Hotrod polycarbonate MacBooks

[MultiFinder17]

How many of us are still rocking the last white plastic MacBooks, and how have you tricked yours out to function in the modern day?

I have a 2010 that I use daily as my main classroom laptop. I've outfitted mine with a 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, and the keys from a MacBook Pro for a sweet little system. I'm a teacher, and this machine handles everything that I throw at it daily from MS Office, online productivity and grading, to programming and some light 3D modeling (I teach middle school Robotics and Programming). The laptop used to belong to my mother for years before I got her an Air a couple years back. It only has 132 cycles on its original battery, and nearly 10 years in it still has 80% of its capacity and I can get around 5-6 hours out of it. One of the things that I love about this computer is how quietly it runs; I rarely ever hear the fan ramp up, even under heavy load. I do tear it down every year or so to repaste and clean it out inside thoroughly, and given how it's going, I can see getting another couple of years out of it!

 

[EugW]

I am typing on an aluminum one. 2008 MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.0 with 8 GB RAM and SSD. I also have an aluminum 2009 MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz with 8 GB RAM and SSD. Both are on High Sierra.

The 2008 MacBook sits permanently on our kitchen counter/breakfast bar. It's used for recipes and surfing when I'm having breakfast. The 2009 MBP was my primary laptop until 2017, when I bought a 2017 Core m3 Retina MacBook, so now the MBP doesn't see much use.

Macs in sig.

 

[rampancy]

I still rock out on my 2009 A1181, and a mandatory upgrade for me whenever I'd pick up a cheap 2009/2010 white MacBook (A1181 or A1342) was to stuff it with as big an SSD and as much RAM as I could find/afford, and replace the optical drive with a hard drive caddy.

I absolutely love these Macs for their staying power, reliability and longevity. They're second only to the second-gen MacBook Air, in my opinion.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I still rock out on my 2009 A1181, and a mandatory upgrade for me whenever I'd pick up a cheap 2009/2010 white MacBook (A1181 or A1342) was to stuff it with as big an SSD and as much RAM as I could find/afford, and replace the optical drive with a hard drive caddy.

I absolutely love these Macs for their staying power, reliability and longevity. They're second only to the second-gen MacBook Air, in my opinion.

I keep debating replacing the ODD with a HDD, but I actually use the optical drive occasionally. I sometimes use the machine to rip DVDs from the school library so that I have the video on hand and don’t need to bother checking it out again. And seeing as how it’s the only modern Mac I have left with an optical drive, I think I’ll keep it in there for the foreseeable future

 

[Jack Neill]

How many of us are still rocking the last white plastic MacBooks, and how have you tricked yours out to function in the modern day?

I have a 2010 that I use daily as my main classroom laptop. I've outfitted mine with a 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, and the keys from a MacBook Pro for a sweet little system. I'm a teacher, and this machine handles everything that I throw at it daily from MS Office, online productivity and grading, to programming and some light 3D modeling (I teach middle school Robotics and Programming). The laptop used to belong to my mother for years before I got her an Air a couple years back. It only has 132 cycles on its original battery, and nearly 10 years in it still has 80% of its capacity and I can get around 5-6 hours out of it. One of the things that I love about this computer is how quietly it runs; I rarely ever hear the fan ramp up, even under heavy load. I do tear it down every year or so to repaste and clean it out inside thoroughly, and given how it's going, I can see getting another couple of years out of it!

View attachment 853899 View attachment 853900

Those keys look sweet. I have the same machine 512 SSD and 16Gb ram. I am running 10.14.6.

 

[LizKat]

My spare laptop is a mid-2010 with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD, running El Capitan. Love how fast it boots compared to my mid-2012 MBP that runs Mojave but is still operating with a spinning hard drive.

