How much to overhaul this 17" MBP?

[macbook123]

My wife loves her 2009 17" MBP and doesn't want a smaller screen but the graphics card is shot, the hard drive should be swapped for an SSD, and the battery could use replacement. The screen was replaced just before it ran out of warranty (late 2012) so is pretty new.

What is the cheapest way to have these things done?

 

[James_C]

To be honest, I would look at the retina Macbook Pro, you are talking about replacing the logic board, the hard disk and the battery, about the only thing that is left is the screen and the memory.

I don't belive you will ever see a 17" laptop again from Apple. If she likes screen real estate and does not need portability, perhaps a iMac would be better, with an iPad for portability.

Other option is to pick up a working 17 MBP from ebay.

 

[superdx]

I was in the exact same situation as you, but I think I have mine running stable now (2010 17" MBP). I don't want to get a 15" rMBP because they're 1) expensive and 2) I like the 17" real estate.

Swapping the HDD is kind of involved, but its straightforward. Lots of videos on YouTube that show how to do it. You just need some tiny screw drivers and patience not to scratch things up.

If you're talking about the Radeon graphics chip screwing up, it's possible to disable it and just rely on the Intel graphics, which makes the laptop run much cooler. Here's a utility that does just that: https://github.com/joachimroeleveld/switchGPU I'm fairly certain that this solved most of the hard freezes I got (like 2-3 times a day). Hopefully your wife doesn't do any kind of 3D/GPU intensive work.

The battery you need to take it back to Apple, I've read it's about $100-200 to put new ones in. I would suggest getting this done first before trying to do the HDD swap since they can see you've opened up the case before. I've read it's possible to DIY, but I'm not sure you can actually buy genuine Apple batteries online.

Also, reset your PRAM. The last of my hard lock-ups went away just 6 hours ago after I did this.

 

[yangchewren]

My wife loves her 2009 17" MBP and doesn't want a smaller screen but the graphics card is shot, the hard drive should be swapped for an SSD, and the battery could use replacement. The screen was replaced just before it ran out of warranty (late 2012) so is pretty new.

What is the cheapest way to have these things done?

What's wrong with the gpu?

For everything else, eBay for the battery and Amazon/new egg for the ssd. I've got a 2009 15" mbp running beautifully with a new battery and an old SSD. Battery was from one of many China ebayers, but it worked out great with coconut battery reporting original capacity and it certainly lasts as normal in operation.
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The 2009 unibody model was much simpler to handle with a better battery life/performance toggle in power settings. This allows the user to pick strictly the 9400m or the 9600m during a session.