Show off pictures of your "Plastic Intel Macs" like the MacBook or Intel iMac from said era.
PS: Here is the PowerPC version of the thread.
PS: Here is the PowerPC version of the thread.
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The Intel "Plastic Fantastic" Club!
- Thread starter MysticCow
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My 2006 2,1 MacBook with the keyboard halfway falling off
The other day I finished an absolutely grueling personal writing project I've been pushing to finish for the past three weeks, so to reward myself I decided to work on an A1181 I'd picked up from someone in one of the neighbourhoods I love to frequent. "It belonged to my brother," he said. "Please reformat the drive before you use it."
I got the machine "as-is/for parts untested" but really it was due to the person who gave it to me not having a power supply for it, and the battery being dead. As luck would have it, the battery was perfectly fine, just drained. And it wasn't a 1,1 or 2,1 as I'm so used to seeing, but a 4,1 with a DVD burner...so likely the Late 2008 """last""" (*heavy airquotes*) of the portable plastic fantastics before the aluminum unibody era.
Apart from the heavy physical damage to the display's upper case, it was extremely dirty (the picture doesn't quite do it justice). Much of the crud likely came from the piece of crusty duct tape put over the camera, and physical pressure from it when closed over time is what also likely made the trackpad button go a little wonky. After heavy use of 99% isopropyl alcohol, however, I was able to get the machine looking almost pristine. Even the topcase plastic was in almost perfect condition. Until I actually broke the plastic trim while I was cleaning it. (Oh well, nothing a little Gorilla Glue won't fix...)
When I first booted it up, it was like I was peeking into someone's life frozen in mid-2014, from what Safari's browser history suggested. In fact, from the looks of things this person was an artist/creative type themselves, and had actually undertaken almost the exact same kind of project I was doing. Funny how the universe works like that. (And it's also another lesson in why, if you can, you really should erase the drive of your laptop before selling it for cheap to a total stranger...)
I couldn't insert a disk into the drive; I at first thought there was a disk already stuck inside. When I opened it up to replace the thermal grease I realized the culprit wasn't a disk stuck in the drive at all. In fact, the part of the magnesium chassis at the optical drive slot had been bent so much – likely due to being knocked around in a backpack – that it was physically blocking the insertion of disks. I tried to bend the bottom part back into shape and ended up accidentally snapping it. Oops.
After diving into my parts bin I was able to get a replacement at least.
The machine works great now on full charge, though I haven't yet changed out the original 2 GB RAM/160 GB hard drive. At least it's a 7200 rpm drive!
I got the machine "as-is/for parts untested" but really it was due to the person who gave it to me not having a power supply for it, and the battery being dead. As luck would have it, the battery was perfectly fine, just drained. And it wasn't a 1,1 or 2,1 as I'm so used to seeing, but a 4,1 with a DVD burner...so likely the Late 2008 """last""" (*heavy airquotes*) of the portable plastic fantastics before the aluminum unibody era.
Apart from the heavy physical damage to the display's upper case, it was extremely dirty (the picture doesn't quite do it justice). Much of the crud likely came from the piece of crusty duct tape put over the camera, and physical pressure from it when closed over time is what also likely made the trackpad button go a little wonky. After heavy use of 99% isopropyl alcohol, however, I was able to get the machine looking almost pristine. Even the topcase plastic was in almost perfect condition. Until I actually broke the plastic trim while I was cleaning it. (Oh well, nothing a little Gorilla Glue won't fix...)
When I first booted it up, it was like I was peeking into someone's life frozen in mid-2014, from what Safari's browser history suggested. In fact, from the looks of things this person was an artist/creative type themselves, and had actually undertaken almost the exact same kind of project I was doing. Funny how the universe works like that. (And it's also another lesson in why, if you can, you really should erase the drive of your laptop before selling it for cheap to a total stranger...)
I couldn't insert a disk into the drive; I at first thought there was a disk already stuck inside. When I opened it up to replace the thermal grease I realized the culprit wasn't a disk stuck in the drive at all. In fact, the part of the magnesium chassis at the optical drive slot had been bent so much – likely due to being knocked around in a backpack – that it was physically blocking the insertion of disks. I tried to bend the bottom part back into shape and ended up accidentally snapping it. Oops.
After diving into my parts bin I was able to get a replacement at least.
The machine works great now on full charge, though I haven't yet changed out the original 2 GB RAM/160 GB hard drive. At least it's a 7200 rpm drive!
