2006 Macbook Core Duo 2ghz upgrades

[Zenara25]

I'm trying to keep my old 13" 2006 Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) 2ghz Macbook a little longer. Have 3 questions.

I'm currently running Snow Leopard. Can't upgrade to Lion right?

Upgraded my Ram to 2gb a few years ago. Is this the max?

Currently running a 320gb Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 16mb cache 3gb/s.
Can I upgrade to the new Seagate Hybrid drive with 750gb 7200rpm 32mb cache 6gb/s sata?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I'm currently running Snow Leopard. Can't upgrade to Lion right?

No, as Lion needs a Core 2 Duo CPU.

Upgraded my Ram to 2gb a few years ago. Is this the max?

Yes.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

Currently running a 320gb Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 16mb cache 3gb/s.
Can I upgrade to the new Seagate Hybrid drive with 750gb 7200rpm 32mb cache 6gb/s sata?

Yes, if the maximum height is 9.5 mm.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD​

How to format a new HDD/SSD to install Mac OS X or make a bootable copy onto​

 

[Zenara25]

Thank you simsaladimbamba for your fast answers

The good thing about the hard drive upgrade is if I do replace my Macbook this year I can probably use the upgraded Seagate Hybrid drive ST750LX003 in the new Macbook Pro.

 

[thekev]

On an older machine, you shouldn't upgrade to Lion even if you can force it to do so. It's quite ram hungry, and it has other issues. Note that a lot of people have gone back to SL. Inability to upgrade to Lion shouldn't be a factor in how much longer you keep the machine unless you require it to install a current software generation. Most software developers have maintained compatibility with Snow Leopard so far, so you're probably fine.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

...old 13" 2006 Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) 2ghz Macbook...

...can't upgrade to Lion right?

Not on this machine, right.

Upgraded my Ram to 2gb a few years ago. Is this the max?

Probably not. Check it here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14130876#post14130876
(Yeah, i know what everymac.com says.)

Currently running a 320gb Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 16mb cache 3gb/s.
Can I upgrade to the new Seagate Hybrid drive with 750gb 7200rpm 32mb cache 6gb/s sata?

Probably not:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14059189#post14059189

If you have only SATA I (1.5 GBit/s), then you need a SATA II HDD/SSD (SATA III is not backwards compatible with SATA I, AFAIK).

@thekev:
True.

 

[Zenara25]

Yes my motherboards max Sata is 1.5gb/s. My current hard drive is downgraded to 1.5gb/s even though the hard drive is capable of 3gb/s.

I found a thread on Seagate site. It said that the drive auto recognizes the Sata chipset and should be able to go down to 1.5gb/s. There are some chipsets it will not recognize though such as VIA VT8237 Southbridge.

Is this the chipset in my Macbook 'Intel ICH7-M AHCI'? That's what I found in system profiles under Serial-ATA.

 

[Zenara25]

Well I got the Seagate Hybrid 750gb drive ST750LX003 today. And I installed it in my Macbook. Booted from my old drive in an external enclosure into my OS. I then formated the new hard drive. So my Macbook recognizes the hard drive Using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my old drive to the new. I think this will take a few hours as I have about 140gb on there. Will update when I've tested the new drive (actually booting from it).

Update:
Seems to be working fine so far. Actual boot up time is 5 seconds faster (was 35sec, now 30sec) . I'm sure on a newer motherboard with sata 3gb/s or 6gb/s it would be an even better improvement. No issues at this point

 

[P.O.711]

Trying out the same

Well I got the Seagate Hybrid 750gb drive ST750LX003 today. And I installed it in my Macbook. Booted from my old drive in an external enclosure into my OS. I then formated the new hard drive. So my Macbook recognizes the hard drive Using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my old drive to the new. I think this will take a few hours as I have about 140gb on there. Will update when I've tested the new drive (actually booting from it).

Update:
Seems to be working fine so far. Actual boot up time is 5 seconds faster (was 35sec, now 30sec) . I'm sure on a newer motherboard with sata 3gb/s or 6gb/s it would be an even better improvement. No issues at this point

Hi, Thank You For this thread and following up. I read this and decided to do the same. I bought the same exact drive.

I wanted to ask you though, how is yours still holding up?

I'll let you know how it goes with mine. Thanks Again.