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~ MacBook [Aluminum] Owner's Thread

Prom1 said:
Hi Everyone,

I'm considering purchasing the following USB 3.0 drives to use immediately but also in preparation to use - via adapter - on the newer 2011 MBP's on Thunderbolt port.

For immediate use does anyone know if this prestige Collectors Edition MacBook Unibody - MB467LL/A - supports USB power of "900mA" ?? I know the current standard is 500mA so I'm hoping I can go with my purchase.

LaCie Rikiki USB 3.0
Rikiki-USB3-9mm_back.jpg



http://www.everythingusb.com/lacie-rikiki-usb-3.0-portable-hard-drive-20982.html

LaCie Starck Mobile USB 3.0
Starck-Mobile3_back.jpg


Or should I go with
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 750GB 2.5" Ultra-portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive
28220.jpg

^ this doesn't require external power port.
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My 15" 2.4 ghz MacBook Pro i5 doesn't have thunderbolt - just Firewire 800. Any good options for a USB to go that has that? I've been using a WD 500gb Firewire 800 portable hard drive for a while but want more space - like 1tb

bimmerfreak0 said:
Just got back from the Genius appointment. Guy replaced the battery for free. I didn't say a freakin word. My smile must have done it:D
..
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I don't know about in store but whenever I mail in my MacBook Pro, they always replace the battery (I always complain about it) and other stuff they find a problem with
 
2.5" bus powered FW800 drives are few and far between. The big drive vendors concentrate on USB 2 drives. OWC used to do a FW800 caddy for SATA laptop drives. A friend of mine imported one but the interface board blew. Twice.

I'd just get a USB2 and put up with the limited transfer rate and CPU overhead.
 
^ ah that sucks, alright, I'll keep an eye out for a new, good 1 TB+ external portable hard drive.

For my non-portable external needs I'm sure there are still good options out/coming out that use the (superior?) FW800/Firewire 800 right?
 
cogsinister said:
I dont do anything out of the ordinary, and when i re calibrate the batts they get worse !
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Calibration doesn't change your battery's condition. It only makes your readings more accurate. If your battery's health is lower after calibration, that means it was already lower, but being incorrectly reported as a higher number. I encourage you to read the FAQ. It really will help you get the most out of your battery.
 
GGJstudios said:
Calibration doesn't change your battery's condition. It only makes your readings more accurate. If your battery's health is lower after calibration, that means it was already lower, but being incorrectly reported as a higher number. I encourage you to read the FAQ. It really will help you get the most out of your battery.
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OK i will read them...

But 2 batteries have failed, and both lasted less than a year.....

Other mac laptops batteries lasted FAR longer than the ones in this unibody MB....
 
MagicBoy said:
The Alu MacBook will offer up to 1100mA to the first device requesting it. Both my iPad/iPhone quite happily will each suck 1000mA according to system profiler. Plug both in and the first one gets 1000mA and the second a standard 500mA.

More information here : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4049

Annoyingly Apple only mention their own devices, but I can't see it not working on something from LaCie.

Oh and Collections Edition MacBook = LOL :D
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Dude! Thank you ever so kindly! You are a diamond in the rough.
You've provided much more longevity to this Collectors Edition MacBook. :D
- wife will be pleasantly pleased when I upgrade; yet now I don't want to give her this machine.
 
battery update!

cogsinister said:
OK i will read them...

But 2 batteries have failed, and both lasted less than a year.....

Other mac laptops batteries lasted FAR longer than the ones in this unibody MB....
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Check Macintosh HD/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/BatteryUpdater/Get Info, and if your Macbook runs 1.3 Battery update (made for Macbook PRO!), like mine was, delete it.
My battery health improved a bit after I deleted this update :cool:
 
Prom1 said:
Dude! Thank you ever so kindly! You are a diamond in the rough.
You've provided much more longevity to this Collectors Edition MacBook. :D
- wife will be pleasantly pleased when I upgrade; yet now I don't want to give her this machine.
Click to expand...

People still use the "collector's edition" tag? Are you getting collector's edition resale value for it? :rolleyes:
 
just picked up a 5.1 macbook aluminum 2.0 ghz last night off craigslist. previous owner babied the thing its in perfect condition. he upgraded the ram to 4gb and put a 500gb hd 7200 in it as well. its still running leopard 10.5 currently im going to upgrade to snow leopard tonight. one thing i noticed today though when i was on my lunch messing around with it seems like hd video wont play pretty much at all from my itunes library either in itunes or in quicktime. i know it has the nvidia graphics card in it so i thought that wouldnt be a problem playing the at least 720 content on it. any suggestions or is this common with the specs? it plays a normal dvd rip flawlessly but seems like anything above that it studders or completley disables whichever program is playing it. the files i was attempting to play were converted with handbrake previously with the apple tv 2 preset since i mostly use the movies i have on there with my apple tv 2 so i really just need the quality to be up to 720p at the best since thats all its capable of. anyways ya sorry for the long post. and will upgrading to snow leopard tonight help any even though i doubt that will have any effect of the 720p playback. also once i upgrade to snow leopard this machine will still be able to upgrade later this month to lion right? just want to make sure im not going to be stuck on snow leopard. thanks guys/gals and sorry for the long post.
 
HD content should play fine. The GeForce 9400M does H.264 acceleration.

My 2.4GHz version plays 720p HD movies from iTunes at under 25% CPU, even when on battery.
 
