PowerBook G4 Aluminum 12" 867 MHz Upper Case Replacement

Written By: iRobot

Comments: 8

PowerBook G4 Aluminum 12" 867 MHz Upper Case Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

Time Required

No estimate

Introduction

Changing the top case will also give you a new trackpad.

Tools

Parts

G4 Aluminum 12" 867 MHz Upper Case

Step 1

Use a coin to turn the battery locking screw 90 degrees to the right.
Lift the battery out of the computer.

Step 2

Remove the four Phillips screws from the memory door.
Slide the memory door away from the memory compartment.

Step 3

Remove the long black Phillips screw next to the memory card.
Remove the small EMI finger beneath the black screw.

Step 4

On the keyboard, remove the F1, F2, F11, and F12 keys.
This is scary - take a deep breath before continuing. Place your index finger under the upper left corner of the key and lift up until you hear a click. Then, transfer your finger to the left edge of the key and lift up to pull the key off.
You're freeing the two tabs on the left of the key from the two small holes in the plastic scissors mechanism.
When replacing the keys in the keyboard, place the key directly over the slot where it will go and press down until you hear the key click into place.

Whenever I’ve had to remove a key cover, I’ve used a chip extraction tool. It’s ‘u’ shaped with two tabs facing inwards. It will allow the tabs to fit under the lip of the key covers and a gentle motion will allow you to pull up.

James Walker - 18/01/21

Step 5

Use your fingernail or a small flathead screwdriver to peel up the gray stickers covering each of the screws.

Step 6

Remove the two short Phillips screws.

Step 7

Lift the keyboard by the 'esc' and 'eject' keys and gently lift up until the keyboard is vertical.

Step 8

Grasp the keyboard connector ribbon near the connector and disconnect it from the logic board.

Pull straight up, not sideways. I used tweezers on the connector, rather than pulling on the ribbon cable.

vmile -

mine had foil tape over the connector

Avi Fagan -

Carefully lift edges of foil tape across logic board connector end of keyboard cable (foil is present if unit

has not been apart before).

Grasp cable near the connector and gently pull straight up (perpendicular to logic board).

John Haruguchi -

Step 9

Remove the three small Phillips screws from within the battery compartment.

Step 10

Turn the computer 90 degrees clockwise and remove the two medium-length Phillips screws from the casing.

Step 11

Turn the computer 90 degrees clockwise again, and remove only the bottom screw on either side of the hinge.

By bottom screw, it means the screw nearer the lid, not the screw nearer the bottom of the computer

cantoi -

Step 12

Turn the computer 90 degrees clockwise just one more time, and remove the two Phillips screws on the exterior wall of the battery compartment.
Remember these two screws are longer and have shoulders.

Step 13

Turn the computer over and open it up.
Remove the following 14 screws:
Six 2.5 mm Phillips on either side of the keyboard area.
Five 4.5 mm Phillips on the left half of the keyboard area.
One 7 mm hex in the upper left corner of the upper case (a T6 Torx driver will do the job nicely).
One 15 mm Phillips in the upper middle of the keyboard area.
One 16.5 mm hex in the upper right of the upper case (again, a T6 Torx driver will work well).

Step 14

Peel up the two pieces of foil tape on the left side of the keyboard area.
The connectors at the ends of the cables are attached very firmly to the sockets on the logic board. Pulling directly on the cable will either separate the cable from its connector or the socket from the logic board.
Carefully disconnect the microphone and power cables from the logic board. Using your fingernails or a dental pick, carefully pry the connectors from their sockets. Make sure you're pulling only on the connector and not on the socket.

At least on my own PowerBook G4 12” 867MHz, the microphone and power cables are long enough that I was able to do the hard drive replacement without disconnecting those connections. I basically had to flip the top case over to the left rather than removing it straight upward. I guess that makes some of the subsequent steps slightly tricky, but at least for me, the tradeoff was worth it.

Barry Nathan - 18/10/17

I was not able to unplug these cables in this step - there was not enough room in the rectangular cutouts to get my nails on the connectors. I was able to perform step 16 (remove upper case) carefully with these cables still connected. Then, after the upper case was removed, it was fairly easy to safely unplug these two connectors.

feinberj - 25/04/21