My thought, like @Amethyst1 was probably thinking, was:
“Aw darn, only 1500MB/s… only double ::dramatic sigh:: the speed of a SATA III bus… whatever shall one do…”
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My thought, like @Amethyst1 was probably thinking, was:
“Aw darn, only 1500MB/s… only double ::dramatic sigh:: the speed of a SATA III bus… whatever shall one do…”
SATA III is only ~540 MB/s after overhead. Still, what shall I do?
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SATA III is only ~540 MB/s after overhead. Still, what shall I do?
Three times faster?
Gosh, you could… saturate volumes connected to all of your other external ports simultaneously — Ethernet, FireWire, 802.11n, and all the USB 2.0 ports — plus the standard SATA III volume, all without saturating that newfound NVMe blade’s paltry, PCIe 2.0 bus! Heck, you might match it if you squeeze in a second SATA III drive. 🔥
Took some time to install Elementary os on my macbook 4,1. It lives alognside Snow Leopard and Lion installs.
While it is based on Ubuntu, unlike Uos, Eos did not install as easily as Uos did and required some moderate terminal work to get into the installer. On the Flip side of this conundrum, Ubuntu while installing without issue did not install with supported gpu and wifi, having to negoatiate that via ethernet where as Eos did install those leemenst flawlessly and on under-spec older 4,1 hardware. Another oddity was that Eos installed witth numlock enabled effectively bricking the right side of my kb. In Uos I can just turn that off in kb preferences but in Eos, this option is absent, so I had tomap numlock funtcion to capslock until I was able to intsall NumlockX via Terminal. Anyhow, it is working pretty well now at 3gb ram although I think upgrading ram to 6gb at some point is pretty necessary for a good user experience but is a cheap and easy lift for this old C2D mac.
Absolutely usable in 2024
Absolutely usable in 2024
Whilst browsing through one of my external drives (which will be cloned and added to a RAID soon) using my daily driver MBP 2011 w/ High Sierra, I came across an abandoned analogue video transfer and restoration project and I decided to watch some of my handiwork.
For those who might be interested in the technical details. A Long time ago, in a galaxy not that far away, I captured my 1990 NTSC widescreen CBS-FOX ROTJ Laserdiscs onto a dedicated P4 WinXP box using the HuffYUV lossless codec with the composite video signal from the industrial, NTSC only Pioneer LDV-4400. I eliminated the dot crawl and general video noise as best as possible with the Neat Video filter in VirtualDubMod.
On the audio side, I captured the PCM digital output from my Pioneer CLD-D925 into my now departed Gigabit G4 with a TOSLink to SPDIF adapter, the M-AUDIO 2496 PCI card and Audacity - which gave me an uncompressed WAV file.
On reflection, reviewing the files on my MBP, I didn't do too badly with this considering that the source is NTSC and the video master dates back to the 1980s, which meant that it could never compete with an HD offering that's been put together by a professional organisation with access to the original elements. Nor was that ever the intention.
Rapid developments on the Star Wars fan scene negated this project, which is why it was abandoned but maybe I should revisit this project and finish it off - just for the fun of it. Obviously I'd use MP4 or MKV nowadays as the container.
For those who might be interested in the technical details. A Long time ago, in a galaxy not that far away, I captured my 1990 NTSC widescreen CBS-FOX ROTJ Laserdiscs onto a dedicated P4 WinXP box using the HuffYUV lossless codec with the composite video signal from the industrial, NTSC only Pioneer LDV-4400. I eliminated the dot crawl and general video noise as best as possible with the Neat Video filter in VirtualDubMod.
On the audio side, I captured the PCM digital output from my Pioneer CLD-D925 into my now departed Gigabit G4 with a TOSLink to SPDIF adapter, the M-AUDIO 2496 PCI card and Audacity - which gave me an uncompressed WAV file.
On reflection, reviewing the files on my MBP, I didn't do too badly with this considering that the source is NTSC and the video master dates back to the 1980s, which meant that it could never compete with an HD offering that's been put together by a professional organisation with access to the original elements. Nor was that ever the intention.
Rapid developments on the Star Wars fan scene negated this project, which is why it was abandoned but maybe I should revisit this project and finish it off - just for the fun of it. Obviously I'd use MP4 or MKV nowadays as the container.
