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Right To Repair

Right: one fixed Macbook pro. last of the disassemble-able/'got all the ports and an optical drive' unibodies, for which i max'd the RAM, shoved a 1TB ssd into it (in fact, did those the day I bought it new...) and incidentally replaced the battery earlier this year - over a 1100 cycles,esp having been caned last 12months so worth it - new one (from iFixit) 20% more capacity than the old!

The inevitable happened and about tablespoon of water got splashed over the keyboard Monday evening, killing the top row and few others at random. I swore a lot - then bought a replacement online.

My Wera precision driver has set more than just paid for itself. There are c.70 little screws holding just the keyboard in place- and to get to that, everything comes out...

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2hrs 15; inc taking time to clean casework inside and out with Servisol/ de-fluff the fan and heatsink - and no screws 'left over'

And it works very nicely - this first post from the same :)
 
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Nice job! Which model is it, mid-2012? Where did you get the battery? I guess mine could do with a fresh one by now!
 
It's the very last of the '2012' (A1278) 2.5Ghz i5 quad core, non-retina, all sorts of choices of ports and connectivity down the side, optical drive (ripped my library with it - also have a caddy I could drop in for more HD storage space) and so bought just as they were disappearing from the catalogue early 2016 for reasons - the wish to be able to alter & or fix the thing.

Parts sources:
Battery from https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Parts - (this one very happy with it, and excellent service.

New keyboard came from https://www.replacebase.co.uk/ - excellent service and the keyboard 'feels' very good; indistinguishable from the apple original, keys have nice satin texture, backlight works etc - £25.
 
Cool. Mine is the i7 from the same range. Amazingly my battery claims to be fine and that its only had 190 charge cycles. I very rarely use it off mains power so it may be accurate, but I’d be surprised if it was still in good shape. More worried about it expanding or exploding than anything else to be honest. I’d certainly trust iFixIt, I didn’t realise they sold batteries. I’ll maybe grab one, maybe wait a bit longer. Did the SMD caps all still look ok in yours? It certainly seems the mid-2012s are gaining a reputation for being very good solid laptops so I’m tempted to keep mine going a while longer yet. It has unquestionably been the best computer I’ve ever owned, I really have nothing negative to say about it.
 
Yep, all the little caps look good- there aren't actually many 'electrolytic' at all, 5-6 solid polymer types of low value so likely long-lifed at the low temps this thing runs at (on the keyboard side of the logicboard, so inspect-able only by removing) Everything else is ceramic, so indefinite life.

NB two utilities I've long used to keep things cool/and keep an eye on the battery and performance over time, and both are free:

smcfancontrol ( e.g. this https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol )
cocnut battery (https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/ )

I like smc fancontrol because you can set default fanspeeds for several different states, autoswitching,and also set your own speeds/a setting for 'more' for when your are caning it. all selectable via tiny menubar icon, but once set, can be forgotten

Tony L said:
It certainly seems the mid-2012s are gaining a reputation for being very good solid laptops so I’m tempted to keep mine going a while longer yet. It has unquestionably been the best computer I’ve ever owned, I really have nothing negative to say about it.
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I agree! and hope to keep mine useable for years yet; meanwhile if I can source a spare logic board at a reasonable price just in case, I might just do so ...
 
1day later update: it's running nearly 10degC cooler under all loads up to a sustained 100% cpu thrash - after removing the modest amount of fluff from the heatsink.

You could actually do this just fine without gutting the case - remove the bottom panel,and then remove three screws holding the fan in place, swing it out of the way (the wiring is long enough you could leave the fan connector alone) - after which you can access the fins with a sewing needle readily.
 
I do clean the fan now and again. Never felt the need to remove it though, a gentle dust with an anti-static brush and even a very light low-power hoovering gets it clean to my eyes. I’ll have a closer look next time I crack it open. If you are really caning it I bet it would be worth sticking some better heatsink paste on the CPU as Apple are notoriously stingy with it and chances are it is getting a bit dry by now. I’ve never pulled the mainboard out so have left it be, but I’d do it if I ever had to.

One thing to be careful with on the A1278 is the ultra-thin HD cable which, depending how you use it (e.g. any flexing in a backpack etc), can rub against the slightly rough milled texture above it and short out or even break. A good cheap pre-emptive fix is a couple of bits of plastic insulation tape stuck to the top case as a protector so the HD cable has a soft resting place. Mine MBP spends most of its time static and docked to the Model M, so it never failed, but I did the tape thing just to be sure. Richard (Lordsummit)’s did fail within the 6 year consumer protection range so he got it fixed at no cost. It is one to catch early if possible as IIRC the HD cable is near the standby lamp or some other part and is a bit more fiddly to get out than one might expect. This is certainly a known issue.
 
