New SSD for late 2008 15" MBP

[cappo3]

Hi guys, I guess this is the right place to ask...

I just got handed over a MacBook Pro 15" Late 2008, basic spec (c2d 2.4 / 4 / 250). It looks and feels like new, apart from the battery, but I do not need that to work.

I was thinking of replacing the HDD with an SDD, since they have gotten cheaper over the years. Is it worth it? I need the MBP to run El Capitan for some of the apps I use, and the mac struggles with the OS.
I know this mac has the flaky NVIDIA MPC79 controller, which often allows only for a SATA I connection... and a lot of issues. I am looking at two different SSDs, could you maybe chime in and confirm is one of these has been tested to work properly with the MPC79 controller?

SanDisk SSD Plus 240 GB - SDSSDA-240G-G26
Crucial BX500 240 GB - CT240BX500SSD1

Should these be unknowns, or even proven bad, what SSDs would you recommend? I'd like to run into as little problems as possible... should that not be possible, I'd leave it on its HDD.

Thanks guys! I look forward to this mac living a long and prosperous life with me!

 

[eyoungren]

I've got an early 2008 with 4GB ram. It's running Catalina and has a 500GB SSD.



I'm using a Silicon Power Ace A55 2.5" 512GB SATA III and it works fine. Zheino is also a good brand. I have a 1TB Zheino SSD as a boot drive for my MacPro.

Correction: The SP is in my Mac Mini. The SSD in my MBP is a 512GB Zheino.



Might want to max out your ram if you haven't already. My MBP can take up to 6GB ram so yours should be able to do at least that.

 

[Amethyst1]

I've got an early 2008 with 4GB ram. It's running Catalina and has a 500GB SSD.

It does not have the picky NVidia MCP79 southbridge though

 

[eyoungren]

It does not have the picky NVidia MCP79 southbridge though

I wouldn't know, honestly.

All I've been told to do is check how much the GPU lane width reads every once in a while. Last time I checked it was still 16 so I guess I'm still okay.

 

[theMarble]

I wouldn't know, honestly.

All I've been told to do is check how much the GPU lane width reads every once in a while. Last time I checked it was still 16 so I guess I'm still okay.

Have you ever experienced failure of a 8600M GT or does your have the 603 revision? Looking to pickup either a 3,1 or 4,1 soon.

 

[eyoungren]

Have you ever experienced failure of a 8600M GT or does your have the 603 revision? Looking to pickup either a 3,1 or 4,1 soon.

I have never experienced a failure and I've had that MBP since 2018 when it was sent to me.

You'd have to ask @bobesch if I have the revision or not, it was his MBP (won in an auction) that he sent me.

 

[bobesch]

I have never experienced a failure and I've had that MBP since 2018 when it was sent to me.

You'd have to ask @bobesch if I have the revision or not, it was his MBP (won in an auction) that he sent me.

Oh, I didn't take a look under the hood, just passed it on. Auction had been a real snap - I just looked at the US-keyboard and knew, the Book was meant to belong to someone else ... ?

 

[bobesch]

I just got handed over a MacBook Pro 15" Late 2008, basic spec (c2d 2.4 / 4 / 250). It looks and feels like new, apart from the battery, but I do not need that to work.
I was thinking of replacing the HDD with an SDD, since they have gotten cheaper over the years. Is it worth it? I need the MBP to run El Capitan for some of the apps I use, and the mac struggles with the OS.
I know this mac has the flaky NVIDIA MPC79 controller, which often allows only for a SATA I connection... and a lot of issues. I am looking at two different SSDs, could you maybe chime in and confirm is one of these has been tested to work properly with the MPC79 controller?

