Apple :: Upgrading Ram/hdd On Early-2008 MacBook Pro
Mar 1, 2009
My university had a brand new early-2008 MBP model (one left) for $1,399 so I bought it a couple of weeks ago. It has the 2.5Ghz processor, 2GB ram, 250GB HDD, 8600m GT w/ 512 vRam, and the matte display. I was trying to decide whether to buy a 2.4Ghz unibody MB, a 2.4Ghz unibody MBP, or refurbished of both. I went to talk to the people at the tech store and they showed me a brand new early-2008 model MBP (a design I happen to like more than the unibody because I am not a fan of the Sony chiclet keyboard or the new "no button" button touchpad) and I purchased it immediately.
So far I have been pretty happy with the purchase and the performance of the machine although it does get quite hot on its own. The main thing I am wondering about is upgrading the ram to 4GB and swapping out the hard drive for a 7200RPM one. The hard drive is less important to me as of right now because the higher RPM will cause more heat and drain the battery faster but what I DO want to do immediately is upgrade the ram.
The machine has 2GB PC2-5300 in it which is 667 Mhz. The bus speed on the machine is 800Mhz. I am wondering whether or not I can match the bus speed and install PC2-6400 which are 800 Mhz. If not that is fine I'll just go with PC2-5300 and pick up 4GB from Fry's today but running the faster speed would be nice.
On the hard drive front how exactly does this work? I know on a PC I can just swap out the hard drive and load a saved system image or install a new OS but does it work the same with Apple? If I swap the hard drive do I just pop in the install disks and install it?
My photography hobby is getting more complex than originally anticipated, so I now want to upgrade my HD from the standard 120GB to something bigger, since I only have about 10 GB left.
I have been looking at the WD Scorpio Black (320GB, 7k200, priced $89 at newegg and 150 on WD site), but was wondering if it would work with my MacBook (late 07/early 08) and if there would be any difference with the sales package from Newegg and WD own site..
Also I was wondering how the performance is, and if there would be any noticeable difference between the 320 Black and a 500 Blue (both WD)?
Also, what is the procedure, when upgrading? My present drive is backed up via TimeMachine (with all docs, pictures, music and apps).
I just wanted to know if this is normal. In XP, my early 2009 macbook (check my sig) only downclocks the processor to 1.59GHz (from 2.0GHz) in power saver mode. My 2008 macbook (intel) would downclock to 800MHz (from 2.1GHz). That just doesn't seem right, is that normal? Just doesn't seem like much of a power saver to me.
I just got my 4GB crucial kit in today, 2x2GB 800MHz DDR2. Since the new white macbook update just came out (2.13GHz), and it reportedly supports 800MHz RAM, I decided to try and upgrade mine (2.0GHz model). I just wanted to report that my macbook recognizes it no problem, and reports the speed at 800MHz.
My son's MacBook Pro (15 inch) has a case warp problem that's probably caused by something in the superdrive pushing out the plastic strip on the front of the laptop. I suggested taking it to the Apple Store to see what it would cost to fix (probably a Superdrive replacement at a minimum). I also asked him if he'd like a new 15 inch MBP but he likes his current system despite the problems. It has a Windows XP partition and all of the software that he likes on it which would have to be moved over. I'm disappointed with this generation MBP with the nVidia problem, the failed superdrive and now the current problem.
I have the 17 inch model of the same generation but I haven't had any problems with mine. I'd personally just prefer getting him a new one and I might just go ahead and get one and set it up (he's at a university for the summer and uses his MBP for his job there).
In general, are the Aluminum MBPs more problem free than the previous generation plastic models? Are there fewer Superdrive issues?
I had received my refurbished MBP last monday, and have been using it frequently since then. It takes on average 4-5 hours to charge it fully, which is ridiculous in my opinion. And the most I can get it to last is around 2:40 with lowest brightness, microsoft office 2008 open, bluetooth off and wifi on. Shouldn't I be getting more battery time?
Does anyone know if it's possible to install the new mid-2009 Macbook Pro 15" battery in the late 2008 macbook pro 15"? I looked at the pictures and it seems to be an identical fit, just no screw to secure the battery but from what I see all it is is a simple change in battery./
Has anyone debated trying this? I would love the extra battery life and I don't see why we couldn't do this aside from maybe the charging being 80w compared to the 73w for the new battery...
