Technical writer, teardown engineer, and occasional video host at iFixit HQ in San Luis Obispo, California.
I spend my days taking photos, making guides, doing research, and occasionally tearing down new gadgets. Sometimes I also get to work with the video team, or do some investigative journalism. I’ve been on the iFixit team since August of 2018.
The 2016 MacBook Pro’s faulty display and backlight cables
Education
Two years into my computer science degree at Utah State University in Logan, Utah I was feeling like I wasn’t going to come away from my college education with anything I couldn’t learn on the world wide web. So I decided to end my CS classes when I hit the requirement for the CS minor program, and explore alternate major options.
Enter technical writing. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and consider myself a pretty great explainer of things. The TW program at USU turned out to be amazing, and I spent the last two years of my bachelor’s degree in (almost) pure bliss, learning about communication, rhetoric, UX design, and honing my writing and editing skills.
Skills / repair background
Thanks to a lifelong tech obsession, I’ve owned more gadgets than I can count, and I’ve taken apart more than I’ve owned (don’t lend me your stuff ;). As the designated tech support kid in most of my social circles, I’ve spent most of my life accumulating myriad hardware and software repair experiences.
Peering into the heart of a lifeless MacBook Pro
My time here at iFixit has definitely swung me back to the hardware side of repair, but I do also try to stay on top of all major desktop and mobile OS updates and keep my front-end dev skills at least sort of sharp. Gotta make sure that CS minor doesn’t go to waste. ;)
What else
When I’m not on iFixit.com, I spend my time climbing, cycling, tinkering, and binging internet content. I also love dogs, even though I'm allergic to them.
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My favorite technology
- Blackberry Pearl
- 120Hz iPad Pro displays
- Intel’s NUC computers (I love small desktops)
- Pebble smartwatches
- Anything else with an e-paper display
- Nintendo Switch
- Unibody MacBook Pros (2009–2012)
Hey Will! That’s a fairly common post-SSD-upgrade problem, unfortunately :( Here’s a forum post with a couple troubleshooting options you can try! Really an SSD doesn’t need to “hibernate” like a spinning drive does, so if nothing else works for you, you can always just disable hibernation. Sorry about the trouble!
Hey Phillip! I’d go with the pre-made adhesive to save yourself the headache of measurement, cutting, and having a whole roll of 3M tape you might not need. It would definitely work if that’s what you prefer though!
Here’s a guide for applying the pre-made adhesive that you can follow, or just curb from if you use the 3M tape! Google Pixel Display Adhesive Installation
Oh, I’m so sorry! I forgot to specify: internet recovery mode is only available on newer Apple computers. I’ve updated the intro now, sorry for the confusion!
It’s hard to say for sure what exactly broke inside the bud, but if you can find some parts on eBay or somewhere then you can probably bring the bud back to life! The tricky part is finding the parts since the buds are so new.
Nicholas, I’m sorry things didn’t work out! Yours certainly seems like a strange case. I’m going to optimistically guess that your problem is confined to the screen, and hope your computer isn’t recognizing it because of its own problems (you can never trust windows drivers too much haha). I think if I were you I would try a replacement screen, and then if that doesn’t work you can pick up a new motherboard. Hopefully only one of those two parts are the root of your problem. If you do only end up needing one of them, you can return the other! Sorry again about the complications, I hope you can get it worked out! Let us know how it goes!
You can take it apart and let it all dry out for a little while! If it’s not working after that, you can check eBay for someone selling a working case by itself.
That’s a good point, Jackson! I added a warning to the step.
Dang! Metal is a scary choice, but I’m glad it worked out for the most part. That’s good to know. You could try re-heating the adhesive around the part of the screen that isn’t staying in place, and then putting the phone under a stack of books for an hour or so! That might get it to seal up completely.
Donald, do you mean the earpiece speaker grill? We do mention that in the Google Pixel Display Replacement guide.
If a new display is still malfunctioning and you’re sure the display cable is properly seated, I’d say something probably short circuited during the repair. It’s hard be certain what happened, but a short circuits tend to happen when cables are unplugged while the phone is powered on. At this point a new motherboard will most likely take care of the issue. (Google Pixel G-2PW4100 Motherboard) I’m sorry things didn’t go well for you both, and I hope you can get everything working soon!
Sayfa 1 / 2
Sonraki