A MacBook Air winning streak!
Within a week, I picked up two 11" MBA's in a row - both with the buy-it-now option. The first was a Late 2010 2GB 1.4 Ghz C2D for £120 GBP that the seller had put up for sale because they'd tried, failed and given up attempting to reinstall the operating system but suspected that someone who possesses the right skills would be able to succeed. I read the listing and thought: yep - that sounds like me.
The price was reduced from £120 to £100 after I contacted the seller and informed them that I'd discovered that the battery was completely exhausted and only held a 1% charge and El Capitan - which I was using initially, warned that it needed to be replaced. When I removed the bottom plate, I realised that was an understatement - it was on the verge of potentially exploding or damaging the computer's other components.
As you can see, half of the cells had become swollen - and the logic board needed a good clean. 😂
Here's the replacement battery - also from eBay: not a "genuine" unit but I'm sure that it will suffice.
Check it out now, cleaned up and with the new battery installed. The fan looks so much better!
Seeing as it's a C2D machine, having the option of booting Snow Leopard and the availability of Rosetta seemed logical but installing SL presented a challenge because the MBA requires 10.6.4 but the earliest release that you can download with Internet Recovery is Lion and the copies of Snow Leopard that I had at hand were either 10.6 or 10.6.3. It's surprising that no-one has uploaded the specific MBA USB installer to the Garden...
Anyhow, this post enabled me to obtain a copy of 10.6.7 which I then modified using this guide to replace the installer package with one from the 10.6.3 retail disc and from there I created a USB installer. For some reason that I couldn't work out, El Capitan on my MBP wouldn't allow me to carry out the modifications but switching to Snow Leopard solved that.
The installer rebooted and it was time for the moment of truth.
Success!
Let me know if there's any interest in uploading a copy of my USB installer to the Garden so it can help others who have a late 2010 MBA and find themselves in this situation. The new battery solved a number of power management issues that had previously made me fear that there was a fault with the logic board or that the El Capitan installation was corrupted because prior to replacing the battery - even connected to the mains, the MBA experienced a delay in powering up, would fail to resume from sleep and was erratic with rebooting correctly. It now works perfectly, as was confirmed with a little shakedown test.
There had to be at least one game involved...
Now for some TV recordings...
I'm aiming to set up a triple-boot with Snow Leopard, El Capitan (which appeared to be surprisingly snappy considering the RAM constraints) and Linux Mint. Please feel free to weigh in with suggestions or recommendations.
Time for MBA #2.
This 2011 i5 1.6 Ghz 2GB MBA popped up in the spares/repairs section with a buy-it-now option of £40 GBP.
As you can see, the battery and the SSD had been removed but a PSU and a Thunderbolt cable were included. I contacted the seller and they informed me that it turns on and displays a blue screen, which made me suspect that it could be restored to working status if the SSD was replaced. At £40 GBP I couldn't see any reason to deliberate over buying it because even if I was unsuccessful, I could keep it as a donor machine or strip down the parts and resell them for far more than I paid for it so I took the plunge and bought it.
A purportedly genuine battery from eBay and the gift of an SSD from a very kind member of this site who shall remain anonymous but to whom I'm indebted, put me in the position to see if the machine could be resurrected.
Success: it works!
Even factoring in the cost of the replacement battery (which was hardly expensive), this is an absolute steal and has to rank as one of my best Apple related eBay bargains of all time. There's a few screws missing but I've ordered new sets and that's an inconsequential matter! The C2D I'll keep for myself and being a good, unselfish son, the i5 will be a surprise birthday present for my mother in order to help increase her IT literacy and enable her to use the Internet and send e-mails without needing to rely on others - which is an area where she's keen to improve. I've got stacks and stacks of other machines so it's only fair to give her the superior MBA out of the two.
On reflection, I think I've done pretty well here because I paid a total for both machines that's lower than what a single MBA would cost either through bidding or buy-it-now.
