Player Onesix

rdklinc: I may have a surprise for you. I too am presently suffering the same symptoms and did many things that you have done -including swapping the mother board. I listened to the 'electrical sound like it's shorting out' sound and noticed it emanating on the right side. After a week, it started again. It became frequent -again. I took it in and they held it close to a week. They gave up and said for me to call Apple and forcibly 'beg' for a new machine if need be -due to it started before its anniversary date and now has passed. I guess the only good thing is that it takes about 45 seconds to start-up and type in the password before I'm at the desktop: that's tolerable… just! I pondered. After holding the machine, I placed it down and "click"! That was strange. While restarting, I lifted just the right side and heard the same 'click' but it didn't shut off. I then shook it, then nothing. When sign-in screen came on, I gave it a little shake and 'click' it went off. Ah ha! Now I was able to make it shut...

I too must agree with James about inserting the pry tool. If you insert it at that angle, you run the very high chance of poping off components that are located between that gap. Those components aren’t just ‘nearby’, they’re IN that gap! There’re several YouTube vids about the replacement of those components and it is not for the faint of heart. One is a coil (you ‘can’ place a jumper across) and the other is either a resister or a capacitor and those must be replaced.

So I guess you should’ve started from the top-down instead of the bottom-up. Also, there are no pictures or view of the underside of the HomePod after you removed the access plate. Would like to have seen how the opening of the tweeters looked and how the sound is dispersed. I sort of see some fins or slots but that’s about it.

Steps 3 - 16 are not needed to remove the screen. Should take about 10 minutes. Reverse to install.

After you removed the screen, you should've had a photo of the guts sitting inside before removal.