I don't ask much of the 2010 machine since its whole purpose is to serve as a spare, but I do use it to watch DVDs and downloaded or streamed movies and TV shows. So far I haven't managed to trash the 2010's kb with a falling vase like I did with the poor 2012 machine, so the other advantage of the 2010 is I don't have to fire up a BT keyboard just to be able to use it.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Those keys look sweet. I have the same machine 512 SSD and 16Gb ram. I am running 10.14.6.

Thanks mate! I thought they would look pretty sweet, so I tried it out and fell in love with it. I ended up sticking the old white keys on the MacBook Pro that I stole the key caps from, and those don’t look anywhere near as sweet on the aluminum chassis

How do you find Mojave on yours? I keep debating putting it on mine; I know it would run just fine, and I’ve got no problem running unsupported versions of OS X on my Macs, but I’m still curious as to your impressions.

 

[Jack Neill]

Thanks mate! I thought they would look pretty sweet, so I tried it out and fell in love with it. I ended up sticking the old white keys on the MacBook Pro that I stole the key caps from, and those don’t look anywhere near as sweet on the aluminum chassis

How do you find Mojave on yours? I keep debating putting it on mine; I know it would run just fine, and I’ve got no problem running unsupported versions of OS X on my Macs, but I’m still curious as to your impressions.

I personally think that most apps run better that 10.13 on it. Photos and Safari for example are smooth and quick compared to the HS versions. The only thing i have found thats slower is opening the change desktop prefernece pane. I think that its a Mojave thing because I have the same issue on other much faster machines. dosdudes patch is perfect and with the bluesky patch the light mode works great on non metal cards.
[doublepost=1568468611][/doublepost]

Thanks mate! I thought they would look pretty sweet, so I tried it out and fell in love with it. I ended up sticking the old white keys on the MacBook Pro that I stole the key caps from, and those don’t look anywhere near as sweet on the aluminum chassis

How do you find Mojave on yours? I keep debating putting it on mine; I know it would run just fine, and I’ve got no problem running unsupported versions of OS X on my Macs, but I’m still curious as to your impressions.

How hard was it to swap those keys? I am really impressed with how that looks.

 

[MultiFinder17]

How hard was it to swap those keys? I am really impressed with how that looks.

Honestly, they're not too bad to swap. You want to be sure to get a 2010/2011 MacBook Pro keyboard, as I've seen a few reports of issues with older or newer ones swapping over the caps. With a decent spudger, some patience, and a gentle touch the keys just pop right off. Sticking them back on is nearly as simple. The larger keys (Shift, Space, Return, Caps Lock, Tab, Delete) all have a metal stabilizer bar below them. The design was slightly different between the two keyboards (I swapped from a 13" 2011 MBP), but keeping the bars with the original keyboards worked. The new key caps snapped into the old bar just fine. It's just where they hooked into the keyboard below that was different. If you're interested, go for it! Keyboards are cheap to find on eBay, and it makes for a very visually-striking MacBook that I still get compliments on today

Also, why you're prying, note that for most of the keys you wanna approach them from the top or bottom to pop 'em off. The larger keys along the bottom row and the keys with the metal bar, approach them from the side. The scissor mechanism is vertical in those, while it's horizontal in most of the keys. See the attached pictures for details.

 

[Jack Neill]

Honestly, they're not too bad to swap. You want to be sure to get a 2010/2011 MacBook Pro keyboard, as I've seen a few reports of issues with older or newer ones swapping over the caps. With a decent spudger, some patience, and a gentle touch the keys just pop right off. Sticking them back on is nearly as simple. The larger keys (Shift, Space, Return, Caps Lock, Tab, Delete) all have a metal stabilizer bar below them. The design was slightly different between the two keyboards (I swapped from a 13" 2011 MBP), but keeping the bars with the original keyboards worked. The new key caps snapped into the old bar just fine. It's just where they hooked into the keyboard below that was different. If you're interested, go for it! Keyboards are cheap to find on eBay, and it makes for a very visually-striking MacBook that I still get compliments on today

Also, why you're prying, note that for most of the keys you wanna approach them from the top or bottom to pop 'em off. The larger keys along the bottom row and the keys with the metal bar, approach them from the side. The scissor mechanism is vertical in those, while it's horizontal in most of the keys. See the attached pictures for details.
View attachment 858340

View attachment 858341

View attachment 858342

That looks really sharp, I like a lot.

