are not mounted in the coolest part of the system.

Dan -

if i want to replace the Top Case from a 2018 MBP to one I got from another source? To make the touch ID work just move it as well? Will there be anything else standing in the way as far as security chip or any other functionality?

My customer dropped it and its has a huge dent is the reason for replacement.

Thank you

Michael Zwerin -

The power button (TouchID) button needs to stay with the logic board it was mated to. Make sure you don’t mix them up!

Dan -

I know how to remove the logic board but is there somewhere it shows me how to remove the touch ID? Is there a lot in the way of the ID?

Thanks

Michael Zwerin -

Let’s say you break the TouchID button then you will need to go to Apple and get a new logic board which has a mated TouchID button.

Dan -

maybe it would be better to blow a bunch of dust under the keyboard and then have them replace it under the recall.

Michael Zwerin -

These video only teardowns are borderline pointless

Sean T -

How so??

A teardown is not a repair manual if that is what you where looking for. How about posting a Question here: Answers

Dan -

It does not “slide down and off” just like that. It takes quite a bit of work to get to budge even a little. Why not show the process of the entire tear down. This video was helpful to absolutely nobody.

ExLuceAdTenebras -

A teardown is meant to be an educational overview, not a detailed repair guide. Sorry about the confusion. For more detailed instructions, check out our repair guides! Good luck with the repair!

Adam O'Camb -