Late 2008 Macbook Unibody Sluggish

All you need is to upgrade ram and ssd and it will be fresh and fast again for couple more years.

sargente108109 said:

Hello I was wondering if anyone could help me bring my laptop back up to speed, I know its getting old but if it could last another couple years that would be great! Here is my specs:
Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.007D.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.32f8


It is running 10.5.8 and I know it could be upgraded but also was wondering if I would need to upgrade the ram and possibly the hdd to a ssd? I have collected alot of junk files and if I installed the new drive id like to have a clean slate and just back up all of my important files such as music, pictures, family videos and school stuff. Could this all be done concurrently while installing the new OS? Thanks for your help anyone who replies! Any other info about the system I can give you. Also i have about 30 gb left of the 120 gb hd installed .
Also: The battery seems to rapidly go down on power not to the point where i cant use it just much faster than it used too.
Regards,
Eric

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I do exactly what you've described when updating. I know the safest method is to make a full back up of my drive just in case, so I do this as well. Whether or not I use it is dependent upon any serious errors I might encounter. Other than that, I will just use a cloud service to back up important files and transfer them to a clean install.

As to your question on what you should upgrade prior to upgrading to Mavericks, I would recommend at least 2 sticks of 2GB RAM for a total of 4GB on Mavericks. I personally have the 2.4GHz version of your MacBook 5,1 running 8GB of RAM and it's been completely worth the cost of the upgrade.

If you want to upgrade your drive (optional) I would suggest going with a SSD. I personally use an M4 and had no issues with it. There isn't a hint of sluggish behavior on my machine.

I've noticed you're on 10.5.8. This introduces a number of issues when considering upgrading to the latest version of OS X. You can read about the technicalities and ways to upgrade here. This is an invaluable read for what you're considering. If you do choose a method which requires a Mac running Snow Leopard check out DiskMaker X.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2056564/how-to-install-mavericks-over-leopard.html

Good luck!

I am a huge fan of Samsung and Intel SSDs. They are great in terms of performance. Just stay away from Verbatim SSDs. Cram as much RAM in there as possible (8 GB). The difference between upping the RAM to 4 GB and 8 GB will probably be no more than $25.00, which is $25.00 well spent. Mavericks is going to run great. If the MacBook is in good shape, then those upgrades will be well worth it to keeping the computer in the future.

sargente108109 said:

I believe if im not mistaken my machine only holds a maximum of 4gb of ram (2 sticks @ 2GB a piece). You mention too cram as much as possible so im guessing the most I can cram is 4 GB ?

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Apple says that, but in reality if you update the OS to Snow Leopard and do all the updates, you can go up to 8GB with 2 sticks of 4GB. I am running Mavericks on mine with 8GB RAM.