 

[Sai22]

Hey, late to the party but I too am rocking an A1342 as a spare to my macmini.
I've had it from new (2010) and it is on its 3rd battery I think. It received a whole glass of water right into the keyboard about 5 years ago! But this became a blessing in disguise as it got me investigating how to repair it. I got a BT keyboard and it worked just fine. Eventually I got hold of a 2nd hand keyboard which I swapped over but the space bar doesn't work and the trackpad is a bit iffy.
As a result of my investigating, I discovered I could replace the ODD with HDD, so I put the original 250Gb HDD in there and 750 Gb HDD as the start up disk. I also upgraded the RAM to 8GB, but have recently learnt I can go up to 16Gb, which I will definitely try soon.
Today I'm expecting the delivery of a 250Gb SSD which I will probably put in the main drive and swap the 750Gb to the op drive area.
Any recommendations?

 

[Jack Neill]

Hey, late to the party but I too am rocking an A1342 as a spare to my macmini.
I've had it from new (2010) and it is on its 3rd battery I think. It received a whole glass of water right into the keyboard about 5 years ago! But this became a blessing in disguise as it got me investigating how to repair it. I got a BT keyboard and it worked just fine. Eventually I got hold of a 2nd hand keyboard which I swapped over but the space bar doesn't work and the trackpad is a bit iffy.
As a result of my investigating, I discovered I could replace the ODD with HDD, so I put the original 250Gb HDD in there and 750 Gb HDD as the start up disk. I also upgraded the RAM to 8GB, but have recently learnt I can go up to 16Gb, which I will definitely try soon.
Today I'm expecting the delivery of a 250Gb SSD which I will probably put in the main drive and swap the 750Gb to the op drive area.
Any recommendations?
View attachment 903064

I would recommend putting 2 512 SSD and setup a raid 0, it will near double your read write speeds.

 

[Sai22]

I would recommend putting 2 512 SSD and setup a raid 0, it will near double your read write speeds.

Well, didn't have that much budget for this old macbook. Just finished installing the 250Gb SSD alongside the 750Gb HDD in the optical drive space. They seem to be working in fusion.
Also just figured out I could fix my spacebar so now I have a working macbook, which is running so much better than before

. Remember, this is a 2010 model. Pretty pleased.
Next to get my 2014 mac mini running faster

 

[Jack Neill]

Well, didn't have that much budget for this old macbook. Just finished installing the 250Gb SSD alongside the 750Gb HDD in the optical drive space. They seem to be working in fusion.
Also just figured out I could fix my spacebar so now I have a working macbook, which is running so much better than beforeView attachment 903560. Remember, this is a 2010 model. Pretty pleased.
Next to get my 2014 mac mini running faster

I can understand that. Something to keep in mind for the future, I get SATA 3 speeds out of mine in a R0 which is awesome.

For a 2014 mini, I think going flash is the only upgrade that's possible if i remember right.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I have a mid-2009 as my daily driver (except for right now, while I'm using my PPC systems ). I have a 512GB SSD in it and 4GB of RAM. I'd like to upgrade to 6GB, but 4GB suits my needs just fine.

I got it back about two years ago off of eBay. Probably one of the best deals I've found.

 

[Sai22]

I can understand that. Something to keep in mind for the future, I get SATA 3 speeds out of mine in a R0 which is awesome.

For a 2014 mini, I think going flash is the only upgrade that's possible if i remember right.

Yes. Got my PCIe on order

 

[Jack Neill]

Yes. Got my PCIe on order

What keyboard is that BTW? It looks flat, I like it.