SanDisk SSD Plus 240 GB - SDSSDA-240G-G26
Crucial BX500 240 GB - CT240BX500SSD1

Congrats - decent machine!
First Unibody, max. 8GB DDR3 RAM, SATA2-HDD, USB3 ready through ExpressCard. It's slightly faster, than the early-2008 MBP but with a sturdy GPU. I like most the easy access to the hard drive, but the battery has the unpredictable bad habit to drain, when the book is in sleeping-mode, which might leave you unexpectedly with an empty battery in an unwanted occasion.
I didn't know about a flaky NVIDIA MPC79 controller yet ... thanks for telling. Well, if that means, SATA will go from SATA2 down to SATA1, that will be the speed me and @eyoungren are coping with on our early-MBP4,1, 4-6GB RAM and patched Mojave/Catalina. Probably I wouldn't even notice that ...
About the SSD: I have a few Crucial-SSDs that do work fine since a long time. And there was the one and only SanDisk-drive I put into my sons MBP and happen to fail after one year of use. That's my 2cent ...
You may go for (supported) ElCapitan (tricky installation - I don't know why, but best through clone-copying ElCapitan from another MBP or through TDM) or any of @dosdude1 's patches, that do work fine. Me I stayed with Mojave, because of HFS+ and 32bit support. For HFS+ it's mandatory, that the drive is pre-formatted as HFS+.
Cheers!

 

[bobesch]

Have you ever experienced failure of a 8600M GT or does your have the 603 revision? Looking to pickup either a 3,1 or 4,1 soon.

The 602 GPU failure comes like sudden death ...
The first time it happened to me was after I closed the lid at the end of the day and not mentioning this didn't make the machine stop running and overheating ...
Then my nice toasted her MBP by watching streaming-video while the MBP had been placed within a bunch of cushions.?
And then there was my co-worker, who used the famous (cooling) iLap-stand upside-down with the thermal-sensitive GPU-site placed onto the plush-upholstery, which is meant to sit on the knees ... ?‍♂️
The "procedure-that-must-not-be-named" (cautiously applying 140°C for 10min to the bare logic-board and thoroughly repasting on reassembling ... ? Shush!) returned the GPU to full function (PCIe-Lane-Width at x16) but is prone to a relapse.
Unfortunately I had to sort out every early-2008 MBP to serve as mission-critical home-office devices.
My daily drive is a refurbished early-2008 17"MBP4,1, that I do enjoy every day because of it's huge, bright, matte high-res screen ?
Conclusion: better have a second/backup-machine for fast hard drive exchange ...

 

[Amethyst1]

Looking to pickup either a 3,1 or 4,1 soon.

I made it a point to only bother with a 3,1 or 4,1 with the “green dot” sticker, i.e. a revised GPU.
I have both a 15” and a 17” 3,1 with revised GPUs.

 

[theMarble]

I made it a point to only bother with a 3,1 or 4,1 with the “green dot” sticker, i.e. a revised GPU.
I have both a 15” and a 17” 3,1 with revised GPUs.

Nice, I will bring an iFixit kit with me to check the laptop.

 

[MBAir2010]

what then is the most reliable unibody MacBook pro from 2008-2012?
obviously the 2012 is the fastest, but only by several "gears"
the usage would be for safari photo searching, dreamweaver, photoshop and iTunes all at once using Mojave OS.
and airplay videos to an apple tv gen 3.
thanks in advance.

 

[Amethyst1]

what then is the most reliable unibody MacBook pro from 2008-2012?

13": pick your favourite. I'd go for a 2011 or 2012 for performance reasons and Thunderbolt — plus built-in USB 3.0 in the 2012; that one can also run Mojave/Catalina without patches.

15": 2009 2.53 GHz without discrete GPU (what isn't there can't fail) and 2012 (2010s often have a faulty capacitor that causes crashes when switching GPUs; 2011s have defective GPUs).

17": any 2009 (2010s often have a faulty capacitor that causes crashes when switching GPUs; 2011s have defective GPUs).

obviously the 2012 is the fastest, but only by several "gears"

All 2011 and 2012 Core i5/i7 MBPs are significantly faster than their Core 2 Duo predecessors, and the quad-core i7 in the 2012 15" totally destroys any Core 2 Duo.

 

[MBAir2010]

13": pick your favourite.

thanks for the reply
your enthusiasm for older MacBooks is inspiring and you always post great advice!

my concern is that ol' GPU and how they fail.
my 2010 MacBook air so far has been great, and quite honestly do not know if that has a GPU
(i know it does, i think an intel or NVIDA something)
someone here got into my head how bad the GPU are on the unibody models and they just blow up suddenly

 

[Amethyst1]

your enthusiasm for older MacBooks is inspiring and you always post great advice!