MagicBoy said:
HD content should play fine. The GeForce 9400M does H.264 acceleration.

My 2.4GHz version plays 720p HD movies from iTunes at under 25% CPU, even when on battery.
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any sugesstions then? i did a little more research and a few people seem to suggest a bad encode on the movie file that was downloaded. but i didnt have any issues with the same video on a previous 2010 macbook pro so im not quite sure thats the problem. should i not be exporting these movies with handbrake in the apple tv 2 preset? does someone have a suggestion that will work best quality wise for the macbook and the apple tv 2 for the highest quality output and not studder?
 
If your playing it in Quicktime X (MOV, MP4, M4V), you should have no problems because hardware acceleration is utilized.

If using VLC (MKV, M2TS), only the processor is being utilized.

The only time I have had an issue with mine was playing a large (~11GB) 1080p rip (MKV) of Avatar in VLC.

Try upgrading to Snow Leopard. If that doesn't help, then you either have a hardware problem, or something is wrong with your video files.

And yes, our MBs are capable of running Lion. I'm really looking forward to the release!


agallowa said:
any sugesstions then? i did a little more research and a few people seem to suggest a bad encode on the movie file that was downloaded. but i didnt have any issues with the same video on a previous 2010 macbook pro so im not quite sure thats the problem. should i not be exporting these movies with handbrake in the apple tv 2 preset? does someone have a suggestion that will work best quality wise for the macbook and the apple tv 2 for the highest quality output and not studder?
Click to expand...

As for Handbrake, just use the "Regular -> High Profile" preset.
 
720p should work in VLC. My previous machine was a launch model MacBook Pro with the 1.8Ghz Core Duo which played 720p through VLC without problem. 1080p was about 50/50, depending on the bitrate. A 2GHz MacBook alu is a good 20% quicker on a bad day!

As above, use the High profile option in handbrake, and a update to Snow Lep and the latest version of iTunes and Quicktime would also help.
 
MagicBoy said:
720p should work in VLC. My previous machine was a launch model MacBook Pro with the 1.8Ghz Core Duo which played 720p through VLC without problem. 1080p was about 50/50, depending on the bitrate. A 2GHz MacBook alu is a good 20% quicker on a bad day!

As above, use the High profile option in handbrake, and a update to Snow Lep and the latest version of iTunes and Quicktime would also help.
Click to expand...

cool thanks guys... i absolutly love the machine especially with the upgrades in ram and in the hd it just flies pretty much on everything until this latest hickup. but once i install snow leopard and try the high profile option in handbrake i dont doubt it will be perfect. this thing actually beach balls less than the 2010 macbook pro i used to have.
 
I just purchased one of these babies off Craigslist after my previous one got stollen. However, the battery is swollen so I need to buy a replacement. Do you guys recommend going with an Apple OEM battery or are there other reliable ones out there? Don't really want to shell out $130 at Apple.. As of right now I have $375 invested in this Macbook and am proud of it :)
 
Hi, can someone tell me if the new WD My Passport Essential SE 2.5" 1TB USB 3.0 is ok for the my old macbook unibody (aluminium, but not PRO) late 2008?

I bought a Verbatim store'n'go 2.5" 1TB USB 3.0 but it has the problem that if plugged in before macbook power on it block the entire system between the classic "DONG" and the apple logo.. I've tried with a macbook pro late 2009 with the same result.. So before buying this new drive i would be sure that everything is ok :)

The alternative is to buy an USB 2.0 1TB drive :(

Thanks
 
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wanting to upgrade the 250gb HDD in my 5,1 macbook.

i'm stuck between the 1tb samsung spinpoint m8 and the 500gb seagate momentus xt. will the seagate have a noticeable performance improvement over the samsung? i don't need 1tb of storage, but from what i've read the higher density platters of the 1tb actually can help increase read/write speeds. will the seagate still be significantly faster for launching apps/editing photos etc.?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Does anyone still sell cases for this? I know speck used to but I can only find the pro version which has different port slots, and would the pro version fit with battery indicator etc still accessible?
 
Overall I would say I'm very happy with my purchase, I ended up paying $599 w/free shipping on a 2.4GHz Aluminum Macbook with a 320 GB hard drive and 8 gigs of ram used. It runs way faster than my Windows laptop and I haven't been able to get it to lag out yet. Also a plus was a brand new battery. The build quality is phenomenal, I love the feel of the keys and the versatility of the track pad. I don't know, I really considered buying a MBA but I think I just dig the design on these and the MBP too much to consider one just yet.

Television Gamma is not available in my display list, but I am on Lion.

Also how would I go about doing this on Lion, where "color" is not available under System Preferences?

The LED screen is noticeably improved over last MacBook. It's nice, evenly lit, with very minor light leakage at bottom. I have no dead or stuck pixels. UPDATE: SOME USERS REPORT THAT LCD PANELS SUPPLIED BY AU OPTRONICS ARE SUPERIOR TO LG/PHILIPS PANELS. TO SEE WHICH ONE YOU HAVE, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS:

CHOOSE “SYSTEM PREFERENCES...” FROM APPLE MENU
CLICK ON “COLOR”
CLICK ON “OPEN PROFILE”
SCROLL DOWN TO ITEM #13 AND CLICK ON IT AND YOU WILL SEE THE SCREEN BELOW:
Click to expand...
 
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