I worked my off to get this laptop. So I want to protect it as much as I can for as long as I can. I realize that since this is aluminum, it may experience corrosive pitting if I'm not careful.
SO, what case is the best to prevent this and to keep scratches off? I dont care if it changes the look, just give me the best one!
Another question, how are u supposed to pull out the magsafe anyway? Everytime I try to take it out, it always feels like the edge is going to scratch near the ports
Now I was originally going to upgrade RAM and my hdd on the apple site but it is overpriced so I'm now asking you guys what brands of RAM are good in terms of speed/price ratio
I want 4gb of RAM total (does this mean I have to buy 2x 2gb sticks of RAM?)
And I want a good brand of SSD that will work well (also I heard that there was some bottleneck limiting something to 1.5 instead of 3? can somebody expain this to me?)
I just have a brief question regarding upgrading RAM on my Macbook. I have an Aluminum Macbook which I purchased at the beginning of the year. It has a 2.4 GHz processor, 2 GB DDR3 memory, 250GB HDD, and the 9400M graphics.
My question is:
1) Does upgrading from 2 to 4 make any significant difference in terms of photoshop and basic gaming? Would these differences also apply to regular use?
2) The memory speed is DDR3 1066 MHz. Does upgrading to a faster memory, for example, DDR3 1333 MHz make any difference? Or is the speed limited to 1066MHz, no matter how much faster the upgraded memory is?
I have an early 08 MBP (non unibody) and I want to hook it up to my samsung HDTV to play movies. I have a DVI to HDMI cable that covers video and it works fine but so far that makes it work like a really REALLY big monitor. Since DVI doesn't output sound what do I use to get the sound to output to the tv as well?
Does this work? [url]
I notice in one of the reviews one person states they used this to connect their MBP to their HDTV, I was just wondering if it would work for my model as well?
I think MS Office 2008 for Mac is a step back. I use particularly excel at university and there are a lot of utilities missing in this version (data analysis), despite all this functions were included in the old 2003 version for windows. I've read a lot of threads in this and other forums trying to find how to solve the mess. The solutions can be summarized in: 1. Use other program (iworks, open office, neo office..., but none of those programs have what I need: a power tool of data analysis and 100% compatibility with MS Office). 2. Install XP or Vista in my new MacBook Pro.
My question is, does anyone know if there will be a new version of MS Office for Mac soon?
(If the answer is yes, I won`t make any move, otherwise I`ll have to think of installing XP or Vista, bad thing for me, after three weeks I`m getting the hang of the OS X and I`m very happy with it).
i just got my new MBR with an i5 processor, and i wanted to install office 2008 so it asked me to go online to download rosetta, isn't rosetta for older macs? will my office 2008 run slowly after installing rosetta? And why isn't rosetta already installed on my new MBR running snow leopard?
I've been gaming on my MBP's 9600M GT since I got it in October and I've been pretty satisfied with the results. I just started Mirror's Edge and I get an average of 30fps outdoors on Med/High settings at max 900p res and 2x AA (I'd take off AA, but it just looks ugly to me without it). The trouble is that when I enable PhysX my fps drops down to about 26fps avg. I'd like to make up this difference with overclocking, but wasn't sure if I should.
I game about 1.5 hours at a time, and usually GPU-Z reports nothing higher than about 74C (I'm running 181.22 drivers from LV2G). I have a dinky little plastic cooler with three 80mm fans underneath it, too. I was thinking of a modest overclock, say maybe 10-15%, but was wondering what the dangers were, if any and what temps I would see. IMO the newer MBPs are MUCH better at dissipating heat than last gen, so hopefully that won't be much of a concern, plus I could always grab a program to boost the fan speeds as well right, SMTFan I think it's called. If I do go ahead and overclock, which speeds should I increase, core/shader/mem and by how much?
What say you NBR? Worth the performance gains or stupid risk on a relatively new laptop?
after getting a new 13" I have been noticing that it seldom gets warmer than 50C while in a speck case on a soft surface, while my 15" on the other hand is normally running at the high 70s and mid 80s and easily reaches the 90s if I begin watching a video on youtube when not in any sort of case and kept on a hard surface. I have been ramping up the fans using SMC Fan Control whenever I witness the machine getting warm but it makes me wonder if I have a faulty machine and is reason for me to get it checked out(it is still in warranty).