Yes, I've hoovered-out the fan before now, but the gaps in the blow-though heatpipe heatsinky bit are tiny & had caught 5yrs worth of ultrafine fluff (but by no means blocked - perhaps 20% of face area affected)

I was seeing c. 60-62degC under full thrash today, so no reason to touch the HS mounting (I'd not want too, frankly... it is complicated. I do not perceive it as a limiting factor.yes,i should have taken pictures)

And yes- I'm aware of that HD cable risk, but mine is just fine at this age and these days it's neither expensive nor difficult to replace. c. £20 the part , and I reckon it'd take under 5mins :D


I've a spare/ my old / unibody 2009 core-duo I ought to resurrect or fun -if I do that, I'll take pictures: all the procedure/ innards layout is 99% the same.
 
martin clark said:
I've a spare/ my old / unibody 2009 core-duo I ought to resurrect or fun -if I do that, I'll take pictures: all the procedure/ innards layout is 99% the same.
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That would be really cool. I do regret selling some old computers, I’ll certainly keep the A1278 regardless of whether I replace it as I’ve really enjoyed owning it. I’ve got a boxed base-model first version Mac Mini in its original packaging that still worked last time I tried it. Neither useful or overly nostalgic yet, but it may be one day. It is very primate, doesn’t even have WiFi! Everything else is really old (ZX Spectrum, Electron, BBC B etc).

PS I’ll do the MBP fan properly over the weekend. Sounds like a worthwhile gain and the cooler it runs the longer it will last. I stuck a fancy new tiny little regulator in the Spectrum to reduce the heat hugely!
 
...I've also a Powerbook G3 250Mhz I bought new in 1998 in the cupboard; apple serial port, a couple of pcmcia-or-whatever-they-were-called slots; a modem, no usb, no ethernet. Though I have an ancient pcmcia ethernet card for it! The 'Expansion bays' could house a battery ( or two) and the cd drive, or the floppy; I have all those.

That might be a challenge to get going - but perhaps we'll see... a thread like this makes it matter again.

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A very interesting point/example from Louis Rossmann about the gradual trajectory towards subscription models in all areas and what that means for the right to own what you buy, and the right to repair what you own. He is unquestionably onto something here IMO. There is a whole shift towards corporate licensing and lock-in/lock-out which is very relevant to this whole discussion.
 
martin clark said:
Yes, I've hoovered-out the fan before now, but the gaps in the blow-though heatpipe heatsinky bit are tiny & had caught 5yrs worth of ultrafine fluff (but by no means blocked - perhaps 20% of face area affected)
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Just done mine, you are right, there was a fair bit of dust lurking in the tiny heat-pipe vents, certainly enough to impede flow. I loosened it as best I could with an anti-static brush and then just used the smallest brush of my Miele C3 hoover on its lowest setting to suck it out and it looks nice and clean now. I haven’t got a temperature reading app installed, but it didn’t get at all flustered playing back a few pretty big Logic projects so I assume the fan is still alive (I think I can hear it, but it is real quiet)!
 
A very interesting point/example from Louis Rossmann about the gradual trajectory towards subscription models in all areas and what that means for the right to own what you buy, and the right to repair what you own. He is unquestionably onto something here IMO. There is a whole shift towards corporate licensing and lock-in/lock-out which is very relevant to this whole discussion.
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For some years now, the shift preferred by those with 'high wealth' is that they own, and gain income from us *renting* from them. Land being the traditional way to do that. But now adopted in more and more other 'goods and services'. In effect, a re-invention of the Feudal system. So 'repair' is not what they want to see happen.

What I have found curious is that although I enjoy the BBC's "Repair Shop" it tends to focus on cuddly toys and other knick-knaks. The number of electronics items dealt with is very small. Shame as they could make more visible the ability to repair electronic items *and* show examples of items which are almost impossible to repair - by design. Few people will care about an old washing machine I guess. But they may about a radio, hifi, or mobile device or old computer as these are often more personal items. Indeed, some of them remain useful to use 'software' which modern kit ignores.
 
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Another interesting rant from Louis Rossmann. Since he’s moved pretty much to full-time lobbying for Right To Repair he’s really starting to think of the big picture and underlying motivations why there is so much corporate money around trying to block and derail RTR.

This time he tackles the highly aggressive anti-RTR IP arguments suggesting that withholding schematics many be as much to do with concealing IP theft from competitors than actually protecting legitimate IP. He makes the point that so much IT mainboard design etc these days is pretty much generic and made within the same few plants in China and suggests a lot of ctrl-c ctrl-v might be going on within certain aspects of board design and the companies have a motivation to conceal this for fear of litigation. It is a damn good conspiracy theory IMO!

PS ‘Meme Car’ is his new Tesla.
 
Tony L said:
... Another interesting rant from Louis Rossmann. Since he’s moved pretty much to full-time lobbying for Right To Repair he’s really starting to think of the big picture and underlying motivations why there is so much corporate money around trying to block and derail RTR. This time he tackles the highly aggressive anti-RTR IP argument suggesting that withholding schematics many be as much to do with concealing IP theft from competitors than actually protecting legitimate IP. He makes the point that so much IT mainboard design these days is pretty much generic and made within the same few plants in China and suggests a lot of ctrl-c ctrl-v might be going on within certain aspects of board design and the companies have a motivation to conceal this for fear of litigation. It is a damn good conspiracy theory IMO!
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It has happened for a long time.

In the 1980s some work colleagues invented and implemented new techniques for a prototype product; designed a custom integrated circuit and had it fabricated. A little while later the owners of the IC fab. facility published an annual report with a micro-photograph of their new revolutionary IC on the cover. It was noticed and looked remarkably familiar. Including the design errors. The lawyers took it from there.
 
According to one of the series on this on R4 some devices can now detect when you have opened up the case and changed the battery and then refuse to work!
 
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