maccentric

I have a 2014 13" Macbook Air that needs a new mobo, and it appears that the 2013 and 2015 motherboards might be compatible. ...

This likely indicates a graphics chip failure and need for a new motherboard. Very common in the 2011 Macbook Pro series, but apparently also affects some retina display models too. Repair extension from Apple https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/ Sadly they no longer repair the 2011’s.

It is not a total reboot, it just turns on the machine. That said, unplugging the battery and the power for a bit (30 mins?) should accomplish an SMC reset.

The Accepted Answer refers to a post which replaces the optical drive with an SSD so that the iMac has both an SSD and HDD. To answer your question, there is no 3.5" SSD drive form factor. What you want is a 2.5" SATA SSD, which you will place in a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. Because of the length of the cables, you want one that won't just hold the drive in place but puts the connections where they belong, such as the Icy Dock EzConvert.

Good catch, looks like I misread the original post. I was responding to the sentence "In order to put a SSD into an iMac that isn't a 27" or a 2011 21.5" then you need a optibay." This is true only if you wish to retain the original HDD, which was the case, but as I said, I misread the somewhat awkwardly worded original post. That said, prices for 512GB SSDs are getting near $200 these days and will continue to fall. Considering the speed increase and reliabilty of SSDs vs HDDs, I am finding it harder to justify the cost savings of HDDs lately.

The top case is a bit different as well. The are screw holes for the subwoofer on the 2010 which the earlier model lacks, and the bluetooth antennae on the 2010 has a piece of metal that looks like it attaches to the frame (glued?). The older model has a thin black plastic material covering that area (which appears to be cut away on the newer one, but I couldn't find any info on removing it and didn't want to mess it up so I left it in place. HTH someone.

Before you can do this step, you will need to remove the 4 screws holding the subwoofer on top and move it aside.

Would be nice if there were instructions on removing the thunderbolt cable. Beware that the grounded screw is the short one with the fine thread. Also note that the screws are going into plastic mounts which are easily stripped.

“While disassembly was very straightforward, there are a lot of parts, cables and connectors, making full reassembly not for the faint of heart.”

Especially using this teardown, which unlike most of the great guides here on iFixit, seems to favor levity over usefulness. It wouldn’t have been much more work to actually label things so it would be easier to know exactly what to do. Shame

If it doesn’t look like this, you’re looking at the wrong guide.

my cable was glued, had to be pryed up first.

Steps 12 through 16 are not really necessary; you can easily de-route the necessary cables without removing the I/O board. Likewise with reassembly.

I would not rock the case up and back. There are 4 plastic connectors that need to come loose, start on the left side with a spudger about a quarter of the distance from the edge and pop them up from left to right, one by one.

There is a retainer for the airport cables that goes beneath the left and center screws.

It is pretty much impossible to do this step before you do the next one as the airport cables are in the way.

Magsafe connectors seem to arc a little bit when connected/disconnected. Over time, they degrade and eventually can need replacing.

Unbelievable how little thought is put into the replacement of parts that are likely to fail in these machines.

I can't imagine any scenario why one might want to do that Einstein. An external fan on a laptop? Seriously?