And just recently I switched to using the 9600M GT graphics card(for the first time since I got it really) and the temperatures hover at about the high 70s to mid 80s as usual but this time the fans are up to 3500-5000rpm on average without me setting anything with SMC Fan Control. Even just letting the machine idle for awhile doesn't get the fans to lower to 2000rpms(which I would assume is the expected normal speed considering my 13" seldom revs up a hair past 2000rpm).
I generally leave my 15" MBP on all the time(5 days/week), or put it to sleep whenever I am going to transport it(as I am sure most of us do). What I constantly have running is:Firefox(with around 40 tabs)Xcode or Eclipse(maybe both, but definitely one of them)Terminal(with a handful of tabs[3-7])AdiumPreview(with up to 15 or so documents open)iTunes
I'm curious if the programs are identical, or if there is still a difference between the products? Ideally I'd like to have Office running in OSX, however if I have to I will run it in a VM. Mind you I'd like to avoid the headache of opening a VM to check my mail...
I have an issue with my MBP when I'm using vista. It just freeze after a few hours and I don't know why (I don't think that it is the network card driver, as suggested in other posts because I installed the driver provided there.
I just know that it is a driver issue because I got a blue screen with a notification from windows and it said that windows is shutting down to prevent damages to the computer because of a problem with a driver.all the drivers are from the Leopard DVD (excluding the network card driver).
Like all 2008 MacBook Pros, my DVD burner does not work.
Can I take it out and somehow work a hard drive in that same space?
What is really annoying is that I used an external DVD burner most of the time, specifically to protect the built-in DVD burner, so when I went to resell it... I would not have to list "perfect except the DVD burner does not work."
Performance wise, I havent been disappointed with the laptop, but one of the main drawbacks I see in the machine is its battery life - Apple has taken strides in improving battery life over 2009-2010, and its kinda annoys me that I'm stuck with the battery I have now.
I commute a lot to/from school, work on the bus/train, and have to use my laptop in places where power outlets are not readily available (some lecture rooms). Realistically, I get about 3-3.5 Hours with screen brightness on minimum, wifi and bluetooth turned of, and doing some basic word processing, as well as reading pdf's.......
I've had my MBP for about 4 month now and have been having problems with its keyboard since I bought it. First, the "Z" key sank in (I think there was a problem with the spring). I took it to the Apple Store, and they "fixed" on the spot (it's much harder to press and only registered a key press 70% of the time). The lower right corner of the "E" has noticeably sunk in, and I need to resort to pressing the upper left corner. Also, the left side of the keyboard feels "mushy", not hugely so, but definitely noticeable after typing a few sentences. Can I request that Apple just replace the entire keyboard instead of just individual keys?
I use RightZoom and have it set to load on startup. I've noticed that Office 2008 in particular -- whether it be Entourage or Word (or any other piece of the suite) -- tends to not care what the last used window size and position was. Every time I open the program, the window appears large, but in the middle of the display -- not "maximized" in the sense that its top border is even with the bar, and its bottom border is more or less even with the bottom of the screen. Entourage refuses to properly full-zoom at all, even if I'm clicking away at the zoom button. how to change that behavior?
To start I should remind everyone that i'm not a mac user. I have never owned a mac or used OSX properly before today. As such, my opinions should be taken as coming from someone who has much knowledge and experience as far as PC's are concerned, but who is a total mac n00b.
First Impressions
When I first walked over to the Macbooks I was quite taken aback. The build quality is out of this world. In fact, I immediately walked over to the latest PC laptops to compare and immediately thought "manufacturing FAIL". Really, the Macbooks are italian sports cars, and PC's are 30 year old farm tractors to use the typical "car analogy".
The Macbook
I really only had any interest in the Macbook when I first went to the Apple stand, but came away with the intention of buying a MacBook Pro. Let me explain:
The MacBook's build quality is awesome. It's solid, no creaking plastic or flexable build, completely and utterly solid. Awesome.............
I have been speculating over this prospect giving the direction that Apple took with the starting price of the 24" iMac (upgrade everything else and downgrade the VRAM).
I mean, this is something I would like to see, but I wonder if it is a smart move on Apple's part given how much they make off the current MBP's with the so called Apple Tax.
And, if they made this move, one has to wonder if it still would be considered a Pro.
This is going to be my very first Mac. I'm really excited about it, but I don't know which one I should go for... I narrowed it down to these two models. Which one should I go for and why?