Thanks. I'm just trying to help.

my 2010 MacBook air so far has been great, and quite honestly do not know if that has a GPU

It does have an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU but that is integrated into the chipset. It's not a discrete (separate) chip on the logic board.

my concern is that ol' GPU and how they fail.

These problems affect certain Macs with discrete (separate) GPUs. These can fail, but I've never heard of an integrated GPU in a Mac having failed so far (knock on wood!).

Out of the machines I listed as possible candidates, the 2012 15" and 2009 17" do have discrete GPUs but look to be reliable - much more so than e.g. the 2010 or 2011 15/17" ones which have well-known issues relating to their discrete GPUs.

 

[B S Magnet]

Hi guys, I guess this is the right place to ask...

I just got handed over a MacBook Pro 15" Late 2008, basic spec (c2d 2.4 / 4 / 250). It looks and feels like new, apart from the battery, but I do not need that to work.

Useful thing to know about the Intel MB/MBA/MBPs: a dead battery gets the system to slow to at least half the usual clock speed.

I was thinking of replacing the HDD with an SDD, since they have gotten cheaper over the years. Is it worth it? I need the MBP to run El Capitan for some of the apps I use, and the mac struggles with the OS.

SSD is the way to go!

I know this mac has the flaky NVIDIA MPC79 controller, which often allows only for a SATA I connection... and a lot of issues. I am looking at two different SSDs, could you maybe chime in and confirm is one of these has been tested to work properly with the MPC79 controller?


SanDisk SSD Plus 240 GB - SDSSDA-240G-G26
Crucial BX500 240 GB - CT240BX500SSD1

Should these be unknowns, or even proven bad, what SSDs would you recommend? I'd like to run into as little problems as possible... should that not be possible, I'd leave it on its HDD.

Thanks guys! I look forward to this mac living a long and prosperous life with me!

I don’t know whether those will have issues with the SATA I MPC79 bus.

For now, the best thing I think we have on here is a semi-related thread about running SATA II/III SSDs on the picky SATA I controller bundled with the Power Mac/iMac G5s. Although it is not necessarily gonna be a 1:1 correlation since they’re likely different controllers, it’s nevertheless probably a good starting place to see whether a known SATA II/III SSD had issues over there. That is: if the G5s griped, then it might not be worth using those on the SATA I bus on the MBPs.

As for SSDs which I do know work fine on the 2008 MBPs, I use the WD Blue m.2 blade in a 2.5-inch adapter. It is almost a given the 2.5-inch form factor WD Blue SSD works, as well.

 

[cappo3]

Congrats - decent machine!
First Unibody, max. 8GB DDR3 RAM, SATA2-HDD, USB3 ready through ExpressCard. It's slightly faster, than the early-2008 MBP but with a sturdy GPU. I like most the easy access to the hard drive, but the battery has the unpredictable bad habit to drain, when the book is in sleeping-mode, which might leave you unexpectedly with an empty battery in an unwanted occasion.
I didn't know about a flaky NVIDIA MPC79 controller yet ... thanks for telling. Well, if that means, SATA will go from SATA2 down to SATA1, that will be the speed me and @eyoungren are coping with on our early-MBP4,1, 4-6GB RAM and patched Mojave/Catalina. Probably I wouldn't even notice that ...
About the SSD: I have a few Crucial-SSDs that do work fine since a long time. And there was the one and only SanDisk-drive I put into my sons MBP and happen to fail after one year of use. That's my 2cent ...
You may go for (supported) ElCapitan (tricky installation - I don't know why, but best through clone-copying ElCapitan from another MBP or through TDM) or any of @dosdude1 's patches, that do work fine. Me I stayed with Mojave, because of HFS+ and 32bit support. For HFS+ it's mandatory, that the drive is pre-formatted as HFS+.
Cheers!

Thank you so much for chiming in!
I wouldn't be too bothered by SATA I vs II speeds. Unfortunately people having SATA I connections also deal with a plethora of other issues, such as short freezes and intense slowdowns. I'd like to avoid that, and need therefore to know what exact SSDs work on this exact MPC79 controller!
Right now I updated to El Capitan, fresh install on formatted HDD... It's the latest supported OS, I don't think I will venture in an unsupported install, unless it brings great speed / compatibility advantages.

