Upgrading a White Macbook (Mid-2010) for My Sister's BDay

Hi everybody,

My sister has a white macbook [MacBook 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch White)] and her birthday is coming up at the end of March. Her computer is starting to go a little slow on her and I'd like to fix it up for her so she can make the most of it for college. I know it can still be a very good computer, I just don't know what parts and upgrades I should make for her.

I am willing to spend up to around $300 on parts for her, I know I can do all the upgrades myself.
It still has the stock ram and hard-drive in it.

I was thinking of upgrading the Ram and probably throwing a hybrid hard drive in there? and then I would upgrade it to Mountain Lion for her, since I still have Mountain Lion from when I upgraded my MBP. I can use the free copy I got for upgrade when I bought my MBP, right? since it is tied to my App Store account?

I appreciate any and all suggestions, including experiences you guys have had trying to upgrade yours.

Oh, and she mostly uses it for school (pre-dental) for writing papers and looking at slides. But when she uses it in her free-time it is for photo-editing and other artsy-type projects. She's an avid photographer.

Thank you,
Hassan

TL;DR Upgrading MacBook 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch White) and need tips on upgrades to make and products to use

MisterKeeks said:

For hard drive, get an SSD for boot, and put the old HDD in the optical drive slot.

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would I need to get any special mounts to move the HDD to the optical drive? I know it's done often by people on this board, but I've never really looked into it.
And would that really be that much better than getting a Hybrid Hard Drive and using it for boot and storage?

Brian Y said:

It will be faster. Just search for "optibay" on eBay .

Personally, I would throw an SSD in there, move the current hard drive to the ODD bay, and up the ram to 8GB.

Also, check for cracks on the hinges and top case edges, and also the state of the rubber bottom.

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Just checked with her, apparently she uses her CD Drive and would not be willing to part with it, even if she can still have it in an external exclosure.

So sadly, that idea has been shot down. Unless I can find a great deal on an SSD, I will probably end up throwing a hybrid drive in there.

The casing and the rubber seem to still be in pretty good condition.

And 8 GB ram is what I was thinking as well. Would the ram that came in my Mid-2012 MBP work properly for her computer? If it does maybe I can spoil myself a bit and upgrade my ram to 16 and throw my 8 in her macbook for an extra $30.

chrfr said:

Most likely, it wouldn't work. The Macs that use the Nvidia 320M don't work well with faster RAM for some reason. Generally, this should be fine but there seems to be a specific incompatibility with these systems.

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alright, thanks for answering. It shouldn't be a big deal, for my uses 8 GB in my MBP works just fine. I'll just buy ram that is specifically for hers and call it a day.

Another question I have is, after all these upgrades should I install Mountain Lion on it or has ML proven not to run well with mid-2010 macbooks?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...E16820148276&gclid=CNzz_I3bmrUCFcWPPAodHDQAUg

This should work in terms of compatibility with her macbook, right?

Setting up new hard-drive

Any tips on the transition from her old hard drive to after I install the new one? such as tips on how to transfer her data over and also how to install the OS, preferably straight to Mountain Lion