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dosdude, the Samsung case was a mistake in my work.
Thanks to iBoff, dosdude and the OCLP team.
Thanks to iBoff, dosdude and the OCLP team.
How do you have HS set up for daily use? Browsers, mail programs etc? I might just use one of my 2011s on HS if I think that will work.
Over the weekend, I made the tragic mistake joined in the storied tradition of EIM folks who dared step foot in the MBP8,2/8,3 mess.
A local, hi-res antiglare, early 2011 A1286 turned up nearby (for about $35 in freedom dollars). It’s a base 2.0 quad i7-2635QM — same as to appear on the quad-core mid-2011 Mac mini server.
It came with a magsafe adapter which, between that and the display upgrade, are probably worth more than the entire unit. It was alleged to not power on, so my expectations were as one might expect for a non-13-inch 2011 variant.
First problem, solved promptly: I was supplied with a 60W adapter. A1286 and A1297 need the 85W variant.
After an SMC bypass, I was able to get to POST, fans blasting, and to a desktop of Yosemite 10.10.1, of what was probably the original owner’s state of things when the system failed (and whose last files seemed to end right around 2014, presumably when the Radeon GPU left the chat).
Cosmetically, the aluminium case is mostly pristine. On one end, the clutch cover has common cracking underway. I’ve had to replace these before on my 13-inch uMBPs, and they’re a cheap, easy fix.
Beyond that, the issues on this unit are few, but not unexpected. I’ve made this a project to see what I can fix and what I can’t, and also what will need replacing.
I got what I paid for, and I wanted a fresh challenge. Let’s goooo.
Pictures to follow!
A local, hi-res antiglare, early 2011 A1286 turned up nearby (for about $35 in freedom dollars). It’s a base 2.0 quad i7-2635QM — same as to appear on the quad-core mid-2011 Mac mini server.
It came with a magsafe adapter which, between that and the display upgrade, are probably worth more than the entire unit. It was alleged to not power on, so my expectations were as one might expect for a non-13-inch 2011 variant.
First problem, solved promptly: I was supplied with a 60W adapter. A1286 and A1297 need the 85W variant.
After an SMC bypass, I was able to get to POST, fans blasting, and to a desktop of Yosemite 10.10.1, of what was probably the original owner’s state of things when the system failed (and whose last files seemed to end right around 2014, presumably when the Radeon GPU left the chat).
Cosmetically, the aluminium case is mostly pristine. On one end, the clutch cover has common cracking underway. I’ve had to replace these before on my 13-inch uMBPs, and they’re a cheap, easy fix.
Beyond that, the issues on this unit are few, but not unexpected. I’ve made this a project to see what I can fix and what I can’t, and also what will need replacing.
- The dGPU has gone the way of what one would expect. (So I’m saving all my love for you, AMD.) A hardware bypass of the dGPU is necessary, as the nvram/EFI byoass in that wikipost doesn’t seem to bear any changes (I may need to set aside an evening to skim over the thread’s voluminous, 123 pages).
- The OEM battery is completely dead. To verify it wasn’t a bad SMC or P-Bus/PowerBus, I connected a working battery from a 13-inch unibody MBP. The charge light turned amber, verifying both SMC and P-Bus are probably OK. (System power draw from that battery is beyond for what it was engineered and prevents proper POSTing.). So I’ll need to find a working battery.
- The board isn’t damaged from liquid, as all the white dots are white and not rendered tomato-red from moisture exposure. So that’s promising.
- With first POST attempt, the front status light flashed six times (bad battery) and gave three chimes (bad RAM). I pulled out the two, 2GB OEM sticks and put in one 8GB stick I had lying around. RAM is now being tested with the EFI Apple Service Diagnostics (3S144), one stick in at a time. When I left home earlier, that was underway.
I suspect there may be problems with the RAM board/bridge, as this 8GB stick in Yosemite was showing as 4GB; when in the other slot, the screen began to “red-artifact” and kernel-panic, even during verbose boot and single-user mode. Less clear is whether this was the dGPU or RAM-related. If it turns a bad RAM bridge is implicated, then there’s no point to continue with a dGPU hardware bypass. It’d be less trouble to find a working board cheaply (or an Ivy Bridge board) and to complete the dGPU hardware bypass on it.
I got what I paid for, and I wanted a fresh challenge. Let’s goooo.
