MacBook Pro 17-inch taken apart
http://blog.petralli.net/photos/v/takingapartmbp/
I had a little accident on my notebook a few weeks ago. While I was working very late (5-am in the morning) I poured a substantial amount of very sugared liquid over my two week old system 
. While the liquid in question shall stay unnamed, the notebook was a MacBook Pro 17 inch! You might guess my reaction… I was lucky to turn the system off immediately and shook most of the liquid out of the notebook. I also used some compressed air to get the liquid out of some nastier places of the new MacBook. Finally, and luckily(!) the system was running again flawlessly… until the keyboard started to annoy me after two more weeks. It got sticky and keys were not responding well anymore. As I pushed a key it took 1-2s for the key to pop out again. Since I really like to write fast on my keyboard this was starting to become a bigger problem.
So I decided to take the MacBook apart, disassemble the keyboard and wash it under flowing water.
As I found out on googling about similar accidents with liquids, they seem to happen quite often. So I decided to document the process with a picture gallery. Maybe you found this page because you had the same kind of luck I had or maybe you’re just here to see the innards of a new MBP 17-inch. Which ever way, enjoy the pictures 
.
A word of caution: DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF UNLESS YOU ARE WELL-ENOUGH SKILLED. YOU CAN BREAK OR EVEN COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR MACBOOK. IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH YOUR SYSTEM CONTACT APPLE SUPPORT FOR PROPER SERVICE. YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH YOUR SYSTEMS!
June 28th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Had a similar accident about a year ago. I emptied a glass of icetea over my Powerbook, but didn’t even care to turn it off… I poured another glass, of water this time, over the PB in the hope of washing the sugar away and let the liquid drain off. No stuck keys, no short-circuit. The only problem is that the CD/DVD drive ejects discs to only one fifth (it used to be to one half before the accident), but that’s not too annoying. Anyway, nice pics and good luck!
June 29th, 2006 at 12:16 am
As long the keyboard is the only thing poured it’s not that dramatic. The keyboard is pretty well sealed off the rest of the notebook. I had the problem that liquid entered the case by the fan openings too…
June 29th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Poor mac
June 9th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I realize that this is an old post, so the comment may go unnoticed, but I thoroughly enjoyed the take-apart gallery! My brother just peeled his MBP apart to rescue it from some spilled milk, and I have been considering doing the re-assembly for him. Anyway, I know the answers to a couple of the questions in the gallery
The plastic sheet with funny markings is primarily clear to carry the LED light across the underside of the keyboard, the funny markings catch the light so that the keys are illuminated evenly (you’ll notice that the dots are larger at the periphery of the keyboard where there is less available light).
The unknown sensor is the real motivation for my comment. The plastic backlight diffuser is pretty cool, but the sensor that you’ve photographed is the clamshell contact - way cooler in my opinion. This is what causes your MBP to sleep when the lid gets closed. Keen observers will notice that the machine will actually sleep BEFORE the latch engages because this sensor is magnetic. You can even fool your machine into sleep with a weak magnet (like a fridge magnet) over this area. There shouldn’t be any danger in trying as the HDD is on the left of the machine, but caution is always advised.
Thanks for the great photos!