Other AliExpress bargains: what’s your latest ‘‘aw heck yah’’ find?

[B S Magnet]

I tend to look around AliExpress for small, minor components for repairing my Macs. In the past, I’ve bought replacement unibody keyboard kits and hard drive cables from vendors on there whose supply came from the same suppliers as what Apple relied on originally.

This day, I was looking for a replacement set of speakers for the early 2011 A1286 MBP I found locally last month. Truly, it has faltering speakers, as one side has been quieter from the get-go. As of this week, the subwoofer also gave out in that lovely, crunchy, blown-out way.

[With unibody MacBook Pro speakers, I’ve found the subwoofer tends to go first. The foam has a tendency to oxidize. Continued usage only hastens this age-related failure.]

First, i went to eBay, then Beetstech, PowerBookMedic, and even The Bookyard. I wasn’t finding anything I was eager to buy used or willing to spend way too much before shipping costs.

Then I found one of the stores on Aliexpress was selling the complete speaker set, new, with tools and bottom plate screws (?) and the rubber feet I was already planning to buy (!!!), for about CAD$13. 🤯. [Mods: not my listing/store/whatever.]

New Speaker For Macbook Pro 15

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Factoring the reviews on this specific product, the quantity sold relative to other vendors (and also checking how well their 13-inch and 17-inch variants of the same were selling, along with those reviews), I went ahead and ordered the kit. If it’s total dechets, I think I’ll be OK, if a bit disappointed. It won’t break the bank.

---

Paying dues here to @Hughmac for posting the eBay bargains thread, an enduring mainstay over on the PowerPC Macs forum, I wanted to post a bargain find, but for an internal component which wasn’t on eBay or Craigslist or flea market/local trading sites.

Spoiler: But why do a whole new thread?

The eBay thread is an excellent place to post whole product finds like desktops, laptops, displays, consumables, and so on, but replacement components can get kind of lost on there.

For new-old and used parts within obsoleted Macs, I realized a companion thread could help — one centred on rando shop finds from places like AliExpress, Banggood, and seldom-seen stores (which happen to have a supply of something, used or new-old stock, for a good price).

Given how many of the regulars around here keep their Macs in good working order for many, maaany years, this means needing to know where to find replacement parts which, given long-term use, tend to wear out or even fail. (Some good examples: HDD cables, fans, displays, keyboards, and so on.)

The hope is this thread can help each another to separate golden from garbage — as, without doubt, there’s plenty of “scambage”, “dodgyware” and knock-offs to filter through. (Sorting through tonnes of chaff is also a total time suck.)

This thread can also be about what and where to avoid.

(Some kind of) Update soon!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Thanks for creating this thread @B S Magnet - I was similarly motivated to create the freebies one because there are many acquisitions which are fun to share and discuss but they require an appropriate home to do so and it's unfair (and annoying for others) to post them in the eBay thread.

Here's my first contribution.

Original Thunderbolt 2 Cable Data Cables Thunderbolt 2 Data Cable mac 2m 0.5m for apple thunderbolt 2 cable Multimedia Monitor - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

A brand new 2m TB2 cable that was purchased from China with a final total of £25 GBP once tax was added. It was £5 more expensive than one that I'd previously bought from China through eBay but it's still a relative bargain considering that the prices are considerably higher in the West.

If I need more and the likelihood is high that I will given my new toy, I know where to look.

 

[B S Magnet]

Original Thunderbolt 2 Cable Data Cables Thunderbolt 2 Data Cable mac 2m 0.5m for apple thunderbolt 2 cable Multimedia Monitor - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Meta-aside:

How is your link showing a preview? The same ‘‘ URL unfurl="true" ’’ tag doesn’t seem to work when I try to do the same with another link on the same domain.

:: puzzled_expression ::

 

[TheShortTimer]

Meta-aside:

How is your link showing a preview? The same ‘‘ URL unfurl="true" ’’ tag doesn’t seem to work when I try to do the same with another link on the same domain.

:: puzzled_expression ::

Does it not work when you share the URL as I did by just pasting it instead of using the forum's insert link option and then terminating the link with .html and no further info?

 

[B S Magnet]

Does it not work when you share the URL as I did by just pasting it instead of using the forum's insert link option and then terminating the link with .html and no further info?

Not sure. I’ll try that.

New Speaker For Macbook Pro 15

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Edit: Oh LOOK. Cheers!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Edit: Oh LOOK. Cheers!

