Macbook Pro 10.5.8 Upgrade

[cocobeach]

Hi Everyone,

I know there are a bunch of posts out there about doing upgrades for MacBook Pros v/10.5.8 but I am feeling pretty illiterate reading all the forums.

Here is my case: I have a MacBook Pro, bought in 2008. The specs are as follows:
Version: 10.5.8
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

My computer is 5 years old and it is starting to show. I have never done any updates to the software. It gets pretty warm when I use it, not sure if this is normal for MacBook Pros and it's getting kinda of slow responding to commands. so my question is:

1) If I upgrade to SnowLeopard, do I need to buy more RAM? or can I buy it and install it with the specs my computer has?
2) If I upgrade to SL, can I later add the latest Mountain Lion and will it perform up to speed?
3) Should I just buy a new computer?

I appreciate all the cool-techie people out there that may be able to help me out.
Thx .
-A

 

[simsaladimbamba]

1. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopardwill run with 2 GB of RAM, but your machine can take up to 6 GB of 200-pin DDR2 SO-DIMM RAM, and it might be worth it.
Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

2. You will be able to until OS X 10.9 Mavericks gets released to the public, but Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard might be the much better fit for your machine.
3. It depends on your computer usage.

 

[cocobeach]

System Memory data

Ok so I am looking at the Activity Monitor and this is what I have:
VM Size: 44.43 GB
Page Ins: 2.23 GB
Page Outs: 375.07 MB
Swap used: 388.73 MB

Thanks for the links, I'm checking them out, didn't even know I had that program

 

[cocobeach]

1. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopardwill run with 2 GB of RAM, but your machine can take up to 6 GB of 200-pin DDR2 SO-DIMM RAM, and it might be worth it.
Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

2. You will be able to until OS X 10.9 Mavericks gets released to the public, but Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard might be the much better fit for your machine.
3. It depends on your computer usage.

I kept reading about this, and I read in a forum that my particular type of MacBook Pro has an 800 MHz Bus Speed and that it can only handle 4GB total, is that true?

here are the details for my Mackbook Pro:
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.27f3
Serial Number (system): W88341RYYJX
Hardware UUID: 4CE910CC-1A0E-5365-B435-346C7D816D10
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled