Need help upgrading my MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.5 GHZ (2008)

Hi everyone,

It's summer and laptop is a mess. The temperature is always around 75C with my fans spinning at 6000rpm - even if I don't do anything at all. I finally decided to open it up and reapply thermal paste. I tried to clean it out before to remove some dust, but that obviously didn't help very much.

Because I don't have the necessary tools and either have to buy them or get them from a friend I've decided I want to upgrade my ancient Macbook Pro (that still has a that nice matte screen) with a SSD and some more ram.

I'm generally pretty new to Macbooks and didn't buy any new computer hardware in 6 years, so I need a bit of help to get started. I bought this laptop of a friend in 2011 and it's still running well. I've considered buying a new system, but decided against it for the moment.

So here are the questions:

SSD:
- As I don't want to spend a lot of money on a old system I want to only buy a 128 GB SSD for the OS and the Adobe software that I frequently use. I searched around a bit and read that some people install the SSD in the optical slot. 1. Is that possible to do with my MBP version to run both at the same time, a SSD and HDD, or are there not enough SATA connections? It would be fine for me to remove the disk drive, because it's broken anyway and of course it would be great to be able to use the HDD at the same time. 128 GB is obviously not enough. 2. Can I just buy any? I've checked amazon and found these three:

- SanDisk SDSSDP-128G-G25 for 49,90€
- Sandisk SDSSDHP-128G-G25 Ultra Plus for 58,89€
- Crucial CT120M500SSD1 for 61€ AmazonWHD (or 66,20€ regular)
(note: You could also recommend me another one)

Obviously I'd opt for the cheapest one, because I imagine that they all would give my old MBP a very similar speed improvement. Am I wrong? (Note: I have a Windows laptop, too, so if some firmware are needed before installing them I could do it with that).

RAM:
Is it possible to upgrade this laptop to 8GB Ram? I googled and I'm still not sure. Cruicial tells me 4GB is the max. On some Apple site I read 6GB are supported and on other places I even read 8 GB are possible. Currently I have 4GB (2x2GB). 8 GB seems surprisingly expensive, even though the machine is so old. Can I somewhere get that under 80$, or is it always almost twice as much?

Thanks a lot for reading all of this. I know wrote way too much...

Intell said:

That Macbook cannot use 8GB of ram. The maximum it can use is 6GB in the form of one 2GB stick and one 4GB stick.

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True. Thanks and sorry. Just wanted to make that edit myself. I initially thought I had a late 2008 Macbook, but mine can only do 6GB: http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...ore-2-duo-2.5-15-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

Will an upgrade from 4GB to 6GB even change a lot? And can I buy just any 4GB stick or do I need to buy the same brand as the 2GB sticks that I currently use?

Freyqq said:

SSD will have a far bigger impact. Just make sure it is the boot drive.

Click to expand...

Yeah, thanks. Still looking for answers to my SDD related questions from above:

- Is it possible to use SSD & HDD at the same time in that machine? (Replacing it with the optical drive)?
- Which SSD should I buy? Can I pick one from the ones I mentioned above or should I look for something else?

If I'm buying a new laptop I want to get one that I'm 100% satisfied. As it would be my main work machine I want to buy something that would be fine with whatever I through at it in the next few years. The current MBPs don't seem to be that great. Some issues - and mainly also no matte screen option.

I don't even necessarily want , but I also don't like any other laptop at the moment. The Dell Precision M3800 comes closest to what I would like, but it's also flawed.

That's why I feel like I'm stuck with my laptop for a few more months. I really need to bring the temperature down - so I might as well try and add some cheap SSD.

Getting a HDD caddy for a good price might break my dream. Think they are hard to get for such an old model. Couldn't find anything yet without having to spend as much money as for the SDD itself.