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Late 2008 Unibody aluminum MacBook runs High Sierra decently
- Thread starter EugW
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I have this same machine 2.0GHz, it's one of the later models with the improved LCD. It's joy to use even 10 years later.
She is running 10.11 El-Capitan on a 256GB Samsung SSD and the original gangster 2GB (yes 2GB) of RAM. I was able to upgrade to Safari 11 through the app store and yes it's worlds improved in performance and CPU usage. I have now ditched chrome.
The machine does everything beautifully, very smooth, cool, and quiet. The only thing she struggles with is 60fps videos on Youtube. She can play them fine but at high CPU usage and fans come on loud.
I'm going to wait for Mojave official release to decide if I'll upgrade from El-Capitan. But as of now even my main machine Retina MBP is running El-Capitan, I was not impressed with Sierra and High Sierra to upgrade. Mojave's supposed performance improvements have me intrigued though.
She is running 10.11 El-Capitan on a 256GB Samsung SSD and the original gangster 2GB (yes 2GB) of RAM. I was able to upgrade to Safari 11 through the app store and yes it's worlds improved in performance and CPU usage. I have now ditched chrome.
The machine does everything beautifully, very smooth, cool, and quiet. The only thing she struggles with is 60fps videos on Youtube. She can play them fine but at high CPU usage and fans come on loud.
I'm going to wait for Mojave official release to decide if I'll upgrade from El-Capitan. But as of now even my main machine Retina MBP is running El-Capitan, I was not impressed with Sierra and High Sierra to upgrade. Mojave's supposed performance improvements have me intrigued though.
IMO, you should have minimum 4 GB, with 8 GB preferred if you run more than a couple of programs at a time. However, with light usage, the benefit of going from 4 GB to 8 GB is much less than going from 2 GB to 4 GB.
If I use 720p60, it's usually perfectly fine. 1080p60 may be problematic, but it doesn't seem to make my fan come on often.
Mojave doesn't run well on it. Not recommended. It's not the performance. It's the plethora of bugs. Sierra and High Sierra both run cleanly, but Mojave feels like a bad hackintosh experience. Or at least it did when I tried in July.
And the bugs are not because of the beta, but it's because the drivers for the hardware aren't fully there for this machine in Mojave, so they've jerry-rigged it to work. This is very different than Sierra and High Sierra. All the drivers for MacBook5,1 are already built into those OSes.
Sorry to revive ... but my hybrid drive went ... corrupt directory that could not be repaired. I just put in a WD Blue SSD, still using my 8G RAM. I feel like this old-timer is still actually working well enough for my needs atm, so I'm delaying a new machine with the reasonably priced SSD (1T C$180 incl tax).
I've just installed El Capitan onto it. How are people feeling now that they've been working with High Sierra for 6 months? Is it faster or smoother or less SPOD? I know much of this is personal preference, but reviewers made it clear that Yosemite was a not a good choice for this machine, I skipped it and have been happy with El Capitan. Is there meaningful improvement gained from upgrading to HS?
I've just installed El Capitan onto it. How are people feeling now that they've been working with High Sierra for 6 months? Is it faster or smoother or less SPOD? I know much of this is personal preference, but reviewers made it clear that Yosemite was a not a good choice for this machine, I skipped it and have been happy with El Capitan. Is there meaningful improvement gained from upgrading to HS?
Yes.
1. Photos is significantly upgraded.
2. Support for APFS. While I wouldn't boot an old machine with APFS, it's good to have compatibility with APFS external drives.
3. HEIC image support (although it's partially software limited on that machine).
4. HEVC video support (although it's too slow on that machine for smooth playback).
5. Updated Safari.
6. Improved iCloud support.
Just recently, my late 2009 MacBook looses WiFi after an hour or so. I have to go in the top bar, click on the WiFi setting, turn WiFi off and then on again, and then it works again.
Is this a problem with High Sierra and the older Macs?
