I own a late 2008 MBP (MacBook Pro 5,1) that has a bad problem with sporadic overheating. It will get very hot, then I get a kernel panic. I can provide crash reports, but considering every other board with a related issue says you pretty much have to be an apple tech to decipher them, the processes seem to be the only thing useful.
When it does work, it works wonderfully. I understand that this is close to a ten year old computer, but it’s a trooper. Apple makes computers that honestly stand the test of time if taken care of. I’ve tried a lot, so I more just wanna provide my experience so that it’s all in one place for those who might have the same problem. That being said here is my setup and what I’ve done so far:
Processor - 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory - 6 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 (have been replaced, now only 2 years old)
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB (integrated)
Superdrive has been swapped for a second HDD (750 GB WDC)
Main Drive is a 500 GB Seagate Drive
Drives are in a RAID 0 array (I don’t have the budget for an SSD upgrade for this computer, and I read that while RAID doesn’t compare to SSD speeds in terms of boot times and application loading due to those tasks involving reading lots of small files in a short time, it still gets greater speeds than the drives being separated. If this is wrong, I welcome the correction, I didn’t notice a real difference)
I have tried 4 different versions of OS X/macOS in trying to test whether they have any effect on performance, this is what I’ve found:
Mac Lion 10.7.5 - this was the original OS installed, on MULTIPLE clean installs, the problem still persists, and is the most prevalent running this OS. Almost impossible to do even basic web surfing in safari or writing in textedit for a extended period without kernel panic. CS6 worked at a god awful pace. That being said, I’ve given this OS 3 chances, all were no hitters.
OS X El Capitan - middle of the road, pretty palatable. This was the last OS officially supported by apple for this model. In my experience, it made the machine run way faster, and the issue only occurred when using the machine on flat table or lap, when watching videos or using any other browser other than safari, I could do light editing in Photoshop CC and InDesign CC worked very well. Wheras Illustrator would crash ~2 hrs into any use.
macOS Sierra (dosdude patch) - I wanted to see if there was anything to the newer OS working better on old hardware. In my experience, it’s been true. It still had most of the same problems El Cap did, but Creative Cloud ran better, for longer, and I was able to use the machine on a flat surface or in my lap for ~3hrs before overheating.
macOS High Sierra (dosdude patch) - I kept updating to see if things got better, so far, it’s worked. This is the most usable setup thus far. I still can’t use other browsers, using youtube turns it into a handy space heater. I can do light photo editing in Photoshop, InDesign works well, and almost never causes a crash, Illustrator does tend to make the machine heat up, but coming this far, I think it’s just the age of the machine vs software. Still, pretty pretty pretty good. The Spotify app and iTunes works like a charm, and it’s what I use the machine for the most now since I got my iMac.
I have:
- disabled spotlight (runaway tasks are a huge issue on older Macs, every forum told people with the same problem to go through and figure it out essentially. My three biggest users of both RAM and CPU were spotlight, kernel task, and window server. Disabling both the indexing and spotlight itself sped up the system a lot, and overheating was less frequent)
- Reduce transparency via accessibility in settings. I personally think it didn’t do much. It’s supposed to help window server.
- cleaned the fans multiple times, they look immaculate. I clean them ~1 time a year. Made a huge difference. Who woulda guessed cleaning the fans would cool down the machine. Haha.
- tried out a couple of different aftermarket batteries, being a 10 year old laptop, apple doesn’t sell official batteries for these anymore. The problem occurred with the original battery, so I didn’t think it had anything to do with the battery. I ended up getting the same battery a bud of mine got for his MBP, same model with no problems like mine.
- replaced the RAM. Same amount, max 6 GB. No difference.
- kernel_task CPU drain solve:
1. Go to About this mac under the apple in the upper left and click on More info
2. Click on system report
3. make a note of what it says after Model Identifier
4. go to your master drive System -Library Extensions IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext -Contents Plugins ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext Contents Resources find the name from step 3 and move it to a folder that you can find again if needed.
3. Restart and youre done
There wasn’t an explanation of what this actually does, but I did notice a pretty big difference afterwards. As always, make copies of essential files before messing with them. I don’t really keep a lot on my laptop, so I wouldn’t have a huge issue with having to reinstall the OS if something had went wrong, which is why I tried it.