Pictures to follow!
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- Browser: predominantly Firefox 115.14.0 ESR
- Mail program: none other than Apple's Mail.
- Media players: mainly VLC and QuickTime.
- Image work: PhotoScape X and the GIMP.
- PDF viewing and creation: Acrobat DC Pro.
- Video editing: primarily Avidemux.
- Instant Messaging: Adium and Telegram.
- Word processing: Pages '09 and Word 2011.
- Disc burning: Burn.
I've been using Vivaldi for quite a while. There's still a version that runs on High Sierra and I have that installed on my 2011 MBA. Vivaldi is by one of the devs that created Opera.
My work 2015 MBP (on High Sierra) is still using Office 2019. I became a convert to Entourage/Outlook around 1999 and have only deviated a few times. Will Mail allow you to to have the preview pane under the mail list yet, or do you still have to deal with it on the right side. That's a particular irritant for me.These are the core programs that I use on a daily basis and I'm able to complete 99% of my goals. If you'd like to know more, ask away.
- Browser: predominantly Firefox 115.14.0 ESR
- Mail program: none other than Apple's Mail.
- Media players: mainly VLC and QuickTime.
- Image work: PhotoScape X and the GIMP.
- PDF viewing and creation: Acrobat DC Pro.
- Video editing: primarily Avidemux.
- Instant Messaging: Adium and Telegram.
- Word processing: Pages '09 and Word 2011.
- Disc burning: Burn.
The second view is more of what Outlook is now, so I guess I'm okay with that. Entourage and older versions of Outlook used to have the preview pane at the top though IIRC. The couple of times I was using Mail, I had to install some plug in to get what I wanted. I'll qualify that though by saying that I was using Leopard on a PowerPC Mac at the time.There appears to be only two choices. Either this...
...or "classic view."
Is classic view closer to what you prefer?
What's funny to me is that when I came in to my current job, aside from the apps that we use for work, everything else was stock Apple. I can only deal with opening Word docs in Text Edit for so long. Of course, the open source apps would have worked, but they default to their own format. Once I got my work Mac, I installed Office right away. I'm just used to it.
With Open Office (as it was known when I used it), there was the option to save files as an RTF or doc (though of course, not docx). I was forced to jump ship after learning that Open Office was unable to create page numbers without a great deal of hassle. My thesis had to be page numbered and so I switched to MS Office 2011.
I'm using Libre Office for a few non-standard things. Not sure if that was Open Office before or not. However, I discovered that Libre Office will open Microsoft Publisher files. Since Microsoft does not make Publisher for the Mac, this is useful for the few times customers send in .pub files.
And a few days ago I also discovered that Libre Office will open Freehand files. I was able to open an old Freehand 3/4 file I saved in design school (mid-1990s) and export an EPS file. That was openable (of course) by Illustrator and all my hand drawn paths, shapes and filles came through without an issue.
But, yeah. Not something I use for my regular word processing.
It certainly was.
Which is exactly what you've discovered.
This is good information - I'm going to download Libre Office so that I have access to this functionality.
Thanks for the heads up!
Glad that helps. Note that Libre Office will also open Microsoft Works files AND preserve their formatting. At least, Open Office did that before. That's primarily how I came to know about Open Office because you can't use Word to open a Works file directly - you lose all the formatting. But, these apps made it easy because you could just export a Word doc from there.This is good information - I'm going to download Libre Office so that I have access to this functionality.
Thanks for the heads up!
Did some Googling and learned something. Perhaps you know already, but I didn't.
Little Snitch (which I have) has a network monitor bit that shows you geographically worldwide where connections to your Mac are coming from. But to do that it needs to know your Mac's location.
I have it set to Automatically update the location, but it wasn't working. Now, when using my Mac Pro I also haven't been able to set the location automatically for the Weather app. In Location Services the network monitor for Little Snitch also wasn't showing the app. So I did some digging.
At first I wanted to figure out how I could add an app to Location Services, but apparently you can't. But in searching for that I also hit on some bit about Location Services using WiFi.
Due to the fact that on occasion my Mac Pro likes to funnel everything through WiFi, rather than using my two very good 1GB ethernet connections, I generally use this Mac with WiFi off. But…if Location Services needs WiFi, what happens if I turn it back on? Well, doing that enabled the Little Snitch Network Monitor and my Weather app to get my location. It also solved another problem where Google News in my web browser was not getting my location either.