 

[Sai22]

What keyboard is that BTW? It looks flat, I like it.

The BT keyboard? Just a basic keyboard for 20 bucks from Amazon. Brand is Omoton

 

[Jack Neill]

The BT keyboard? Just a basic keyboard for 20 bucks from Amazon. Brand is Omoton

Cool, thanks.

 

[CooperBox]

As a Mac collector (vintage & contemporary up to 2012), the 2010 white 2.4GHz unibody MacBook7,1 is one of my top favorites. It's a very undestimated model imho, although not without it's faults, but if one can be found which has seen little use, devoid of cracks around the top cover rear hinges or trackpad, and without a delaminated rubber baseplate, if the price is right these are great machines. In fact for general use I use mine far more frequently than a quad-core i7 MacBookProRetina - that's how pleasing these earlier MacBooks can be to use! Also have an earlier 2.2GHz model, but the GForce 320M in the later 2.4GHz model gives a stunningly impressive screen image.
In fact I have 2 of these top-of the line 2.4GHz polycarbonite unibody MacBooks. Both with Samsung 850EVO SSD's and upgraded memory.
If well looked after, these will still be running strong well after most newer MacBooks and MBPros have ditched their AppleCare waranties and then become virtually unrepairable.

I would recommend putting 2 512 SSD and setup a raid 0, it will near double your read write speeds.

This is something I've never done with 2 SSD's. Can you explain the procedure or point me to a tutorial? Thanks.

 

[Jack Neill]

As a Mac collector (vintage & contemporary up to 2012), the 2010 white 2.4GHz unibody MacBook7,1 is one of my top favorites. It's a very undestimated model imho, although not without it's faults, but if one can be found which has seen little use, devoid of cracks around the top cover rear hinges or trackpad, and without a delaminated rubber baseplate, if the price is right these are great machines. In fact for general use I use mine far more frequently than a quad-core i7 MacBookProRetina - that's how pleasing these earlier MacBooks can be to use! Also have an earlier 2.2GHz model, but the GForce 320M in the later 2.4GHz model gives a stunningly impressive screen image.
In fact I have 2 of these top-of the line 2.4GHz polycarbonite unibody MacBooks. Both with Samsung 850EVO SSD's and upgraded memory.
If well looked after, these will still be running strong well after most newer MacBooks and MBPros have ditched their AppleCare waranties and then become virtually unrepairable.


This is something I've never done with 2 SSD's. Can you explain the procedure or point me to a tutorial? Thanks.

You'll need to swap Superdrive with a caddy and install a 2nd SSD. On mine I have 2 old 512 Sammys. I used a 10.10 Install USB to setup the Raid in HFS, then you can install whatever OS you want all the way to Sierra on a R0 but if you want 10.13+ you'll need to install with DosDudes patcher. On a MB 7,1 it nearly doubles the R/W of the disk, Its a very noticeable bump in performance. Just be careful with R0 on data you don't mind losing if 1 of the drives goes out.

 

[4sallypat]

So cool to see these white unibody Macbooks have such a following!

I have been upgrading a lot of these and reselling on eBay. Upgraded with 4GB or 8GB RAM + SSD makes them so much more useful even with the limited OS.

If anyone wants a cheap one to experiment on, I have a lot - they are 2009 Macbook 6,1 w/ 2GB RAM & 250GB HDD.

 

[puggles]

Just booted up my 2008 MacBook thanks to this thread. Surprised at how well it still runs! Honestly if I put an ssd in this thing I could probably use it for most everyday tasks.

 

[Jack Neill]

Just booted up my 2008 MacBook thanks to this thread. Surprised at how well it still runs! Honestly if I put an ssd in this thing I could probably use it for most everyday tasks.

View attachment 905063

I love seeing a pile of Mac's.

 

[puggles]

I love seeing a pile of Mac's.

It was at the bottom of my pile of Macs. 😂