I’m just wondering if there is much I could do to fix the problem that doesn’t pop up with some hardcore searching. I also wanted to make this post so that others having this problem could get the info I’ve come across all in one place . I’m not an expert, so some of what I’ve done could’ve been nothing but placebo. But nevertheless, it’s here.
When it does work, it works wonderfully. I understand that this is close to a ten year old computer, but it’s a trooper. Apple makes computers that honestly stand the test of time if taken care of. I’ve tried a lot, so I more just wanna provide my experience so that it’s all in one place for those who might have the same problem. That being said here is my setup and what I’ve done so far:
Processor - 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory - 6 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 (have been replaced, now only 2 years old)
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB (integrated)
Superdrive has been swapped for a second HDD (750 GB WDC)
Main Drive is a 500 GB Seagate Drive
Drives are in a RAID 0 array (I don’t have the budget for an SSD upgrade for this computer, and I read that while RAID doesn’t compare to SSD speeds in terms of boot times and application loading due to those tasks involving reading lots of small files in a short time, it still gets greater speeds than the drives being separated. If this is wrong, I welcome the correction, I didn’t notice a real difference)
I have tried 4 different versions of OS X/macOS in trying to test whether they have any effect on performance, this is what I’ve found:
Mac Lion 10.7.5 - this was the original OS installed, on MULTIPLE clean installs, the problem still persists, and is the most prevalent running this OS. Almost impossible to do even basic web surfing in safari or writing in textedit for a extended period without kernel panic. CS6 worked at a god awful pace. That being said, I’ve given this OS 3 chances, all were no hitters.
OS X El Capitan - middle of the road, pretty palatable. This was the last OS officially supported by apple for this model. In my experience, it made the machine run way faster, and the issue only occurred when using the machine on flat table or lap, when watching videos or using any other browser other than safari, I could do light editing in Photoshop CC and InDesign CC worked very well. Wheras Illustrator would crash ~2 hrs into any use.
macOS Sierra (dosdude patch) - I wanted to see if there was anything to the newer OS working better on old hardware. In my experience, it’s been true. It still had most of the same problems El Cap did, but Creative Cloud ran better, for longer, and I was able to use the machine on a flat surface or in my lap for ~3hrs before overheating.
macOS High Sierra (dosdude patch) - I kept updating to see if things got better, so far, it’s worked. This is the most usable setup thus far. I still can’t use other browsers, using youtube turns it into a handy space heater. I can do light photo editing in Photoshop, InDesign works well, and almost never causes a crash, Illustrator does tend to make the machine heat up, but coming this far, I think it’s just the age of the machine vs software. Still, pretty pretty pretty good. The Spotify app and iTunes works like a charm, and it’s what I use the machine for the most now since I got my iMac.
I have:
- disabled spotlight (runaway tasks are a huge issue on older Macs, every forum told people with the same problem to go through and figure it out essentially. My three biggest users of both RAM and CPU were spotlight, kernel task, and window server. Disabling both the indexing and spotlight itself sped up the system a lot, and overheating was less frequent)
- Reduce transparency via accessibility in settings. I personally think it didn’t do much. It’s supposed to help window server.
- cleaned the fans multiple times, they look immaculate. I clean them ~1 time a year. Made a huge difference. Who woulda guessed cleaning the fans would cool down the machine. Haha.
- tried out a couple of different aftermarket batteries, being a 10 year old laptop, apple doesn’t sell official batteries for these anymore. The problem occurred with the original battery, so I didn’t think it had anything to do with the battery. I ended up getting the same battery a bud of mine got for his MBP, same model with no problems like mine.
- replaced the RAM. Same amount, max 6 GB. No difference.
- kernel_task CPU drain solve:
1. Go to About this mac under the apple in the upper left and click on More info
2. Click on system report
3. make a note of what it says after Model Identifier
4. go to your master drive System -Library Extensions IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext -Contents Plugins ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext Contents Resources find the name from step 3 and move it to a folder that you can find again if needed.
3. Restart and youre done
There wasn’t an explanation of what this actually does, but I did notice a pretty big difference afterwards. As always, make copies of essential files before messing with them. I don’t really keep a lot on my laptop, so I wouldn’t have a huge issue with having to reinstall the OS if something had went wrong, which is why I tried it.
I’m just wondering if there is much I could do to fix the problem that doesn’t pop up with some hardcore searching. I also wanted to make this post so that others having this problem could get the info I’ve come across all in one place . I’m not an expert, so some of what I’ve done could’ve been nothing but placebo. But nevertheless, it’s here.