But WHY, does Location Services need WiFi?! Why can't it just use ETHERNET?!
Turns out that way back when Apple was using a service called SkyHook to get location. But they stopped using that service and switched to a different method. Since a lot of people have iPhones and iPads and those devices have GPS AND because a lot of people use WiFi on these devices, what Apple does is it takes a look at the WiFi router IP address AND the GPS data of the device and correlates both to a location.
For instance, if the WiFi IP address is 192.168.0.10 and your iPhone says you're in Billings Montana, then Apple correlates that IP address as being in Billings Montana. It does all this with your neighbors WiFi networks and their iDevices GPS too! So, your neighbor's WiFi and iPhone GPS is going to confirm that you're in Billings, Montana.
All this goes in to an Apple database (anonymously of course) and when your Mac is on WiFi, the router's IP address is checked against this database and boom, Location Services knows your Mac is in Billings, Montana.
That still doesn't answer why Apple/Locations Services can't just use Ethernet. WiFi or Ethernet it's the same address right? Maybe not, IDK. With my network it is. I suspect Apple just didn't want to write the code for Ethernet when it already had it for WiFi. But because most Macs do not have GPS, this is how Apple does it now.
Now if you knew this already, sorry for wasting your time. But I just found out about it tonight.
Little Snitch (which I have) has a network monitor bit that shows you geographically worldwide where connections to your Mac are coming from. But to do that it needs to know your Mac's location.
I have it set to Automatically update the location, but it wasn't working. Now, when using my Mac Pro I also haven't been able to set the location automatically for the Weather app. In Location Services the network monitor for Little Snitch also wasn't showing the app. So I did some digging.
At first I wanted to figure out how I could add an app to Location Services, but apparently you can't. But in searching for that I also hit on some bit about Location Services using WiFi.
Due to the fact that on occasion my Mac Pro likes to funnel everything through WiFi, rather than using my two very good 1GB ethernet connections, I generally use this Mac with WiFi off. But…if Location Services needs WiFi, what happens if I turn it back on? Well, doing that enabled the Little Snitch Network Monitor and my Weather app to get my location. It also solved another problem where Google News in my web browser was not getting my location either.
But WHY, does Location Services need WiFi?! Why can't it just use ETHERNET?!
Turns out that way back when Apple was using a service called SkyHook to get location. But they stopped using that service and switched to a different method. Since a lot of people have iPhones and iPads and those devices have GPS AND because a lot of people use WiFi on these devices, what Apple does is it takes a look at the WiFi router IP address AND the GPS data of the device and correlates both to a location.
For instance, if the WiFi IP address is 192.168.0.10 and your iPhone says you're in Billings Montana, then Apple correlates that IP address as being in Billings Montana. It does all this with your neighbors WiFi networks and their iDevices GPS too! So, your neighbor's WiFi and iPhone GPS is going to confirm that you're in Billings, Montana.
All this goes in to an Apple database (anonymously of course) and when your Mac is on WiFi, the router's IP address is checked against this database and boom, Location Services knows your Mac is in Billings, Montana.
That still doesn't answer why Apple/Locations Services can't just use Ethernet. WiFi or Ethernet it's the same address right? Maybe not, IDK. With my network it is. I suspect Apple just didn't want to write the code for Ethernet when it already had it for WiFi. But because most Macs do not have GPS, this is how Apple does it now.
Now if you knew this already, sorry for wasting your time. But I just found out about it tonight.
?, how has the removing the connections on the macbook pro's logic board?
i am trying to replace the thermal paste on mine but stopped since the risk of popping off the port would ruin this great Macbook, the right speaker was too risky and my plan was to tape the fan without removing the cable since they seldomly pop off the board, though i can always but another MBP...i will deal with the temps which are not as bad as the MBA 2010.
the macbook air 2020 was much easier, but still nerve-racking!
TODAY for my early Intels, i purchased a copy of iWorks 09 for under $10 bucks,
since Libre Office word is having launching problems on all my 3 macs.
since i will be typing on these more soon (100 pages a day) that software wll be much needed!
since Libre Office word is having launching problems on all my 3 macs.
since i will be typing on these more soon (100 pages a day) that software wll be much needed!