Yay!

Is that the bargain that you wanted to share with us?

 

[B S Magnet]

Yay!

Is that the bargain that you wanted to share with us?

It is! (It’s also linked as a text inline in the OP.)

 

[B S Magnet]

I tend to look around AliExpress for small, minor components for repairing my Macs. In the past, I’ve bought replacement unibody keyboard kits and hard drive cables from vendors on there whose supply came from the same suppliers as what Apple relied on originally.

This day, I was looking for a replacement set of speakers for the early 2011 A1286 MBP I found locally last month. Truly, it has faltering speakers, as one side has been quieter from the get-go. As of this week, the subwoofer also gave out in that lovely, crunchy, blown-out way.

[With unibody MacBook Pro speakers, I’ve found the subwoofer tends to go first. The foam has a tendency to oxidize. Continued usage only hastens this age-related failure.]

First, i went to eBay, then Beetstech, PowerBookMedic, and even The Bookyard. I wasn’t finding anything I was eager to buy used or willing to spend way too much before shipping costs.

Then I found one of the stores on Aliexpress was selling the complete speaker set, new, with tools and bottom plate screws (?) and the rubber feet I was already planning to buy (!!!), for about CAD$13. 🤯. [Mods: not my listing/store/whatever.]

New Speaker For Macbook Pro 15

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Factoring the reviews on this specific product, the quantity sold relative to other vendors (and also checking how well their 13-inch and 17-inch variants of the same were selling, along with those reviews), I went ahead and ordered the kit. If it’s total dechets, I think I’ll be OK, if a bit disappointed. It won’t break the bank.

---

Paying dues here to @Hughmac for posting the eBay bargains thread, an enduring mainstay over on the PowerPC Macs forum, I wanted to post a bargain find, but for an internal component which wasn’t on eBay or Craigslist or flea market/local trading sites.

Spoiler: But why do a whole new thread?

The eBay thread is an excellent place to post whole product finds like desktops, laptops, displays, consumables, and so on, but replacement components can get kind of lost on there.

For new-old and used parts within obsoleted Macs, I realized a companion thread could help — one centred on rando shop finds from places like AliExpress, Banggood, and seldom-seen stores (which happen to have a supply of something, used or new-old stock, for a good price).

Given how many of the regulars around here keep their Macs in good working order for many, maaany years, this means needing to know where to find replacement parts which, given long-term use, tend to wear out or even fail. (Some good examples: HDD cables, fans, displays, keyboards, and so on.)

The hope is this thread can help each another to separate golden from garbage — as, without doubt, there’s plenty of “scambage”, “dodgyware” and knock-offs to filter through. (Sorting through tonnes of chaff is also a total time suck.)

This thread can also be about what and where to avoid.

(Some kind of) Update soon!

Update, kind of a review, cos amazed:

The speaker kit arrived unusually quickly — like nine days from the PRC to Mapletropolis, Canada.

Everything shown in the listing was exactly as seen and packaged unusually well:



The three cheap, “freebie” drivers — a T6, a Phillips, and a tri-head — and one of those routing sticks all may be made with injection-moulded plastic, but they’re rubberized, the tips are magnetized, and the end for your fingers or palm or whatever turns/rotates/spins. Together, they’re the kind of hardware one might expect when buying a set of tools from iFixit. It might seem a trivial thing, but that they’re, incidentally, colour-coded, means I’ll probably be using them for other things a lot more frequently (despite tools I’ve relied on for years).

The bottom plate screws weren’t needed, but they seem to have the same radial aesthetic texturing as the OEM screws (each dabbed with blue thread-locking, just like the originals). The set of feet (idk why this and the bottom plate screws are included in the product, but sure, ok) aren’t a perfect texture match to the originals (I only needed one), but the underside has the needed prong to set it in place. I mean, it’s a foot: I’ll rarely pay notice — unless one falls off.

But I got this for the speakers.

Oddly, they didn’t include the set of screws to hold them in place (nor the set of rubber o-ring dampeners for what is the woofer/sub-woofer), but I guess it’s either assumed they’ll be transferred from the previous set and/or those six o-rings are simply unobtanium nowadays.

The sound quality, this being is a laptop, are crisp and, possibly, a tiny bit louder than what came with it (and after having blown out the sub-woofer a fortnight ago, really just glad to be rid of that crunchy-slap mess). That’s all I expected or wanted from a replacement set.

