upgrading MacBook Pro A1260 OSX

[tkmcguire1]

I bought for my daughter for college a MacBook Pro A1260 it is running with the 2.5ghz c2duo,2gb ram and a 250gb hd on snow leopard. She had a brand new retina MacBook but it was stolen,she never hardly used it anyway,she mainly uses her iPad Air 2,but she needs a laptop for occasionally the things an iPad can't do. I wanted to get another newer model,but with the holidays and I just got an iPad pro,it was all I could afford.

It says that it should be able to run El Capitan according to compatibility list but I don't want to bog it down. My question is which OSX should I upgrade to to still have it running fast and smoothly? I.e. ...Lion,Mavericks,Yosemite or El Capitan ?

 

[adam9c1]

Is this a 2009 model?

I have 2010 c2d 2.4.
Upgraded 4gb to 16gb and crucial bx100 and it really made a huge difference.

.
Upgrade to SSD and ram to 4, then in spring up ram to 8.

2gb is a total choke point.

 

[prisstratton]

I agree that upgrading the system would still make it a viable machine. But, you need to know that the system is equipped with the nVidia 8600M graphics chip and this chip WILL FAIL eventually.

There are several threads on these forums that talk about this.

If you still think you would like to upgrade the system and get the most out of it that you can, then you can upgrade your RAM to 6GB, according to the following site:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...ore-2-duo-2.5-15-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

Here is a link to where you can get the RAM for $49:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3

I would also add in a new solid state drive as this will literally breathe new life into the computer. But, as the system is not capable of maxing out the SATA interface (of the drive) you can essentially go for the cheapest one that you can find.

……..and, most definitely go with Mavericks. I recently installed both Yosemite and El Cap and my best performance was with Mavericks.

Hope it all helps.