Remove the four indicated Phillips screws from the front wall of the battery compartment. When working from the left, remove the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 9th screws.
Four 3.25 mm Phillips #000. (Head: 4 mm. dia. x 4mm thick)
There's a trackpad and keyboard ribbon cable connecting the upper case to the logic board, so don't pull the upper case off entirely just yet.
Use a plastic opening tool, an expired plastic credit, or a similarly-thick card to pry up on the upper case, starting in the upper-left corner and working around to the front of the computer.
The upper case is likely to stick at its connection above the front edge of the optical drive. If this happens, first free all other sides, then proceed to pull upward on the upper case from either side of the optical drive opening. Here again, inserting a plastic card, guitar pick, etc. can be useful.
If you stand the base of the MacBook on one end to get a better look, you may displace the four grey plastic clips that hold the right side of the upper case in place. Don't panic. They slide into slots at the top rightmost edge of the lower frame, above the front edge of the optical drive.
During reassembly, make sure the clips on the right side, above the optical drive, click firmly into place. They're different from the clips on the left side, and so normally they require a little firmer pressure to click into place.
While holding up the upper case, pull up the black tab on the connector end of the silver ribbon cable away from the connector's socket on the logic board.
If there is no black tab, you can also use a spudger to gently pry the connector out of its socket on the logic board. This connector is tall, so be sure to pry straight up.
If you happen to break your upper case cable when removing the upper case, we stock the cable individually and we have a guide that makes replacing it easy.
While you have the upper case removed, it's a good time to remove dust, hair, etc. It's best to use a can of compressed air, though if you use a brush, make sure that its bristles are made of a material (usually animal hair) that doesn't generate static electricity, which can destroy electronics.
Upon reassembly, there are 4 grey plastic clips installed in slots running along the top of the frame in front of the optical drive (refer to second and third pictures). These clips must be installed in their slots for their mating tabs on the underside of the right side of the upper case to snap into them.
Lift the left I/O frame up and out of the computer. Pay attention to the thin metal EMI fingers, as they may catch as you remove the left I/O frame.
The speaker wire may be hooked onto the I/O frame. Lift it out of the catch and don't forget to put it back when you are reversing the procedure.
The part of the shield you are removing is attached to other part by little hooks underneath that are hard to see until you have it apart. They're located over the headphone jack and the firewire port.
Use a spudger to move the gray display data and black speaker cables to the right. This will reveal a silver screw securing the fan housing to the lower case.
Hold the heat sink with one hand and the fan with your other hand, and lift the heat sink and fan assembly out of the computer. The fan is attached to the heat sink only with a strip of black felt tape, so be sure to remove both parts as a unit.
If you need to mount the heat sink back into the laptop, we have a thermal paste guide that makes replacing the thermal compound easy.
Disconnect the three antenna cables from the Airport card, and the black inverter cable from the logic board.
If you have a MacBook Core 2 Duo Santa Rosa/Penryn/Early 2009, there are only two antenna cables and the black inverter cable's connector is closer to the upper end of the Airport card.
Disconnect the display data cable by pulling up on the black plastic pull-tab. If there is no pull-tab on the top of the connector, it may be helpful to use a spudger to disconnect this connector.
Use a spudger to carefully disconnect the microphone cable from the logic board. You'll want to work from side to side, and slowly wiggle the connector out of its socket.
Lift the logic board up from the right side, and slide it up and out of the computer.
If you removed the shield from the ports, make sure to reinstall the shield before reinstalling the logic board, since the port shield can't be reinstalled once the logic board is installed into the bottom housing.