It’s less clear whether they’re made by the same manufacturer/vendor to supply Apple with the originals (given the tooling and parts, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if some or several of the parts came from the same place). Unlike the OEM, there’s not a date stamped on them. The main reminder these are aftermarket pieces is one of the wires (for the left speaker, the bottom most segment in the pic above) was slightly longer than the original, requiring me to make an S-curve routing to get it to sit against the board. Also, the hole to mount the microphone is imperceptibly larger enough that the foam around the mic wasn’t enough to hold it inside without needing to carefully watch as I put the logic board back in place.

But seriously… for USD$10 equivalent for all of this, it’s definitely an “aw heck yah” find!

Something else also came in with that order, but I’m still testing it and, should everything check out, will probably added here as another amazing find. It’s really rare for two good things in a row to come from AliExcess.

Will wonders never cease?

 

[TheShortTimer]

The sound quality, this being is a laptop, are crisp and, possibly, a tiny bit louder than what came with it (and after having blown out the sub-woofer a fortnight ago, really just glad to be rid of that crunchy-slap mess). That’s all I expected or wanted from a replacement set.

My 13" model is afflicted with that crunchy-slap acoustic but it's not that much of an issue because I've usually always kept it connected to my TV for A/V output. However I do have the same/similar to replacement kit as you but obtained from eBay and I should sort it out so that the chime emits normally during boots/restarts.

It’s less clear whether they’re made by the same manufacturer/vendor to supply Apple with the originals (given the tooling and parts, though, I wouldn’t be surprised some or several of the parts came from the same place).

I strongly suspect that most Chinese sourced Apple related parts originate from the same manufacturer(s) that are also contracted by One Infinite Loop but just lacking a few distinguishing characteristics which lead to them being labelled as "counterfeit."

But seriously… for USD$10 equivalent for all of this, it’s definitely an “aw heck yah” find!

Congrats on your bargain.

It’s really rare for two good things in a row to come from AliExcess.

I've achieved a potential hat-trick from A.E. but would need to pull off the projects they relate to before I can confirm this.

Will wonders never cease?

Probably not.

 

[B S Magnet]

My 13" model is afflicted with that crunchy-slap acoustic but it's not that much of an issue because I've usually always kept it connected to my TV for A/V output. However I do have the same/similar to replacement kit as you but obtained from eBay and I should sort it out so that the chime emits normally during boots/restarts.

Even at a cheap price, if the offending Mac in particular is one which is pretty much always connected to external monitors, the the trouble is probably not worth it aside from, I guess, optional upkeep.

What I didn’t mention: at that price, I also picked up a 13-inch kit for my late 2011, whose subwoofer blew out a while ago. My plan for this afternoon is to put that in.

Until the 15-inch model turned up in my life last month, the 13-inch was my take-everywhere laptop (and for some uses, like fieldwork and DJing, will continue to be). With one demerit (the SD slot has never worked), it’s been a fantastic laptop and as the best Sandy Bridge 13-inch variant they made, will continue to be so. So long as its OEM (and original) battery holds out, so will it.)

Someday, at a point when I have the equipment and a little more experience, my plan is to upgrade the CPU to one of the two compatible quad-core variants available to it. (I’m not sure how much it shows, but I was never a normal child.)

I strongly suspect that most Chinese sourced Apple related parts originate from the same manufacturer(s) that are also contracted by One Infinite Loop but just lacking a few distinguishing characteristics which lead to them being labelled as "counterfeit."

Maybe.

There are certainly bona fide counterfeit parts out there which all but look superficially like the part it’s meant to be, but either don’t function well or function at all. Good examples include counterfeit batteries (oh my lordt, migraines), RAM, and SSDs, and there are plenty of others, ofc.

Others, meanwhile, seem to only be designated as “counterfeit” when they don’t get the OEM stamp and aren’t moved through the OEM supply chain, but are otherwise coming from the same point of origin, same tooling, and subject to the same quality control.

The speakers seem to mostly be 1:1 counterparts. The 13-inch sub-woofer cone on the replacement kit appears to come from a different manufacturer, or else it’s a design revision which came later (such as the Ivy Bridge models sold for over four years). I’ll take a picture of the old and new, side by side and post it later.

