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Pimp my Macbook

V

ViPhone

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 2, 2010
251
3
Miami, Florida
Just acquired a three-month old mid-2010 white Macbook. Identifier: 7,1 - 2.4gHz Intel Core Duo - 2GB RAM - 3MB Cache - And I think a 250GB drive.

I want to extend the life of this computer and make it as powerful and as fast as humanly possible.

Any suggestions on hardware or software to help are greatly appreciated!

So please, if you would, tell me how to max out this Macbook.
 
'Extending the life' isn't really the best idea. You might as well keep it the way it is, provided it does what you need it to now, and just save the money you were going to use to upgrade it, and start a fund for a new macbook in a few years. The average lifespan of a macbook is probably a few years, unless you take meticulous care of it.

But if you REALLY want to, upgrade the ram and get a bigger hard drive. Software doesn't really do much to extend the life of your computer, but CleanMyMac helps to keep your hard drive clean of data that takes up valuable space.
 
ViPhone said:
Just acquired a three-month old mid-2010 white Macbook. Identifier: 7,1 - 2.4gHz Intel Core Duo - 2GB RAM - 3MB Cache - And I think a 250GB drive.

I want to extend the life of this computer and make it as powerful and as fast as humanly possible.

Any suggestions on hardware or software to help are greatly appreciated!

So please, if you would, tell me how to max out this Macbook.
Click to expand...

Go to 8GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM, and depending on your needs, either a 500GB 7200RPM HDD or larger, or a 120/240GB SATA2 SSD.

After that there really isn't anything to be done.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. The Macbook itself is only a few months old.

Any specific type/brand of RAM or hard drive that I should get?

I thought about getting the WD 1TB Scorpio Blue HDD. Not sure if it will fit though.
 
No problem! If I were you I would go with a 7200rpm HDD or an SSD if you want performance. Don't get the slower 1TB hard drive. If you really need the space just get an external hard drive, don't get a slower internal HDD just for the space.
 
Thanks. I know 7200 is a lot faster, and I'm especially looking for speed in boot-up time (pet peeve of sorts).

I like the Seagate Momentus XT SSD Hybrid.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

How did you get such an old MacBook that's new? Lucky.

As others said, max out the ram and drop in an ssd or a 7200rpm drive and you're set. I have a 720rpm WD Caviar Black and 4GB of RAM and it runs fast enough for photoshop and illustrator.
 
ViPhone said:
Thanks. I know 7200 is a lot faster, and I'm especially looking for speed in boot-up time (pet peeve of sorts).

I like the Seagate Momentus XT SSD Hybrid.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's a good choice. If I hadn't just bought a new 7200rpm HDD for my MBP I would have probably gotten that.
 
lamina said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

How did you get such an old MacBook that's new? Lucky.

As others said, max out the ram and drop in an ssd or a 7200rpm drive and you're set. I have a 720rpm WD Caviar Black and 4GB of RAM and it runs fast enough for photoshop and illustrator.
Click to expand...

Well, it was my birthday yesterday and my father, in his usual style, decided that the Macbook that he bought from an Apple retail store just three months earlier for the family, would become my laptop. I was advocating in favor of getting the new Air, he wouldn't budge. I saw it as the more favorable option compared to getting a Windows laptop in his dictated price range of $600-$800.

Feel free to tell me now if I made a mistake, because I still have to tell him my choice. But I think it was the right decision, it runs quite nice and I've always had a preference for the Mac OS. Plus, it works so much better with my iPhone.

I don't think I will be running many very intensive programs, but Photoshop is a possibility. But I like a powerful machine :D.
 
You will be fine with that machine, just upgrade the RAM if anything and get a better hard drive if you have the money. I think you'll be very happy with it
 
Toke said:
Software doesn't really do much to extend the life of your computer, but CleanMyMac helps to keep your hard drive clean of data that takes up valuable space.
Click to expand...
One app that I would not recommend, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere, is CleanMyMac. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. Many have successfully used Monolingual to remove unwanted languages and architectures to free up drive space.

Be aware that extreme caution should be exercised when using such apps, as deleting certain languages or architectures can create significant problems. At best, deleting these things may buy you 1-2GB of drive space, but will not improve your system's performance. If you're not certain about what you're doing, don't delete anything. The small drive space savings are not worth the risk of potential problems.

You really don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space. It will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space.
 
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