I finally got ahold of the beast: 17" MacBook Pro - 6,1

[BeatCrazy]

I've seen many fans of this MacBook since I joined here, and today I got one. Very unexpectedly, a friend asked me if I wanted "an old MacBook", for free(!!!). I honestly didn't know they even had this computer.

Took it home gave it a good wipe down and cracked 'er open. Surprised to find very little dust or debris on the inside. It looks to have the original battery, with 37 cycles on it. I took out the original 500GB HDD, and dropped in a 256GB Samsung 850 EVO. Did an internet recovery to install High Sierra, and she's up and running!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, yet. Looks like I can't install Big Sur, but I'd like to hear about anyone that used dosdude's Catalina patcher on this 6,1 and if there's any weirdness I should expect.

 

[panjandrum]

I have a relative that I donated that same model to and she still uses it to this day for everything and it performs just fine. IIRC I put 16GB of RAM in, I'm reasonably sure that model is upgradeable to 16. You should double-check as it's dirt cheap for the older machines. I do use the DosDude patchers quite a lot but overall what I would do if I were you is make a partition and try it (might as well just make the patched installer on a small third partition as well, that way you've always got it around). I've never had any significant problems with the DosDude patches, but on some models the performance penalties are enough that you may not want to upgrade until you are eventually forced to by other software requirements.

 

[bill-p]

I can't see very well, but if your MacBook is 2010, then I think you're good.

Dosdude's Catalina patcher didn't work very well with my old MacBook Pro 17" (2011). The 2011 model has an AMD GPU that doesn't seem to be able to do much in Catalina. I did try to disable the GPU, but found that the Intel integrated graphics was barely able to hold on to dear life, plus I lost external display support as well.

I still use it from time to time. It is still an excellent computer, and for sure has lived longer than my Retina MacBooks. I really miss this size and I keep hoping Apple will introduce a 18" MacBook Pro again one day... 16" was close, but not quite.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I have a relative that I donated that same model to and she still uses it to this day for everything and it performs just fine. IIRC I put 16GB of RAM in, I'm reasonably sure that model is upgradeable to 16. You should double-check as it's dirt cheap for the older machines. I do use the DosDude patchers quite a lot but overall what I would do if I were you is make a partition and try it (might as well just make the patched installer on a small third partition as well, that way you've always got it around). I've never had any significant problems with the DosDude patches, but on some models the performance penalties are enough that you may not want to upgrade until you are eventually forced to by other software requirements.

Yes, this is my third Mac in the household using this 1066MHz DDR3 RAM. I can occasionally find 8GB sticks for about $25 via eBay. Good idea about the partition!

I can't see very well, but if your MacBook is 2010, then I think you're good.

Dosdude's Catalina patcher didn't work very well with my old MacBook Pro 17" (2011). The 2011 model has an AMD GPU that doesn't seem to be able to do much in Catalina. I did try to disable the GPU, but found that the Intel integrated graphics was barely able to hold on to dear life, plus I lost external display support as well.

I still use it from time to time. It is still an excellent computer, and for sure has lived longer than my Retina MacBooks. I really miss this size and I keep hoping Apple will introduce a 18" MacBook Pro again one day... 16" was close, but not quite.

Yeah that's what I'm afraid of. I tried the Catalina Patcher on my 2011 Mac mini, and got some weird graphics glitches, so I went back to High Sierra.

Has anyone tried upgrading the Bluetooth card to a BT 4.2 Broadcom (BCM943602CDP?) model? Enabling Handoff and Apple Watch unlock would sure make this MacBook more user friendly.

 

[Fishrrman]

IF it runs High Sierra well, I wouldn't worry about anything "newer".

Just run it as it is, for as long as it will run, and be happy...

 

[BeatCrazy]

IF it runs High Sierra well, I wouldn't worry about anything "newer".

Just run it as it is, for as long as it will run, and be happy...

Yes, good point. I only started fooling around with older Macs a few months ago (Covid boredom?) and my first "pet project" was a Late 2009 iMac that needed some physical repairs and upgrades. Banged my head against the wall with Big Sur installation for several weeks but I finally got it stable and working. Next up was a 2011 Mac mini, that I also refreshed with modern parts, but it didn't like the patched Catalina.

I've come to realize over these past few months that I prefer stability and predictable behavior, so I will probably leave well enough alone and be thankful the 6,1 gets High Sierra support.