Useful thing to know about the Intel MB/MBA/MBPs: a dead battery gets the system to slow to at least half the usual clock speed.



SSD is the way to go!



I don’t know whether those will have issues with the SATA I MPC79 bus.

For now, the best thing I think we have on here is a semi-related thread about running SATA II/III SSDs on the picky SATA I controller bundled with the Power Mac/iMac G5s. Although it is not necessarily gonna be a 1:1 correlation since they’re likely different controllers, it’s nevertheless probably a good starting place to see whether a known SATA II/III SSD had issues over there. That is: if the G5s griped, then it might not be worth using those on the SATA I bus on the MBPs.

As for SSDs which I do know work fine on the 2008 MBPs, I use the WD Blue m.2 blade in a 2.5-inch adapter. It is almost a given the 2.5-inch form factor WD Blue SSD works, as well.

Hi! Is there a way to verify is the CPU clock speed is being capped right now? I'd then try to find a new battery, should it even be possible for a 13-year-old laptop!
The MPC79 controller is a SATA II, so the SSD should be able to negotiate down from SATA III to SATA II. If it sticks to SATA I speeds the whole experience gets riddled with slowdowns and stuttering.

 

[Amethyst1]

Is there a way to verify is the CPU clock speed is being capped right now?

Run Geekbench 2. If you get a score lower than 2,000 it’s definitely capped.

 

[cappo3]

Run Geekbench 2. If you get a score lower than 2,000 it’s definitely capped.

This is what I got! Your impressions?

 

[Amethyst1]

Your impressions?

Looks absolutely fine. You can test the throttling by taking out the battery and rerunning GB2.

 

[EugW]

Thank you so much for chiming in!
I wouldn't be too bothered by SATA I vs II speeds. Unfortunately people having SATA I connections also deal with a plethora of other issues, such as short freezes and intense slowdowns. I'd like to avoid that, and need therefore to know what exact SSDs work on this exact MPC79 controller!
Right now I updated to El Capitan, fresh install on formatted HDD... It's the latest supported OS, I don't think I will venture in an unsupported install, unless it brings great speed / compatibility advantages.


Hi! Is there a way to verify is the CPU clock speed is being capped right now? I'd then try to find a new battery, should it even be possible for a 13-year-old laptop!
The MPC79 controller is a SATA II, so the SSD should be able to negotiate down from SATA III to SATA II. If it sticks to SATA I speeds the whole experience gets riddled with slowdowns and stuttering.

Maybe others can chime in but the problem with providing such drive model info is that most people have long since installed SSDs in those machines, several years ago, and those SSDs are no longer for sale. For example I have a Kingston SSDNow V+100 in one machine, and a Samsung 840 in another, and a Samsung 850 EVO in yet another. All have long since been discontinued. In fact, the SSDNow V+100 is 11 years old!

High Sierra adds APFS and HEIC support, and that support is more mature with Mojave.

 

[Amethyst1]

For example I have a Kingston SSDNow V+100 in one machine, and a Samsung 840 in another, and a Samsung 850 EVO in yet another. All have long since been discontinued.

The Samsung drives at least are readily available off eBay.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I’ve never had a problem with cheap WD Greens and Blues in the 9400M machines I’ve used them in. Modern SSDs seem to be much more comfortable with those controllers than older ones.

 

[Jack Neill]

Not sure if the OP has the MPC79 or not, but for the record I have used PNY and Sandisk SSDs and not had the neg speed issues MPC79 causes.

 

[EugW]

FWIW, I have an old 2008 MacBook with an Intel SSD 330 and it only negotiates at SATA I speeds. It otherwise works fine though. That drive has long since been discontinued too, considering it was launched a decade ago.

Ironically, its behaviour was actually the best in my Mac out of all my machines I tried, as this is the one I've had serious problems with my Windows machines. It would cause two different Windows machines to blue screen. One was an Intel chipset and the other was an nVidia ION.

Sandforce sucks.