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2011 macbook air...any way to make it useable?

StephanyeNW

StephanyeNW

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2021
2
0
Calgary, AB, Canada
Hey guys,
New here and tried searching for this but couldn't quite find what I was looking for.

I have a 2011 macbook air I've given to my daughter to use but it's slowed down quite a bit to the point where she's just frustrated using it.
Wondering a couple of things...

1. What can I do to get things moving faster so she can use it for school (microsoft office, web browsing etc.) and what would the costs be?
2. Is it even worth doing? Hoping not to spend more than a couple hundred bucks.

If I'm unable to improve it for her, I was just going to get her a chromebook...


Cheers!

Stephane
 
Not sure if usable but I replaced my mid 2011 MBA mid December 2020, because of slowdown. Replaced it with a M1 MBA and couldn't be happier :)
 
StephanyeNW said:
Hey guys,
New here and tried searching for this but couldn't quite find what I was looking for.

I have a 2011 macbook air I've given to my daughter to use but it's slowed down quite a bit to the point where she's just frustrated using it.
Wondering a couple of things...

1. What can I do to get things moving faster so she can use it for school (microsoft office, web browsing etc.) and what would the costs be?
2. Is it even worth doing? Hoping not to spend more than a couple hundred bucks.

If I'm unable to improve it for her, I was just going to get her a chromebook...


Cheers!

Stephane
Click to expand...
It’s not usable other than just to play with. If you want or need macOS get the base model MacBook Air. I think $899 education price. If that’s too much then get a cheap Windows laptop. You can find something for $400 ish that’s usable
 
Well, if its a case where you may be looking at replacing it completely anyway and are considering a Chromebook, then you may wish to review CloudReady (created by Neverware and now owned by Google) and give it a shot. RAM appears to be the biggest hurdle - but if it's got 4GB, that should be enough.
 
You could try swapping the internal SSD to a newer device. You can swap to a standard SATA m.2 card using an adapter like this
 
My experience with the 2011 MacBook Air was that Office 2016 was already unbelievably slow. Office 2011 worked just fine though. That was five years ago though, when I bought the 2015 MacBook Air to replace it (now I have an M1 model).

To be honest I think for actual work, you can’t do much with the 2011 model anymore. It also only comes with USB2 which is also limiting. It can only run High Sierra which isn't supported anymore. Also, internally nothing is user-replaceable as far as I know.

So I would say, get yourself a new MacBook Air, or if money is an issue, a 2015 MacBook Air should be the minimum. That one also still runs Monterey.
 
Here's my advice:

1. Run Apple Diagnostic on it. Make sure the memory or hard drive isn't failing. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

2. Do a full restore on the machine. Reformat it, and install Sierra (Mac OS 12). It should be a bit more snappy than High Sierra.

3. Install software from that era. Install Office 2011. Safari should still work normally though. Download Chrome or Firefox.

It should work reasonably well for very light office work.
 
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Thanks for all the tips guys.
I'll try all these things first before putting more money into it.
Yeah, if it was going to cost more than $200 to make it useable I'm looking at just getting her a chromebook.

Cheers!

Stephane
 
StephanyeNW said:
Thanks for all the tips guys.
I'll try all these things first before putting more money into it.
Yeah, if it was going to cost more than $200 to make it useable I'm looking at just getting her a chromebook.

Cheers!

Stephane
Click to expand...
If you don't mind using an older OS, I found that Mavericks (10.9) was the latest OS that ran great on my old 2011 4 GB RAM Macbook Air. Of course some software now requires a newer OS. You'd have to use Office 2011.
 
If the ssd is nearly full, it will experience issues. If it's running 2 or 4GB of ram, it will experience issues with recent versions of typical software, including web browsers. If she's running something like chrome, that's probably too resource heavy for it.
 
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I had cleaned off my MacBook Air 2011 (i7 4GB with 1TB OWC SSD upgrade) for sale. I then realized that I needed a native Intel machine for the occasional Windows 10 boot (debug some hardware) and that I would not really get much for it.
So I set up the fresh High Sierra install I have prepared for sale. I was really surprised how nicely that runs! I also used DosDude patcher to set up Catalina, but might just stay with High Sierra and delete that VolumeGroup. It's on;y advantage is the support of newer apps I am most likely to use on my M1 anyway.
I would recommend saving any data not on iCloud and doing a clean install from a USB stick or network recovery. You might be surprised!
 
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