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Any of you preunibody guys still on your original 8600GT?
- Thread starter puma1552
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My Dad's Santa Rosa MBP died a Logicborad death 4 weeks ago (unfortunately not the nvidea issue...)
I have the same one, it's ok but the battery quite sucks and the fans go crazy when I recharge the battery (although I did the firmware update which should have fixed this problem)
I have the same one, it's ok but the battery quite sucks and the fans go crazy when I recharge the battery (although I did the firmware update which should have fixed this problem)
Anyone else?
Everything in my body says "bad financial decision" but no matter how much I try to be happy with what I have and just forget about selling my base Air for a Pro (of whatever iteration) I just can't do it and always find myself looking at the pro lustfully. All that silver is so sexy too.
The model I would be likely getting would be a 2008 model, model number MB133LL/A, with the 2.4/2/200 setup and LED backlit screen. These machines were sold in my pre-Apple days, so...
1) Is there anything to look out for on these models sans graphics card or were they solid machines?
2) Are they lacking any of the multitouch functionality of the pros?
3) SL is no problem, correct?
4) How much worse are the screens in terms of brightness/contrast/crispness compared to the unibody? I'm expecting them not to be as good, but I would still expect them to be pretty good, and not far off from the unibodies.
TIA.
Everything in my body says "bad financial decision" but no matter how much I try to be happy with what I have and just forget about selling my base Air for a Pro (of whatever iteration) I just can't do it and always find myself looking at the pro lustfully. All that silver is so sexy too.
The model I would be likely getting would be a 2008 model, model number MB133LL/A, with the 2.4/2/200 setup and LED backlit screen. These machines were sold in my pre-Apple days, so...
1) Is there anything to look out for on these models sans graphics card or were they solid machines?
2) Are they lacking any of the multitouch functionality of the pros?
3) SL is no problem, correct?
4) How much worse are the screens in terms of brightness/contrast/crispness compared to the unibody? I'm expecting them not to be as good, but I would still expect them to be pretty good, and not far off from the unibodies.
TIA.
1) Yellow screen tint at the bottom, which seems to be pretty common (as both I have had have had it) but isn't really noticeable unless you're looking for it. Downside of reading stuff on forums. Make sure the lid closes nicely, both latch, and the screen doesn't bend up at the corners a lot.
BATTERY. Mine is completely shot, need new one bad. Check the battery health, and do a battery calibration. Make sure it actually drains to 0% battery before it dies/hibernates, mine shuts down when it's still ~95% charged, lol.
2) I thought SL was supposed to bring super multitouch to these machines, but it hasn't. Two fingers only, so zoom and scroll is fine.
3) I'm running SL on mine, no probs. The 8600M GT doesn't do the video decode thing some of the others do (So don't expect a really long battery life watching movies), but does do OpenCL.
4) Not a clue, but they are the same resolution, and still LED backlit, so I doubt whether you'll notice that much of a difference
I dislike airs immensely. If you get this MBP, it will be noticeably faster than your air, and much, much faster in anything that requires a graphics card. What MBA do you have?
BTW, my graphics card "died", well just became extremely slow. Turns out only one of the 16 PCI lanes was working, so it was just unbelievably bandwidth starved. Apple replaced the motherboard for free, but that extended warranty might be over now. My second has been working like a charm for 12 months now.
My Feb 2008 was still working great when I sold it last week... I took out Apple Care and that is one of the things that helped me sell it... I am laptopless now waiting on the refresh ?
Where to start....
Chassis: The non-unibody MBP is very prone to dents. I've dropped mine a grand total of once from a height of MAYBE six inches and the port for the magsafe is now noticeably buckled. The palmrest is prone to 'pitting', not sure why but on mine the right side of the rest is badly discoloured thanks to this (the left side is fine...). Top case doesn't always align properly with the bottom case when closed leaving a big gap between the two. Silver covering on the latch switch wears off over time. The construction method of the bottom case can result in creaking panels, especially on the right side of the laptop.
Battery: Oh god, the headaches this has caused. The swelling / shorting battery issue that dogged pre 07 MBP's seems to be common in ALL pre-unibody machines. This can cause your battery to go from perfectly healthy to screwed overnight and can also be an intermitent problem so you may not notice it during testing on a second hand machine.
Keyboard: Can be misaligned. This can be a cosmetic issue or may be more serious and cause some keys to respond poorly.
Trackpad: Isn't that bad but the button can become clogged up with debris making it's way into the space underneath the button. Hopefully the owner took good care of the machine though.
Heat: Make no mistake, pre-unibody machines get HOT. Even my 17" MBP gets uncomfortable to use on the lap, the 15" I had briefly got hot enough to be uncomfortable on the palmrest.
Screen: As someone mentioned above, yellow screens were common on the first LED-backlit MBP's and not all were swapped out if the user didn't spot it. I was originally going to buy a 15" with LED backlighting and went through three of 'em before giving up and getting a 17" because of this issue. It's really noticeable, especially on full-screen web browsing and WILL annoy you.
GPU: In off-the-record discussions with an Apple store manager I was told Apple expect all Nvidia 8600GT's to fail on these machines. When that'll happen will of course vary and I'm sure some will keep on going regardless but it's a huge problem and the odds probably aren't in your favour.
That's just the issues I've personally experienced, I know there are others out there too. Personally I wouldn't do it, if you want to replace an Air the 13" MBP is, IMHO, a far better choice than any second hand pre-unibody MBP.
My Early 2008 2.4GHz Penryn MBP has been flawless. I use it daily and play games in OS X and Windows via Boot Camp and have had no problems with the GPU. I had the original battery replaced after a couple months because it would no longer charge and System Profiler said to replace it after only 16 cycles. I just walked into an Apple Store and they swapped it on the spot, no questions asked. The new battery has been running over 18 months and still gets 3-4 hours. The only "problem" is that the silver on the latch button is wearing off.
Had a early 2008 MBP (2.4 GHz) up until a couple of weeks ago. Was actually planning to sell it at some point in future after new models will be released. But that was one of those "I just want it" things with no real reasoning behind it -- MBP was more than enough for my needs, stable and smooth...
... up until logic board miserably failed one morning about a month ago. Now I'm laptopless and OSX-less and don't have any other choice than to buy a new one.
Other than that it was a very good machine.
... up until logic board miserably failed one morning about a month ago. Now I'm laptopless and OSX-less and don't have any other choice than to buy a new one.
Other than that it was a very good machine.
Nope. Battery has needed to be replaced twice, Logic board once, memory once and hard drive once. I'm a screen away from a new laptop! 
I'm still on my 2006 first generation MBP and I love it. None of the updates since have impressed me enough to replace it. Same optical drives, same screen resolution, slightly better processors, but lots and lots of hype when they're released. Perhaps the next update will be substantial enough to buy.
I like the old design better as well by the way. I don't like the black keys on the new ones.
I like the old design better as well by the way. I don't like the black keys on the new ones.
I suspect for me the answer is no. Not long ago I had flickering and other screen issues. The fix was to replace my logic board. I suspect the 8600M GT bug but I don't have proof of that.