Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

First Time "Mac" owner. Upgrade questions.

A

Android300zx

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 13, 2012
147
0
Hey guys I just traded my Moto Xoom tablet for a 2009 Macbook.

The specs are:

2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 RAM
320GB HDD

I think I did really well on this deal being that this is worth more than my Xoom and it was an even trade.

Now I want to know what the max amount of RAM this laptop can support. I was looking at a website that said 8GB but Crucial says it's 4GB max. I just want to get information.

I plan to convert the disc drive into an SSD and use my disc drive externally in an enclosure. The laptop is currently white but I'm thinking on swapping the keyboard to black since it looks better. I will be doing the work myself.

Any recommendations on apps to download. I haven't been in the Mac scene in a while. I purchased this because I want to teach myself Python. I had a hackintosh Dell Mini 9.


Thanks in advanced guys. This is my first post be gentle.
 
Sounds like a good trade to me.

I think apple officially supports 4GB, but the machine can handle 8.

The site for parts is great. I buy my stuff from them and never had a problem.

If you just want stats on the computer, go to www.everymac.com. It can tell you everything you want to know about a mac.
 
minifridge1138 said:
Sounds like a good trade to me.

I think apple officially supports 4GB, but the machine can handle 8.

The site for parts is great. I buy my stuff from them and never had a problem.

If you just want stats on the computer, go to www.everymac.com. It can tell you everything you want to know about a mac.
Click to expand...


Yeah that's the website that told me it supports up to 8GB. I'm assuming my warranty is expired on this laptop. Does anyone know how far Apple will allow you to buy an extended warranty. If not then that's ok because I intend on fixing this up myself.

The Xoom was good but I needed a laptop. Tablets just aren't there yet to fully replace a laptop.
 
Android300zx said:
I think I did really well on this deal being that this is worth more than my Xoom and it was an even trade.

Any recommendations on apps to download. I haven't been in the Mac scene in a while. I purchased this because I want to teach myself Python. I had a hackintosh Dell Mini 9.
Click to expand...

Great deal ;)

A few python tips:

http://www.enthought.com/
They offer a free mini-distro of python which is quite useful. In particular I like iPython as replacement for the normal python console - it comes as part of enthought.

I looked a bit into python GUI programming. I came across http://www.kivy.org which is quite cute and simple to use. Of course there is many more, pyQt, TK, pyGUI, and so on.
 
thundersteele said:
Great deal ;)

A few python tips:

http://www.enthought.com/
They offer a free mini-distro of python which is quite useful. In particular I like iPython as replacement for the normal python console - it comes as part of enthought.

I looked a bit into python GUI programming. I came across http://www.kivy.org which is quite cute and simple to use. Of course there is many more, pyQt, TK, pyGUI, and so on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. I will add it to my list. I have a lot of reading to do this weekend.
 
I cant guarantee this will work, but its the macbook pro closest to your mac http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...nch DDR3) MB990LL/A Mid-2009&pl=Apple&cat=RAM

i have an alum macbook, and i just bought this ram (8gigs), and it works fine no problems, had it for... maybe 8 months, works great, never had any issues. the reason they don't have the 8gb under the macbook is either because it isn't OFFICIALLY supported, or because the fix (allowing older macbooks to support 8 gigs) didn't come around till maybe march or june of last year, and almost no company is going to go back and fix the product line for such "old" computers. if you dont believe this ram will work thats fine, but note its the same your comp uses now, cl-7, 1066MHz non Ecc, ddr3 pc8500.

I dont know if this is true anymoe, but try to buy memory made for mac, apparently mac uses slightly unique timing, I bought 8 gigs that wasn't specifically for mac, maybe a month or two before i got the crucial, and it didn't work at all, the computer would kernel panic within seconds of booting.


as for the apple care i dont think it would work, heres what the apple site says "The AppleCare Protection Plan can be purchased only while your Mac is still covered under the standard one-year limited warranty. See AppleCare Protection Plan Terms and Conditions for complete product details." in addition to this, it only covers the comp 3 years from original purchase date, so assuming the comp was bought in 09, you would only get maybe a year and a half of care out of it... besides the fact its probably too late to get it anyway
 
unixperience said:
I cant guarantee this will work, but its the macbook pro closest to your mac http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...nch DDR3) MB990LL/A Mid-2009&pl=Apple&cat=RAM

i have an alum macbook, and i just bought this ram (8gigs), and it works fine no problems, had it for... maybe 8 months, works great, never had any issues. the reason they don't have the 8gb under the macbook is either because it isn't OFFICIALLY supported, or because the fix (allowing older macbooks to support 8 gigs) didn't come around till maybe march or june of last year, and almost no company is going to go back and fix the product line for such "old" computers. if you dont believe this ram will work thats fine, but note its the same your comp uses now, cl-7, 1066MHz non Ecc, ddr3 pc8500.

I dont know if this is true anymoe, but try to buy memory made for mac, apparently mac uses slightly unique timing, I bought 8 gigs that wasn't specifically for mac, maybe a month or two before i got the crucial, and it didn't work at all, the computer would kernel panic within seconds of booting.


as for the apple care i dont think it would work, heres what the apple site says "The AppleCare Protection Plan can be purchased only while your Mac is still covered under the standard one-year limited warranty. See AppleCare Protection Plan Terms and Conditions for complete product details." in addition to this, it only covers the comp 3 years from original purchase date, so assuming the comp was bought in 09, you would only get maybe a year and a half of care out of it... besides the fact its probably too late to get it anyway
Click to expand...

Thanks. I went to the Apple Warranty checker and it won't give me information because it says I have to show Proof of Purchase to check my warranty.

I got this from a kid and ran a command in Terminal to create a new Admin account to wipe his out. His account didn't have a password set but I preferred to set it up from scratch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back