Early 2008 Eggshell Macbook. Gut and upgrade?

[furphy]

I LOVE my 2008 Eggshell white macbook. It's been such a great intro to Mac for me and i simply love it, especially for the price! (100$ au).

So i am now limited to 10.7.5 which means more and more the apps i want to use are just not available. Sure i could bootcamp a windows port for a few things, but really i would just like what i have to work for what i want.

I know my big limiting factors are the processor and the graphics card, the latter being the big achilles heel. It's equipped with a 2.4ghz intel pro duo 2, and 4gb ram, so not terrible. I also know there is no real upgrade path for the integrated graphics card.

So what are my options? I would really like to keep this laptop, so do i have some options to be able to run the latest software?

I was thinking along the lines of gutting out most or all the hardware and retrofit a macbook pro board, late 2008 macbook, or something similar. Has this been attempted?

Can i dual boot my current version of OSX and a later version that i could only use when i need to use certain apps (as in my 3d printing software).

Fully willing to remove the DVD drive and pop in a graphics card if possible, SSD is also quite likely.

I originally bought this laptop while backpacking so i would have a cheap laptop that i wouldn't need to stress if it got lifted, but now i love it!

So if there are options, i would love to hear them!

Thanks!

 

[furphy]

Ah forgot to mention, I do also have a larger hdd installed, if that's much concern.
Thanks again!

More specs!
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics Intel GMA X3100 144 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

 

[Gav2k]

Retrofitting won't gain you much to be honest. Slight bump in memory to 8gb over the 6gb your machine can run. And a slight bump in gfx.

Your best bet is to up the ram to 6gb (2+4) and slap an ssd in the machine. It'll certainly pep it up a lot!

 

[furphy]

Thanks! But as i mentioned, the goal of this is to be able to run the newer OSX so i can use newer apps.

I'm quite happy with the current performance, loads web pages instantly, runs video great, does decent at gopro video editing. I think the hard-drive installed is quite good, because everything is nice and snappy. 250gb, but can't tell the stats.

Edit: I will look into memory! the extra 2gb would be nice, especially how cheap it often is! SSD soon unless i need the space for something else (run two HDDs)

 

[Gav2k]

You can run newer os's it just requires a little tinkering.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/install-yosemite-on-any-mac-unsupported-sfott.1802962/

 

[furphy]

Yes, i've seen that. Just curious if there is anything hardware related i can do to make it work well, since i'm sure if better macs have a hard time graphics wise, mine will be nigh un-usable. Is it possible to dual boot different mac os?

 

[pastrychef]

I was faced with the same dilemma and decided to purchase a used aluminum MacBook 5,1. Since the 5,1 uses an Nvidia 9400M GPU, I was able to upgrade to Mavericks and Yosemite. Being able to go to 8GB of RAM was also a huge benefit. Used 5,1 and 5,2 models can be found at very, very good bargains now. Just have to search around a bit.

The one down side for me was that the 5,1 that I purchased only had a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. It was slightly slower than my previous white MacBook and the difference is ever so slightly noticeable at times.

Given a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything I really like the aluminum unibody much more than the polycarbonate models. it doesn't have any of the body flex that I used to see in my old MacBook.

In regards, to trying to hack Mavericks or Yosemite to work on your MacBook, personally, I would never do this. There are too many compromises to going this route. In my opinion, it's better to stick with 10.7.5 than to attempt to get Mavericks or Yosemite working properly on older MacBooks.

 

[furphy]

I was faced with the same dilemma and decided to purchase a used aluminum MacBook 5,1. Since the 5,1 uses an Nvidia 9400M GPU, I was able to upgrade to Mavericks and Yosemite. Being able to go to 8GB of RAM was also a huge benefit. Used 5,1 and 5,2 models can be found at very, very good bargains now. Just have to search around a bit.

The one down side for me was that the 5,1 that I purchased only had a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. It was slightly slower than my previous white MacBook and the difference is ever so slightly noticeable at times.

Given a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything I really like the aluminum unibody much more than the polycarbonate models. it doesn't have any of the body flex that I used to see in my old MacBook.

In regards, to trying to hack Mavericks or Yosemite to work on your MacBook, personally, I would never do this. There are too many compromises to going this route. In my opinion, it's better to stick with 10.7.5 than to attempt to get Mavericks or Yosemite working properly on older MacBooks.

Thanks! I think you're right, i will just keep my white one the way it is, and continue to use it for traveling without huge loss if it's stolen. I will start looking for a newer one to use for other needs. Thanks!

 

[gooser]

Thanks! I think you're right, i will just keep my white one the way it is, and continue to use it for traveling without huge loss if it's stolen. I will start looking for a newer one to use for other needs. Thanks!

excellent solution.