Advice on Upgrade on old style MBP

[Chris3125]

Ok so my dad was given a MBP off a a while ago and it seems to be dying on its arse, its relativly old 48 months, 1.83 dual core with only 512mb ram :/ the battery is also only at 26% its original capacity so basically its unusable without a power source.

My question is whether its worth upgrading to try and get some more use out of it, it runs terribly slow and if i put even 1gb or possibly 2gb sticks in it and get a new battery is it worth it? are we likely to see a boost in performance by upgrading the ram?

thanks in advance

Chris

 

[miles01110]

My question is whether its worth upgrading to try and get some more use out of it, it runs terribly slow and if i put even 1gb or possibly 2gb sticks in it and get a new battery is it worth it? are we likely to see a boost in performace by upgrading the ram?

Yes, you'll notice the increase. As for whether or not it's "worth it"- that depends on your budget and how much you're willing to spend. Since you also don't mention what you use it for it's even harder to answer.

 

[Chris3125]

sorry I can honestly say I think my dad literally thinks the internet consist of eBay and auto trader so certainly nothing needing of a lot of power, just enough of a boost to make browsing and maybe itunes etc usable, worth the 2gb upgrade? or would just the 1gb be adequate?

Thanks

 

[kellen]

My girlfriend has the 2.0 dual core 15". Put 2GB in it and reinstall the OS, it should be great. No problems with my girlfriends laptop, except the heat.

 

[MacDawg]

Upgrading RAM is the easiest and cheapest way to see a performance increase

 

[paintballswimgu]

go with 2gb. The price difference is minimal if you get it on sale from someplace. It makes all the difference.

 

[farmermac]

Ram, battery, ssd

 

[Chris3125]

Thanks for the advice guys

 

[A.W.E.S.O.M.-0]

Ram, Battery, 7200 hd (very cheap) and a clean install of snow leopard should do the trick. That MBP can easily last you another 3 years when used for internetting.

 

[nrd]

If you're not opposed to pulling it apart, replacing the hard drive is relatively straightforward. My original 15" MBP has been running wonderfully with a 500GB hard drive since a week after AppleCare expired.