Hello! I have been a Mac user for only a couple of years or so. I bought myself a second hand late-2008 unibody macbook, that was at first pretty decent. I loaded it up with 8GB of RAM and all was going fine.
Here are my specs.
13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008
OSC Version 10.8.2
Processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Startup Disk: Macintosh HD
My machine has been on a slow decline for the past 6 months or so, i realise it is getting old now, but I am in absolutely no position at this stage to upgrade. It has been getting extreeeemely hot. According to smc fancontrol, up to 107 degrees! So many months ago I purchased a decent usb cooling pad (by Targa i believe) but also wondered if a large heat-sink would help. I went to ebay and purchased an Aluminium Heatsink 290mm long 112mm wide 110 high, and a 202mm x 202mm x 3mm Silicone Thermal Pad to 'sandwich' between the heatsink and the bottom of my macbook. I then put the cooling pad beneath all of this, so that the fans are always cooling the heatsink which then in turn, cools the macbook. I noticed a pretty drastic improvement in temp drop from this. I opened it up a few days ago and gave it a good clean, which it really needed. I pulled out a good deal of built up dust and grime (and a few flies!) from the fan, and ever since it has been keeping much cooler. I also purchased some thermal paste to re-apply to the CPU, I haven't done that yet and am beginning to wonder if that stage is necessary at all really. I am a pretty intensive user, with my main focus on Video work, 3D programs, Photoshop etc. So obviously, that puts the heat up.
I have had a couple of extremely frustrating 'data fails' in the past couple of weeks. First of all a 32GB SD card corrupted on me on Christmas eve, this was loaded with some specific video promo work for some friends Music act which I shot out in Spain. Then 4 days later my 500GB external HDD went dead on me. I realised I was also running drastically low on space on my Macbook internal HDD as well, so decided to upgrade my internal storage solution. I used to be relatively tech-savvy, but i have been 'out of the loop' for a few years now, and have only in recent months learnt about Solid-state drives. I went ahead and purchased one on Amazon. This one:
Crucial 128GB M4 SATA 6Gb/s 2.5 inch Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004W2JKZI/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00
I am intending to use this as my OS drive, i have also bought a drive caddy, and removed my optical drive in preparation for it.
I also bought another hard drive for increased internal storage, as my current 160GB 5400rpm HDD really isn't cutting it. I went for this one:
Western Digital 2.5 inch Scorpio Black 750GB 7200rpm SATA 16MB Internal Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004I9J5OG/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01
Thing is...I don't actually know if these are compatible with my model of Macbook. From the research I have done i think they are, but to be honest I feel so out of the loop these days that I've got myself quite confused, so thought i'd come here!
I understand in terms of the SSD, my Macbook will only be able to utilise 3 out of the 6GB/s, but also believe that will still be somewhat of a vast improvement for me.
So, after all of this rambling, my ultimate questions are, will my new HDD and SSD be compatible with my Macbook. I know I should have researched more thoroughly, i'm just stupid, and panicked!
A big Happy New Year to all of you! I would much appreciate any feedback anyone has for me - many thanks!
CMW
Here are my specs.
13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008
OSC Version 10.8.2
Processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Startup Disk: Macintosh HD
My machine has been on a slow decline for the past 6 months or so, i realise it is getting old now, but I am in absolutely no position at this stage to upgrade. It has been getting extreeeemely hot. According to smc fancontrol, up to 107 degrees! So many months ago I purchased a decent usb cooling pad (by Targa i believe) but also wondered if a large heat-sink would help. I went to ebay and purchased an Aluminium Heatsink 290mm long 112mm wide 110 high, and a 202mm x 202mm x 3mm Silicone Thermal Pad to 'sandwich' between the heatsink and the bottom of my macbook. I then put the cooling pad beneath all of this, so that the fans are always cooling the heatsink which then in turn, cools the macbook. I noticed a pretty drastic improvement in temp drop from this. I opened it up a few days ago and gave it a good clean, which it really needed. I pulled out a good deal of built up dust and grime (and a few flies!) from the fan, and ever since it has been keeping much cooler. I also purchased some thermal paste to re-apply to the CPU, I haven't done that yet and am beginning to wonder if that stage is necessary at all really. I am a pretty intensive user, with my main focus on Video work, 3D programs, Photoshop etc. So obviously, that puts the heat up.
I have had a couple of extremely frustrating 'data fails' in the past couple of weeks. First of all a 32GB SD card corrupted on me on Christmas eve, this was loaded with some specific video promo work for some friends Music act which I shot out in Spain. Then 4 days later my 500GB external HDD went dead on me. I realised I was also running drastically low on space on my Macbook internal HDD as well, so decided to upgrade my internal storage solution. I used to be relatively tech-savvy, but i have been 'out of the loop' for a few years now, and have only in recent months learnt about Solid-state drives. I went ahead and purchased one on Amazon. This one:
Crucial 128GB M4 SATA 6Gb/s 2.5 inch Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004W2JKZI/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00
I am intending to use this as my OS drive, i have also bought a drive caddy, and removed my optical drive in preparation for it.
I also bought another hard drive for increased internal storage, as my current 160GB 5400rpm HDD really isn't cutting it. I went for this one:
Western Digital 2.5 inch Scorpio Black 750GB 7200rpm SATA 16MB Internal Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004I9J5OG/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01
Thing is...I don't actually know if these are compatible with my model of Macbook. From the research I have done i think they are, but to be honest I feel so out of the loop these days that I've got myself quite confused, so thought i'd come here!
I understand in terms of the SSD, my Macbook will only be able to utilise 3 out of the 6GB/s, but also believe that will still be somewhat of a vast improvement for me.
So, after all of this rambling, my ultimate questions are, will my new HDD and SSD be compatible with my Macbook. I know I should have researched more thoroughly, i'm just stupid, and panicked!
A big Happy New Year to all of you! I would much appreciate any feedback anyone has for me - many thanks!
CMW
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