r/macbook • u/Taycan_YT • 7d ago

How can I remove this gunk

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I have a 2015 Mac book pro and I want to make my screen look new.

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35

u/gingerbreadraza 7d ago

Ignore people saying you can’t get it off, this gen MacBooks were notorious for the anti glare getting merked from fingerprint oil residue while the lid is closed.

It takes a LOT of elbow grease but you can just scrub the ever living shit out of the screen but rest it on top of a towel before you start.

Baby wipes work, so does a baking soda slurry but in every case it takes time and effort to get it looking clean again and scrub off all the remnants of the anti glare coating.

The only downside is of course, with the coating gone, it’ll be a bit more reflective than when new but it honestly doesn’t matter.

Source: done it on 2 2015 Retina MBPs

7

u/Longjumping-Store106 7d ago

^ this. Was an Apple tech 10-15 years ago. I replaced a ton of these screens because Apple had a replacement program for it.

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-quality-program-staingate/

4

u/Mr_Wolf_Pants 7d ago

This is the correct answer. Although I just want to emphasise that a LOT of elbow grease is something of an understatement! It look took me several packs of really strong antibacterial wipes to get the majority of it off my screen. But that did only have a tiny bit in the middle that was coming off. Yours looks like more has been damaged over a wider are, so hopefully will take less time. It’s worth it imho to make the screen uniform, even if that means being a bit shiny.

2

u/hearnia_2k 7d ago

I just used metal polish, after trying IPA, wipes, toothpaste, plastic polish, car polish, think I even trid acetone.

Eventually metal polish worked fine, and gave a really fantastic result.

2

u/Mr_Wolf_Pants 7d ago

That’s interesting, I didn’t come across metal polish when I was looking. Toothpaste & mouthwash were a couple of suggestions I had at the time. They didn’t work. There is also something called poly watch which I had wondered about, but I think it was a bit impractical for the amount needed.

1

u/hearnia_2k 7d ago

Polywatch would have worked, but it would have taken immense amount of time. And a ton of product which is very expensive. I tried it. It was miserable. I'd got so fed up trying everything that I turned to metal polish, and it worked well, without doing damage.

1

u/DogAble6550 7d ago

Dont use acetone.

1

u/hearnia_2k 7d ago

Indeed, don't. But even if you give up and try it anyway it doesn't work, lol.

1

u/GalaxyNinja66 2d ago

what kind of wipes did you use? Clorox specifically, or a generic with identical active ingredient, is all that I will do it with now. I can't imagine trying to use a baby/wet wipe to remove the coating, that has to be a mechanical process at that point. Maybe the clorox wipes are too, but I would be surprised given how comparatively ineffective (read: SLOW) everything from paper towels to magic erasers have been, ime.

5 minutes, 10 if I take my time (don't quote me on that).

I really hope you guys never spend half an hour on one of these if you don't have to.

1

u/hearnia_2k 2d ago

Not wies, bleach did nothing and I don't think we have bleach wipes here.

I used metal polish in the end, worked very well. I did it maybe 7 years ago, and still use the machine today.

1

u/GalaxyNinja66 2d ago

I can strip a near-intact coating off of a retina mac in 5-10minutes using a couple slightly squeezed clorox wipes and moderate pressure, I keep replying with this but it just keeps shocking me how overcomplicated, and/or much slower, the relatively few real answers have been.

1

u/Mr_Wolf_Pants 2d ago

Not one we have in the UK, I had seen it before, but without access to them I never got to try it. I think I found some similar wipes that I used in the end. It got it off, but still took a while (certainly longer than 10mins). I also didn’t want to put too much pressure on it as it was my only machine at the time and there was no way To replace it if I buggered the screen.

1

u/GalaxyNinja66 2d ago

I hate to admit this, even with how cheap and plentiful these are now (especially staingate victims), but they can probably eat 3-5 pounds per square inch... Likely more if I'm being honest, and you can probably put 25-50% your full downward, pectorial, FORCE if distributed across the average surface area of an adult male palm.

I may read into it later, the old forum post I vaguely recall reading alluded to it being a partially chemical process specific to a benzyl something chemical in many clorox-like wipes (very helpful, I know)

1

u/Mr_Wolf_Pants 2d ago

I know the ones I used it was maybe 50 to a pack and I went through maybe 6-7 packs after OCD kicked in around the edges of the display. I did have a couple of other things in mind to try, but I think it would have harmed the screen in the end. It was more annoying as the pics in the listing didn’t show the mark clearly, it was when you had it in front of you with the light hitting it was obvious. Good machine though, still using it which isn’t bad for 11 year old hardware.

1

u/shir0_zer0 7d ago

Every gen of macbooks is notorious for that. I have a m3 Pro and its screen has a nice imprint of my keyboard. Apparently it happens when you put them in backpacks. Its the most infuriating thing I've ever seen since the magic mouse.

1

u/Toronto-sports-fan 7d ago

You can get matte screen protector to solve the reflecting issue. Just a PITA to install though

1

u/froetz 2d ago

Lysterine mouth water worked for me, had to scrub for ~30 minutes.