Is there any way to check for the machine's total uptime? I'd be interested to see the number on that one 😀
Thanks for your thoughts, they are good points to remember. Would installing this hybrid drive speed things up?
http://storage.toshiba.eu/cms/en/hdd/hard_disk_drives/product_detail.jsp?productid=525
I'm not familiar with Toshiba's hybrid drives, but I would keep away from that one and go with the Seagate Momentus XT instead. The specific reason is the rotational speed: the Toshiba is running at 5,400 RPM (the same as your stock hard drive) while the Momentus XT line runs at 7,200 RPM. That alone makes a big difference.
I'm using a 500 GB Momentus XT. I felt the speed difference even before the flash memory came into effect. The flash memory just makes repeated tasks even faster.
A faster drive will make your general computing tasks feel more responsive. Opening programs, navigating files through Finder... a big one for me was searching through Spotlight, which was unbearably slow on the stock 5400 RPM drive and is now worth something with my Momentus XT. A faster hard drive won't help with all tasks, though. Video encoding tends to be limited by the processor, for example; photo editing can be limited by the processor and RAM. A faster hard drive wouldn't help at all, unless your system has to start accessing the swap file - but even then, you'd benefit much more from having more RAM in a case like that.
I would put in the momentus xt. I have the 2.4ghz version of this mac and the first thing I did when I got this machine was put in the hybrid drive. Simply speeds up things, application launches etc.
I would get rid of this machine because of all the talk of the graphics card, but it has been my daily driver without issue. Guess I will see it down the road soon, but I got the machine for just $375. Well worth the risk.
Hitachi/HGST has a 1TB 7200 RPM model that's 9.5mm tall and will fit in a MacBook Pro. http://www.hgst.com/travelstar-7k1000Does anyone know if there are any 1 TB hybrid drives out there with 7200 RPM rotational speed available? That would be the drive to get.
It worked! Screen is now again clear 🙂
I used my initial plan, like told above. I hope that 8600GT chips lasts until Haswell rMBP's are available 😉
I'll open now one beer..
Cheers,
-miha
It worked! Screen is now again clear 🙂
I used my initial plan, like told above. I hope that 8600GT chip lasts until Haswell rMBP's are available 😉
I'll open now one beer..
Cheers,
-miha
Wow congrats. Mine early 2008 is still running strong after a replacement.

Shot graphics card, everything that you've said it consistent with that. You have nothing to lose by putting the motherboard in the oven. As to whether it's worth it to pay the repair fee, that's up to you. Personally I don't feel that it is, unless you can't afford a newer replacement system.My wife's late 2007 maxed 17" Santa Rosa got the black screen just few months after the 3 years applecare ended. I took it to applestore, they told me the repair program has ended and I have to pay 429 to repair it 😱. Is it worth?
I tried to connect to an external monitor, but after the startup chime, no display... Would putting the logic board into the oven revive the gpu?
Cheers
EDIT: I have booted it in target disk mode and I can access the disk from FW from another MBP. What conclusions could I draw from this result?
Shot graphics card, everything that you've said it consistent with that. You have nothing to lose by putting the motherboard in the oven. As to whether it's worth it to pay the repair fee, that's up to you. Personally I don't feel that it is, unless you can't afford a newer replacement system.
I strongly doubt it.Would using a hairdryer be as effective as the oven?
I don't think it's malicious, the Genius bar guys are probably following set algorithms and it's an imperfect process. My early 2008 MBP wasn't experiencing any problems but I noticed that the PCI lane width was being reported as an unusually low speed, so I brought it to an Apple store to get it checked out. They tried to run their test but couldn't get it to work at all; it was either freezing up or behaving improperly very early on, despite two or three tries. It was probably luck of the draw that the representative helping me went ahead and decided to replace my motherboard despite that.I am not sure what to think about the "Apple genius bar folks"😕. Are they really noobs or did they do it on purpose??....
I don't think it's malicious, the Genius bar guys are probably following set algorithms and it's an imperfect process. My early 2008 MBP wasn't experiencing any problems but I noticed that the PCI lane width was being reported as an unusually low speed, so I brought it to an Apple store to get it checked out. They tried to run their test but couldn't get it to work at all; it was either freezing up or behaving improperly very early on, despite two or three tries. It was probably luck of the draw that the representative helping me went ahead and decided to replace my motherboard despite that.
After getting the GPU error report from the AASP, I went to the apple store to share the result and good news, but the weird thing is instead of suggesting to pass the test again to confirm the results, the useless genius bar guy who did the test the day before insinuated in front of the store manager that the AASP provided me a generated code from another tested notebook... I can't believe Apple could hire such nasty minds, unprofessional, and condescending pricks!!! 😡
Good news to who? Good news to you, bad news to Apple. They will have to pay a few hundred dollars all so that you can continue to avoid purchasing more of their products for a few more months or years.After getting the GPU error report from the AASP, I went to the apple store to share the result and good news...
... I can't believe Apple could hire such nasty minds, unprofessional, and condescending pricks!!! 😡
How can they set you apart from everyone else who is just trying to get something for free out of them?
As was suggested above, I would try going to another Apple store. That, or try going back during a different hour, when the workers and managers are likely to be different. Regardless, recognize that Apple owes you nothing at this point. They generously extended their warranty period for those of us with the affected GPU chipset even if we hadn't purchased AppleCare, and in fact the warranty period exceeded the standard AppleCare period. As of now we're beyond that extended warranty period.