But on the topic of “counterfeit” being stuff coming from the same origin but not through the OEM chain, I really, really wish LG would find a way to send out retina LCDs unbranded and shunted through some shell company based in the PRC, as there are probably tens, if not hundreds of thousands of rMBPs out there either being recycled, trashed (illegally!), or sitting in some moving box in back of a closet, all because the display was damaged and cannot be replaced without gutting another unit, keeping replacement costs positively astronomical for what the part is. That’s all on Apple. 😒

Congrats on your bargain.

Cheers!

I've achieved a potential hat-trick from A.E. but would need to pull off the projects they relate to before I can confirm this.

I feel like dodgy marketplace sites like AliExpress or Amazon or wherever are a giant part of the carbon cycle problem, especially with functional stuff being trashed. I think of how often someone will buy two varieties of one thing, either because the first try was incompatible or they buy both at once, unsure which one will be compatible — all because the product is cheap and the incorrect one can be tossed (or, it gets shipped back, but at return-trip logistics carbon footprint).

I would be happy to pay more for replacement parts if a regulatory oversight system worked to weed out the sketch. But instead, we’re left with a front-loaded illusion of “cheap”/“inexpensive” without that price reflecting cradle-to-cradle costs (and, worse, those deferred costs coming due and being paid by public dollars in the form of remediation and cleanup).

Humanity would survive and even evolve if we co-operated, rather than competed. Instead, we’re the Anthropocene because we try to “grow” un-alive things like revenue and not grow things the Terran ecosystem can support. 🙃

[Fuuuuu what was that sassy stuff in the coffee I brewed this morning?]

 

[B S Magnet]

Update, kind of a review, cos amazed:

The speaker kit arrived unusually quickly — like nine days from the PRC to Mapletropolis, Canada.

Everything shown in the listing was exactly as seen and packaged unusually well:

View attachment 2429935

The three cheap, “freebie” drivers — a T6, a Phillips, and a tri-head — and one of those routing sticks all may be made with injection-moulded plastic, but they’re rubberized, the tips are magnetized, and the end for your fingers or palm or whatever turns/rotates/spins. Together, they’re the kind of hardware one might expect when buying a set of tools from iFixit. It might seem a trivial thing, but that they’re, incidentally, colour-coded, means I’ll probably be using them for other things a lot more frequently (despite tools I’ve relied on for years).

The bottom plate screws weren’t needed, but they seem to have the same radial aesthetic texturing as the OEM screws (each dabbed with blue thread-locking, just like the originals). The set of feet (idk why this and the bottom plate screws are included in the product, but sure, ok) aren’t a perfect texture match to the originals (I only needed one), but the underside has the needed prong to set it in place. I mean, it’s a foot: I’ll rarely pay notice — unless one falls off.

But I got this for the speakers.

Oddly, they didn’t include the set of screws to hold them in place (nor the set of rubber o-ring dampeners for what is the woofer/sub-woofer), but I guess it’s either assumed they’ll be transferred from the previous set and/or those six o-rings are simply unobtanium nowadays.

The sound quality, this being is a laptop, are crisp and, possibly, a tiny bit louder than what came with it (and after having blown out the sub-woofer a fortnight ago, really just glad to be rid of that crunchy-slap mess). That’s all I expected or wanted from a replacement set.

It’s less clear whether they’re made by the same manufacturer/vendor to supply Apple with the originals (given the tooling and parts, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if some or several of the parts came from the same place). Unlike the OEM, there’s not a date stamped on them. The main reminder these are aftermarket pieces is one of the wires (for the left speaker, the bottom most segment in the pic above) was slightly longer than the original, requiring me to make an S-curve routing to get it to sit against the board. Also, the hole to mount the microphone is imperceptibly larger enough that the foam around the mic wasn’t enough to hold it inside without needing to carefully watch as I put the logic board back in place.

But seriously… for USD$10 equivalent for all of this, it’s definitely an “aw heck yah” find!

Something else also came in with that order, but I’m still testing it and, should everything check out, will probably added here as another amazing find. It’s really rare for two good things in a row to come from AliExcess.

Will wonders never cease?

When I ordered the 15-inch speaker kit, I also ordered from the same supplier a 13-inch kit. It was the same price and it came with virtually all the same tools (minus the tri-lobe driver; and the screws for the bottom plate are all the same, meaning the four shouldered screws specific to the 13-inch are not shouldered in this kit).

For my Sunday afternoon tinkering project, I went ahead with installing it in my late 2011 13-inch MBP. Aside from, again, the wires being a bit long (and the padded adhesive points on the right speaker being less sticky than would be ideal), the installation went fine.

