On disassembly and reassembly, keep in mind that the edge of the leaf of the hinge (the part with the 3 holes in it--red circle in picture above) sits slightly under a metal edge, and the barrel or pivoting part of the hinge is tucked under the forward-sloping edge of the case. This means the hinge doesn't just loosen and come out. It helps to lift the leaf free of the metal edge in front of it. Yes, this takes more force than you think it might. This will allow the entire hinge to be lifted up and forward (toward the front of the computer) out of its place under the edge of the case.

ALSO on reassembly, check between the board and metal post under the right-hand yellow dot in this picture. Be absolutely sure that the left speaker wire, the SD board cable or the right fan cable aren’t between the board and the post. I shorted out my left speaker by getting it caught in there. Easy fix, but if they’re bent just right they just seem to want to fall between the board and post. Make sure they’re outa’ there!

YES to Terry above. The optical drive cable actually pretty much floats loose when the connectors are pulled off. It needs to stay below the transverse wall which is right under the person’s right hand in the photo above.

Additionally, it would help to take a picture here to remember where the cables all go. You will have some open sockets at the end and it’s a little confusing. There is a good diagram of their locations here: Screenshot #1 at ++https://drive.google.com/drive/folders... Thanks to Timothy in comment for step 41 for this link. Basically don’t get sockets for SSD and HDD confused!

My replacement card had a clamping bracket with small bushings in the holes which required a smaller screw! Oh fun! I used a T6 screwdriver to carefully and gently push them up from underneath to get the bracket off. It’s lightly glued on, don’t worry about that; you won’t peel off any traces or board. But DO NOT let the card flex when you do this. Then I reused the old bracket and screws. I suppose you could also drill out the bushings. Curtis Gross talks about this in his nice YouTube video.

Amen. Having been jolted twice from 2 different spots on the power supply, I would recommend covering the power supply with a small microfiber cloth, handling it by the edges and keeping the cloth in place. Cheap insurance. It will also protect the power supply if it touches something conductive on the hard disc when you flip it over to remove the DC-out cable (next step).

On reassembly:

Be sure to route the BT/camera multicolor cable (step 27) and the temperature sensor cable (step 28) into the gap next to the logic board. The correct location is seen well in step 32, just above the person’s index finger.

During reassembly remember that the screen goes AWAY from you (as in the picture during removal). My cable was taped to the front of the display and had to be untaped and draped backwards over the bottom edge to get into proper position for attachment. Also, just in case this happens to you, too, the longitudinal rod that carries the springs and hinges was about 0.5mm too long to fit into the recesses. I had to file the rod down very slightly to get it to fit.

YES, on reassembly it is possible to turn rotate the cover springs so that the ribbon is toward you. That’s wrong! It should lie down flat in the well of the laptop body. Be sure the ribbon is going DOWN and not draped up.

These are mirror images of each other! Beware! In the photo you’ll see that in reassembly the “extra” metal bit goes toward the front. If you look at the underside of them you’ll see two foam bits: one square one to go over the flat metal part, the rectangle over the cable. With the extra metal bit toward the front (away from you) be sure you have the correct cover on the correct side!

Same problem with the tape coming loose and the cable not coming out. Go further back along the cable and pull gently on the cable with your fingers and the connector will come out easily.