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Thinking about upgrading to yosemite on a macbook 2011

G

gc15

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 23, 2012
181
2
Is there any problems that have occurred with 2011 macs. Heres my specs.
2. 4 Ghz Intel core i5, and i have 4 gb of ram. Mavericks was a pain for me when i first upgraded on release, constant beach ball of doom, but updates have improved stability. I didn't want to go through that again with yosemite so thats why i waited, plus i didn't see a point until photos came out.

i would like to add, my macbook is a macbook pro. Also i have a side question, for some reason as of lately, my mac takes forever to get my iMessages. And for some reason i can write notes in the note app and it pops up on my iPhone, but when i write notes on my phone, it doesn't show up on my mac. What gives? lol. Should i resign out of my iCloud account on both devices and resign back in?

i managed to fix the note problem, for some reason exchange was made default.
 
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I don't think you'd be any worse off on Yosemite than on Mavericks.
Though for the best experience, you should consider upgrading to an SSD. That will make your computer seriously fast in day-to-day use.

Also, Photos is complete crap.
 
thanks for the reply, and i have been thinking about doing that. I have also thought about upgrading my ram as well.
 
Stick more RAM and an SSD in and it will fly. The machine in my sig is on 10.10.3 and is as nippy as ever. Only the gpu lets it down with games.
 
I recently upgraded to Yosemite on my 2011 MBP I have a MX100 ssd but still have some beach balling from time to time. Might upgrade ram to 8gb when I have some additional cash over.
 
I'd say no. I'll put aesthetics aside because that's subjective and nobody who thinks it looks awful (as I do) can ever convince someone who thinks it looks good, or vice versa.

Yosemite has far more bugs and slowdowns than Mavericks. Just look around the OS X forums and you'll see what I mean. Now of course people who have problems are the ones who post, but I've used Mac OS since about OS 6 (that's 6, not 10.6) and the last time I can remember an OS with so many bugs was the original OS X, 10.0. Even lion was more stable, and that's saying something.

I tried Yosemite (late '13 rMBP) and downgraded in a few days due to massive graphical problems and numerous things not working. Maybe some of that has been ironed out by now (think I did 10.10.1), but I don't trust it and see no real advantage over my fast, stable, asthetically pleasing 10.9.
 
10.10 has been pretty stable for me, the additional features worked and I didn't have any serious issues. 10.10.3 however is a big improvement (with the exception of Photos), I'm getting an approx 45min increase in battery life over 10.10.2 (on a 4.5hr base), looks like this has come from some serious kernel efficiency gains.
 
MagicBoy said:
Please expand on that statement.
Click to expand...

Your MBP with dead GPU may be covered by the recent extended logic board warranty. Might be worth making an enquiry?

Both the HD3000 and 6750M in my MBP run Yosemite fine, I'm also curious to understand what is meant by AttilaTheHun's comment.
 
fat jez said:
Your MBP with dead GPU may be covered by the recent extended logic board warranty. Might be worth making an enquiry?
Click to expand...

I got a no-cost repair under consumer law about a year ago. It kept failing again in the same way, Apple replaced it with the rMBP in the top line.

Thanks for the heads up though.

yjchua95 said:
Radeongate. That describes it all.
Click to expand...

It describes nothing. Apple never shipped a 2011 i5 15", therefore OPs machine must be a 13" with Intel graphics.

Not everything is Radeongate. ;)
 
I have the same MBP as the OP has and I too have only 4 gig ram in it BUT its not my main computer any more

i bought an SSD drive ad am going to have it installed.
(assuming its hard to do oneself if you havent ever dont such work on them b4)

So if its not my main mac do i still need to upgrade the ram? Will it really make that muc of a difference if its a secondary mac?

Last but not least, how many years, realistically do you believe it will give it?

10.10 has been pretty stable for me, the additional features worked and I didn't have any serious issues. 10.10.3 however is a big improvement (with the exception of Photos), I'm getting an approx 45min increase in battery life over 10.10.2 (on a 4.5hr base), looks like this has come from some serious kernel efficiency gains.
Click to expand...

I remember seeing many 2011 MBP users who upgraded to Yosemite say it ruined the machine. Granted, this is some time ago.
Can I safely assume that I will be fine to upgrade mine to Ysemite once i at least do an upgrade to the SSD?
But I must upgrade ram as well to at least 8 gigs ?
i was hoping to have left it at 4 gigs as its not my main computer so I really dont want to have to go to 16 but at worst, 8 gigs will be fine?
 
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SD-B said:
I remember seeing many 2011 MBP users who upgraded to Yosemite say it ruined the machine. Granted, this is some time ago.
Can I safely assume that I will be fine to upgrade mine to Ysemite once i at least do an upgrade to the SSD?
Click to expand...

- Yes, most definitely. With an SSD that machine will be more than capable enough to run Yosemite without issues.
For light usage, 4 GB RAM should even be enough, I'd say. At least, it doesn't hurt to try it. If you find it doesn't run well enough, you can consider the upgrade to 8 GB.
The people who have had their machine "ruined" likely still run with the original hard drive, which won't be very smooth on the newest operating systems.

As for the SSD installation, it's really rather easy. All it requires is that you can use a screwdriver (you need a Phillips #00 and Torx T6). Here is a guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Late+2011+Hard+Drive+Replacement/7656
 
I am still using SL on my MBP 2011 because I need it for some video works. It's still using original configuration. After replace with SSD, had plan to upgrade to ML or Mavericks. Not sure with Yosemite, unless I had specific & important needs for that.
 
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