As promised to @TheShortTimer, the only visible difference from OEM with the 13-inch kit was the sub-woofer. At left is the original; at right is the new one. [It’s potatocam quality, because I didn’t try]:

The sound quality for the new set is, arguably, fuller in dynamic range (such as it is) than how I recall the original set sounding. This is a completely subjective call, though. What matters is the horrible, blown-out sub-woofer is gone.


Also, this was a laptop for which I had ordered rubber feet. It turns out the ones I ordered (for, like $2) don’t work properly with the unibody series (I think they might actually be designed for the 2016-Touchbar-era MBPs), but the ones shipping with this kit (despite not being a perfect texture match to the original set) fit perfectly.

These kits were a really good use of CAD$13/USD$10… and I promise this is the last I’ll post about these speakers.

---

But next AliExpress find I’ll post, pending a full memtest86 run, are 8GB DDR3L SO-DIMMs at 1600MHz. That they use SK Hynix (actual, not counterfeit) modules was why I took a chance. They were on sale for CAD$9 each.

I bought a set of two for my coming late 2013 iMac upgrade project, but threw them into my 15-inch MBP today to test whether the system would gripe at the higher clock speed (it usually runs 1333MHz modules).

So far, they’re doing well. I ran Geekbench 2 and compared results with the test I ran about three weeks ago:

Spoiler: Well, heck…

Before:

After:

System info:

If memtest is happy, then I think my iMac will be, too.

(I may need to order a second set for the MBP.)

 

[TheShortTimer]

As promised to @TheShortTimer, the only visible difference from OEM with the 13-inch kit was the sub-woofer. At left is the original; at right is the new one. [It’s potatocam quality, because I didn’t try]:

View attachment 2430274

The sound quality for the new set is, arguably, fuller in dynamic range (such as it is) than how I recall the original set sounding. This is a completely subjective call, though. What matters is the horrible, blown-out sub-woofer is gone.

Thanks the comparison and the appraisal.

I'm certain that speakers in some of my unibody - and the replacement look like the unit on the right.

These kits were a really good use of CAD$13/USD$10… and I promise this is the last I’ll post about these speakers.

It's your thread - go ahead and indulge yourself.

But next AliExpress find I’ll post, pending a full memtest86 run, are 8GB DDR3L SO-DIMMs at 1600MHz. That they use SK Hynix (actual, not counterfeit) modules was why I took a chance. They were on sale for CAD$9 each.

I bought a set of two for my coming late 2013 iMac upgrade project, but threw them into my 15-inch MBP today to test whether the system would gripe at the higher clock speed (it usually runs 1333MHz modules).

CAD$9? That's a bargain! I'll have to spend more time on there looking at RAM prices.

If memtest is happy, then I think my iMac will be, too.

(I may need to order a second set for the MBP.)

Definitely let us know! Congrats.

 

[B S Magnet]

Thanks the comparison and the appraisal.

I'm certain that speakers in some of my unibody - and the replacement look like the unit on the right.

That’s somewhat of a relief to know. My only points of reference available here are 2011 models. I guess, once my 2011 dies, I’ll look for a mid-2012, though that might not be for a long while.

It's your thread - go ahead and indulge yourself.

My hope (and desire) is this can be a thread for anyone finding replacement parts at a good price — not unlike how the eBay finds thread is a thread for anyone, even as Hughmac first posted.

I just happened to be the one to start this thread: this thread belongs to everyone.

CAD$9? That's a bargain! I'll have to spend more time on there looking at RAM prices.

Memtest passed:

Definitely let us know! Congrats.

OK. The latest AliExpress find, for CAD$9/ea (when on sale a couple of weeks ago):

Xllbyte New Sealed SODIMM DDR3 1333Mhz/1600Mhz 2GB/4GB/8GB PC3-10600/12800 memory for Laptop RAM,good quality! - AliExpress 7

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

The brand, as it is, is Xllbyte (X, two lowercase Ls, not the Roman numeral 12).

The combination of the reviews (i.e., more than boilerplate, sub-legit ones from review mills in, idk, Russia), coupled with customer photos of the received product (and how recent they were for the exact same spec product I ordered), and the definitive markings of SK Hynix made it enough to take that careful risk.

As with the speaker kit, had these been counterfeit garbage or faulty, then I was out only CAD$18 (like, USD$12). So it looks like I’ll be ordering another pair for the 15-inch MBP. The price has gone up slightly: I’ll be paying $19 this go-round.