Help upgrading a dying Macbook Pro 2008

[megaoutlaw]

Hey all,
I was just wondering if you guys could help me out. So heres the thing, my Macbook pro 2008 (The early, non unibody one) seems to be dying on me, I remember when it used to boot up in under a minute and not freeze up on me. Now things are different, it takes at least 5 minutes to boot up, applications tend to freeze on me and on many occasions I have to hard reset it.

I was just wondering if there is anything I can do to upgrade or improve it?
Im planning on purchasing one of the new iMac 27" when I can, but I still like to have a backup laptop as I'm on the go quite a lot.

These are some of my specs:
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8
2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Geforce 8600M GT 512GB
Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00 200GB
(If anything else is needed let me know)

I was planning on purchasing a 4GB DDR2 and combining that with one of my existing 2GB to bump it up to 6GB, swaping the current hard drive for a 500GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200.4 7200RPM (My current hard drive has 20GB left, I need more space) and giving it a new battery (Mine is currently on 'Condition: Replace now')

Do you guys think that would help? Or is my laptop a lost cause?

my main worry is I use the laptop for video editing and it used to not give me a problem. Now I cant stream 1080p videos online without it stuttering, or even playback HD video files from my DSLR without it stuttering, and rendering times have escalated by 200%...

Anyways, thanks in advance and I hope we can find a solution.

 

[Naimfan]

The lengthy boot time is a symptom of a failing hard drive. I'd replace that first with a 500 GB 7200 RPM Hitachi. See how much that helps--my suspicion is quite a lot. I'd wait on the RAM--4 GB in your machine is pretty good.

 

[megaoutlaw]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

The hard drive sounds perfect, the 180GB that fill mine at the moment are mainly all applications that I use daily so its not something I can address easily, so I guess upgrading the hard drive and transferring all those programs to my iMac should sped things up.

Thanks again and hopefully that should work.

BUT, if it didnt... What do you recon I could do?

 

[megaoutlaw]

I've found the hard drive pretty cheap on amazon, but does anyone know where I can purchase a new reliable battery?

Im a resident in the United Kingdom.

Thanks.

 

[snaky69]

I've found the hard drive pretty cheap on amazon, but does anyone know where I can purchase a new reliable battery?

Im a resident in the United Kingdom.

Thanks.

Directly from Apple, I would not trust a third party battery.

It does sound like your hard drive is about to kick the bucket.

 

[Naimfan]

Directly from Apple, I would not trust a third party battery.

It does sound like your hard drive is about to kick the bucket.

I agree re battery--stick with the Apple OEM. Ditto if you ever have to replace the Magsafe charger.

I would be shocked if it is not the hard drive--you listed classic symptoms. Failing hard drives will take a lot longer to boot and are prone to freezing up, and the stock drive in yours is 5400 RPM IIRC. So a new, larger, and faster one will resurrect your MBP. Make sure you have a good backup--do that immediately, before your new drive arrives.