Apple Studio Display 17" M7649 Repair & Discussion

AngelaHornung · May 17

Recently I've come across an older Apple Studio Display M7649 for $20.00 at my local savers (I know, it was a nice grab). Unfortunately it did come with a scratch on the panel, but it worked with my G4 tower so I was pretty happy. The device was fairly dirty and did have some cuts on the cable, so I decided to tear it down for the purposes of cleaning and putting on some electrical shrink wrap. Getting the shrink wrap on was quite a hassle as the proprietary ADV cable splits into three plugs in the back. The first cover worked great, you could no longer see the metal and while you could tell this was repair for damage, it didn't look intrusive, but certainly noticeable. The second electrical shrink wrap didn't work too well. There is a rubber piece with a thin hole allowing the cable through which I had to cut to get the initial shrink wrap on.

Unfortunately that hole is quite cut to spec as it won't allow even the thin layer of shrink wrap through. Meaning while I've partly covered the missing cable exterior towards the back of the monitor, there is still a bit of metal showing which is quite disappointing. I'm curious what ya'll might suggest as to repair this. My goal with all electronics I pick up is to completely restore the item, play with it for a bit and then sell it. So considering the end goal is complete restoration minus the panel scratch and to sell it, I'd at least like to get that cable nonsense corrected. I also need another rubber foot, anyone know where I can find some replacement feet? Couldn't find any on eBay.

Also a bit of an explanation the reason I sell them is not for the purposes of profit (though I don't complain when it happens), but rather I live in a very small apartment as I'm one of those weirdos obsessed with reducing my expenditures and carbon foot print to the highest extent possible, therefore I don't have a ton of room to collect these things, but I still love to tinker with them. So I tinker/restore them and then send them to the next person. It's quite rewarding and typically I break even though every so often I come across something that makes me a couple extra dollars which simply goes to repairing the next thing.

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Kilrah · May 17

5 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

Meaning while I've partly covered the missing cable exterior towards the back of the monitor, there is still a bit of metal showing which is quite disappointing. I'm curious what ya'll might suggest as to repair this.

Just shove a bit of the cable inside the case so that the part that goes through the hole has original insulation?

It'll degrade soon enough though. Apple's used absolutely garbage cable insulation at times over the years.

AngelaHornung · May 28

On 5/17/2024 at 3:31 PM, Kilrah said:

Just shove a bit of the cable inside the case so that the part that goes through the hole has original insulation?

It'll degrade soon enough though. Apple's used absolutely garbage cable insulation at times over the years.

Did they? I've certainly had some issues with their old cables, but this ones is still in pretty good shape. I can't remember a time I've run into a really bad cable unless it was from someone who notoriously destroyed things. Though with an exception of early iPhone cables, those things were always fraying and falling apart. lol