Keep me afloat please!

SMC Fan Control. You can keep the temps under control by running the fan(s) at a higher than normal setting (but still under your hearing).

My A1151 is running it on Snow Leopard. I have both fans set at 2000rpm as my standard setting. That's double the 1000rpm that the fans usually run at idle. You can also use it to cool the Mac quickly if you know the CPU will be busy. 3500rpm for both fans is just under being noticeable.

Set it up any way you like though, the app lets you do that.

 

The main thing you want to worry about in these systems is GPU heat. I've been told that 70ºC(GPU temperature) is where trouble starts happening.

I have a pair of early '08 MBPs that are "work" laptops for me, and I too want to keep them going as long as possible. I use SMCFancontrol on both. SMC allows you to tie the fans to a specific temperature, and I have it set to the GPU. I also use very aggressive fan settings to keep the temps down. Basically, I have it start ramping the fans at 45ºC and have them at max speed when the GPU hits 65º. This manages to keep the GPU around this temperature.

Low temps are the key to longevity with these, and having the fans blast is a consequence of this. It's a trade off that I'm happy to make.

 

@comda I would not recommend installing Mountain Lion through hacks on a daily use machine. There is too much at risk especially for the needs of a university student. Since software support is lacking for OS X Snow Leopard, I highly recommend the upgrade to OS X Lion. 10.7.5 fixed much of the issues that were present in Lion and it will run great with the SSD. I think Lion is the best bet between reliability and compatibility! Make sure that you update to the latest copy of Lion as it was much better than earlier versions.

If the CPU is being consumed by web browsing then I recommend using Safari (if on Lion) or Firefox. Google Chrome, despite being my browser of choice, actually uses a lot of CPU power with multiple tabs open. It is also a RAM pig. Firefox will work on Snow Leopard as well should you choose to stick with it.

 

I think Lion bears a bigger graphical load which works the integrated graphics more than Snow Leopard.

 

If you're connecting this to a university wireless network, I strongly suggest using an operating system that is still receiving security updates, or the latest one you can if that is not possible for some reason. I have seen a lot of bad stuff on my university's network. Mostly SSH brute forcing, but also MITM attacks on TLS and recently someone attempted the FREAK attack.

 

@comda I would stick with Snow Leopard then and just use alternative software for the tasks you do that still support it. What applications do you need that don't support Snow Leopard anymore?

 

I know at my University, some academic software is starting to deprecate support for older versions of OS X.

I can still access Blackboard fine in Tiger(using TFF). Tegrity, however, which I rarely use but is essential for some applications, is getting ready to drop support for Lion.

 

I believe this is one of the costs of Apple's new yearly release cycle for OS X. There is still new software coming out today that supports Windows XP or at least Windows 7 which is six years old. Now, you are lucky to get Lion support in new software for OS X which is just four years old.

 

If you have time and money, you can put a 2009 White Macbook (not unibody) logic board in. I have a frien who did this, and it allows you to run Yosemite (and El Capitan presumably)

I'm currently on my Macbok 4,1 with Lion as I'm waiting for my new Macbook to arrive. Honestly Lion is as far as I will go back, as SL is just missing too much (Lion is already missing enough) and Lion plus an SSD and 6GB of ram runs pretty well.

 

It annoys me how that happens. The only reason that these MacBooks don't have Yosemite is Apple couldn't be bothered to write a 64Bit graphics driver -_-. Then they go ahead and drop support for everything but iTunes.

 

I do not believe it was that simple.

 

I wonder if there is a good alternative to TeamViewer. I love TeamViewer and it is a shame that they dropped support for OS X Snow Leopard.

 

Hey Apple still has the PowerPC version of Snow Leopard locked safely away right?

 

It was. THats the reason that Mountain Lion is not on the MacBooks prior to the late 2008 aluminium. Apple removed the 32 bit compadiblitly mode for drivers and didn't write a 64 bit one for the GMA graphics. The fact that Mountain Lion post factor can run on these machines demonstrates this.

 

When I said I don't think it was that simple was due to a couple of reasons. Apple wanted Mountain Lion and higher to be fully 64 bit. They were building up to a full 64 bit OS since the introduction of the PowerMac G5. If I recall correctly, the early Mac Pros were also dropped from support beyond Lion as well and they do not feature the GMA chipset. I think that if it was a simple driver rewrite then Apple would have done it with the introduction of Lion. With the Mac Pro, the EFI was not 64 bit compatible and thereby they dropped it. Hacks to get Mountain Lion running use a variety of different methods to get it to work and it isn't as simple as a kext rewrite.

 

The Mac Pros that were dropped, I believe are a whole lot easier to upgrade, but the GMA Macs the complexity was around writing a 64bit GMA kext or getting the whole thing to run in 32 bit, and writing the 64bit kext was not easily doable, and getting the rest of the system to run in 32bit was doable but complex as far as I have followed.

 

For teamViewer, you can always use Parallels and install Windows 7 to use it.