Within a week, I picked up two 11" MBA's in a row - both with the buy-it-now option. The first was a Late 2010 2GB 1.4 Ghz C2D for £120 GBP that the seller had put up for sale because they'd tried, failed and given up attempting to reinstall the operating system but suspected that someone who possesses the right skills would be able to succeed. I read the listing and thought: yep - that sounds like me.
The price was reduced from £120 to £100 after I contacted the seller and informed them that I'd discovered that the battery was completely exhausted and only held a 1% charge and El Capitan - which I was using initially, warned that it needed to be replaced. When I removed the bottom plate, I realised that was an understatement - it was on the verge of potentially exploding or damaging the computer's other components.
As you can see, half of the cells had become swollen - and the logic board needed a good clean. 😂
Here's the replacement battery - also from eBay: not a "genuine" unit but I'm sure that it will suffice.
Check it out now, cleaned up and with the new battery installed. The fan looks so much better!
Seeing as it's a C2D machine, having the option of booting Snow Leopard and the availability of Rosetta seemed logical but installing SL presented a challenge because the MBA requires 10.6.4 but the earliest release that you can download with Internet Recovery is Lion and the copies of Snow Leopard that I had at hand were either 10.6 or 10.6.3. It's surprising that no-one has uploaded the specific MBA USB installer to the Garden...
Anyhow, this post enabled me to obtain a copy of 10.6.7 which I then modified using this guide to replace the installer package with one from the 10.6.3 retail disc and from there I created a USB installer. For some reason that I couldn't work out, El Capitan on my MBP wouldn't allow me to carry out the modifications but switching to Snow Leopard solved that.
The installer rebooted and it was time for the moment of truth.
Success!
Let me know if there's any interest in uploading a copy of my USB installer to the Garden so it can help others who have a late 2010 MBA and find themselves in this situation. The new battery solved a number of power management issues that had previously made me fear that there was a fault with the logic board or that the El Capitan installation was corrupted because prior to replacing the battery - even connected to the mains, the MBA experienced a delay in powering up, would fail to resume from sleep and was erratic with rebooting correctly. It now works perfectly, as was confirmed with a little shakedown test.
There had to be at least one game involved...
Now for some TV recordings...
I'm aiming to set up a triple-boot with Snow Leopard, El Capitan (which appeared to be surprisingly snappy considering the RAM constraints) and Linux Mint. Please feel free to weigh in with suggestions or recommendations.
Time for MBA #2.
This 2011 i5 1.6 Ghz 2GB MBA popped up in the spares/repairs section with a buy-it-now option of £40 GBP.
As you can see, the battery and the SSD had been removed but a PSU and a Thunderbolt cable were included. I contacted the seller and they informed me that it turns on and displays a blue screen, which made me suspect that it could be restored to working status if the SSD was replaced. At £40 GBP I couldn't see any reason to deliberate over buying it because even if I was unsuccessful, I could keep it as a donor machine or strip down the parts and resell them for far more than I paid for it so I took the plunge and bought it.
A purportedly genuine battery from eBay and the gift of an SSD from a very kind member of this site who shall remain anonymous but to whom I'm indebted, put me in the position to see if the machine could be resurrected.
Success: it works!
Even factoring in the cost of the replacement battery (which was hardly expensive), this is an absolute steal and has to rank as one of my best Apple related eBay bargains of all time. There's a few screws missing but I've ordered new sets and that's an inconsequential matter! The C2D I'll keep for myself and being a good, unselfish son, the i5 will be a surprise birthday present for my mother in order to help increase her IT literacy and enable her to use the Internet and send e-mails without needing to rely on others - which is an area where she's keen to improve. I've got stacks and stacks of other machines so it's only fair to give her the superior MBA out of the two.
On reflection, I think I've done pretty well here because I paid a total for both machines that's lower than what a single MBA would cost either through bidding or buy-it-now.
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