Is this a problem with High Sierra and the older Macs?
Very occasionally I've noticed that it had trouble finding the WiFi access point at wake after sleep. Or at least it happened after I updated my network after getting a new router, but I haven't noticed it lately.
However, I haven't experienced your problem. Then again, I don't usually use that old Mac for more than an hour at a time.
Thank you EugW. Your advice is always super appreciated
I think that it's the poor little MacBook that is about to die :'( It's so slow bless her and when starting up in a morning, it sometimes doesn't quite manage to boot up and I need to power it off and then start it up again.She's been a lovely old thing but she's gone so slow to the point where you know her days are very limited. Bless her. She was a great MacBook whose life was cut short in 2013 with damn Mavericks that really slowed her down and never really recovered!
I am wondering what Geekbench 4 score would you get with your 10.13.6 install, presumably on HFS+?
This is what I am getting with 10.14.3 APFS install on this machine:
This is what I am getting with 10.14.3 APFS install on this machine:
The "prohibited" symbol means that something is wrong with the operating system.
Could be missing a needed component, or there is a damaged, or corrupted file in the system.
Or, the installation is just wrong (too new, or too old, for example)
The "fix" is to make sure that what you are trying to install is the correct supported version for your Mac. Start from scratch with the dosdude instructions. That should work, assuming you are trying to stay within the target system that dosdude recommends for that MacBook model.
Could be missing a needed component, or there is a damaged, or corrupted file in the system.
Or, the installation is just wrong (too new, or too old, for example)
The "fix" is to make sure that what you are trying to install is the correct supported version for your Mac. Start from scratch with the dosdude instructions. That should work, assuming you are trying to stay within the target system that dosdude recommends for that MacBook model.
Looks like you simply did not apply the post install patches. Please read dosdude1's instructions and watch his video very carefully(3-4 times).
Thanks for the tips!
I can not start a setup / instalation
Following dodude1:
1 - Down the patch mojave / or sierra (both same problem)
2 - down the ''install mojave'' / or sierra (both same problem)
3 - through the patch dosdude I create the USB Boot
4 - Restart, click option, select USB Boot
this error appears. (prohibited)
that is, USB installer does not start
My Macbook: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-2.4-aluminum-13-late-2008-unibody-specs.html
(Updating 8 gigas ram)
I can not start a setup / instalation
Following dodude1:
1 - Down the patch mojave / or sierra (both same problem)
2 - down the ''install mojave'' / or sierra (both same problem)
3 - through the patch dosdude I create the USB Boot
4 - Restart, click option, select USB Boot
this error appears. (prohibited)
that is, USB installer does not start
My Macbook: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-2.4-aluminum-13-late-2008-unibody-specs.html
(Updating 8 gigas ram)
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Have you tried different USB sticks? Some USB sticks just don't work for whatever reason.
Make sure you format your USB as HFS+ GUID partition table.
You should ask these questions in a dedicated Mojave on unsupported Macs thread.
Hi, new member here. I just picked up a mint (save for a bad battery which I've already replaced) MID 2008 (manufactured in April 2008) macbook air which is running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) with an Intel 1.6 Core 2 Duo and 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 and 80GB SSD. Any chance, with a ram and hd upgrade, that I can go beyond El Capitain (which is the highest version of OSX that Apple says I can legitimately run)?
Thanks in advance.
Mark
What is the model number? Is it MacBookAir1,1? Cuz if so, it’s basically worthless. Latest supported OS X version is 10.7.5 (which has no mainstream web browser support), and the RAM is not upgradable. Also, the drive is an odd size.
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Sadly not much can be done with Mac OS. However it should run Linux well with a lightweight window manager, if OP is up for it. Not recommending this, but I run FVWM on my Unix-y machines and the entire memory footprint of the OS after the GUI has started is around 200 MB(!) leaving the precious remaining RAM available to run the latest Firefox decently.