OCTOBER 2019 MACWORLD 21A spudging wheel such as this
is worth its weight in gold when it
comes to removing the display from an iMac.
iFixIt and others sell them.
the first time. The procedure is hardly
difficult, but it requires patience, a
modicum of finesse, and some tools.
One thing I will say is to be careful
removing the display and handle it with
care. iFixit sells a great roller (see above)
for spudging the display off that eases the
job considerably. Use a large workspace,
and remove anything hard or pointed that
you could conceivably bang into and
break the glass. Pad below the iMac and
prop it so it’s tilted back.
After that, the whole deal consists of
delicately unplugging a few cables,
undoing quite a few Torx screws (you’ll
obviously need torx drivers), then
removing the speakers, power supply
(don’t touch the bare solder joints on the
back), and logic board. You’ll find the
NVMe SSD on the back of the latter,
secured by one screw. It’s simple, but a
few pain points:- A post for the power supply
is also a screw securing the
motherboard. - There’s a captive screw
behind the motherboard that
you access through a hole in
said board. - The webcam and primary
display cables have flip-up locks,
don’t just yank on them. - Both large cables connecting the
power supply with the motherboard have
There’s no support for third-party NVMe
drives in macOS versions prior to High
Sierra. You need the installation drive
because when you replace the main drive in
an iMac, you lose the ability to restore from
the internet until you’ve reinstalled macOS.
I opted for High Sierra because I know
it works fine with Boot Camp (go.
macworld.com/mjbc). Mojave’s issues with
Boot Camp may be over, but I opted for
tried and true.
Another thing you might consider is
upgrading the hard drive to a 2.5-inch
SSD. I did.
I won’t bore you with the complete
teardown instructions for a 2015 iMac.
Frankly, I can’t do better than the easy-to-
follow and granular guide on ifixit.com (go.
macworld.com/sdrp), which is what I used