You’ll have to remind us which MBP you’re trying to replace thermal paste.
Also, just to be sure: you’re sticking to the steps in iFixit’s guide, yes?
As I’ve now replaced paste on both the 13- and 15-inch unibody models (the latter, for the first time last night; the former, probably now measured in multiples of a dozen), I (or we) might be able to offer some tips on possible things you weren’t expecting.
For the right speaker (seen on the far left, just over the ODD, when looking at it from the underside, with bottom cover open), that is a single piece and pretty sturdy. There may be some adhesive holding it in place, but that can be pulled apart and re-seated later on. If you’re talking abut the single round speaker where the AIrPort/BT board are, that’s also reasonably robust to work with, so long as one doesn’t touch the speaker cont itself!).
As delicate as the innards feel in a unibody-era MBP, when one compares them with components, boards, and insertion methods of their predecessors (the aluminium MBP and PB G4s, and also the iBook G3 and G4s), they’re remarkably robust for what they are. Pulling out their smaller, more square-like logic boards helps with that (whereas the aluminium models are, relatively, a lot more elongated and more prone to flex when hndling and also semi-hidden, under-connected cables).
The side with the ports — magsafe thru headphone port — is built well enough on the unibody models to hold firm when slowly lifting out the logic board from the optical/hard drive end. If you feel resistance as you’re trying to lift from that end (also the same end as iFixit’s instructions), I’ve learnt over the years how, sometimes (especially if the laptop has never been maintained or opened before), the underside of the board (the face which is sandwiched against the underside of the keyboard and backlight diffuser) can stick just enough to offer some resistance against wanting to lift out. More specifically, the heat sink bracket’s metal piping is what’s sticking to the black diffuser cover.
When that’s the suspected case, grab a torch/flashlight to have a peek under there as you use one hand to begin to lift from the ODD/HDD end. If the pliable black cover of the keyboard/backlight assembly beneath is stuck to it, just gently continue to lift the board as instructions advise. Treat that stickiness like one does when gently removing a piece of tape from a delicate surface (such as dry paint or paper you want to preserve and not damage).
If anything must give, that black cover can tear just slightly at the stuck spot and neither the backlight diffuser nor the board will suffer because of it (it’s more an annoyance than anything, especially when one is a perfectionist). Once free, the board should come out and should hold up to being handled with the basic care a sensitive electronics board: handle by the edges, keep dry, keep free of static (easy for most during humid summertime), and set it down on a soft, lint-free cloth or microfibre cloth as you open the heatsink brackets and clean out their old paste.
I shot some pictures last night of fresh-pasting the A1286 I acquired over the weekend. If you want, I can share those. I found it to be no more or less difficult to deal with than any of the 2009–2011 A1278s I’ve maintained over the years, and easier than working on either of the A1398 and A1502 retina successors.
(I imagine the A1297 is not much different than the A1286; frankly, they’re all remarkably consistent with each other and, unlike past MBP/PB lines, were fresh-sheet-designed by the same team, at the same time, with the same, scalable considerations in mind. The series was smartly thought out and, really, a high water mark in Apple’s engineering design.)
Take pics, share them here, and ask for help if you need help! Your thermal paste-refreshed MBP will thank you for it!
B S Magnet
thanks for the thorough and detailed messagei really appreciate the confidence and step by step procedures!
I repaired many macbook airs last decade and only a few MBpros at a tech shop.
Mine is a 2012 mid 13" A1278 which i took a apart in 2017 to clean this out and replace the paste.
the connecting ports seem stable and secure enough to remove the components like fans, speakers and other, I just need more moxie, or assertiveness since this project needs to be completed soon.
I did use the ifixit guide photo by photo on the MBA 2010 today then chickened out after trying to dislodge the speaker cable for fear i might op that off for some weird reason.
I wlll attempt this later this week or even tomorrow.
again thank,B S Magnet!
iWork has been provided for free since 2017 - so why did you pay for it?
100 pages a day? That's an impressive work-rate!
i can t find a good online copy for Mountain Lion
as I never purchased that in 2010 as i should have have!
the 100 pages a day is something i did last year four times in July and hopefully that wont happen since that took 12-16 hours with a few breaks....i just hope that happens
but now i think about that hope not since i had a story outlined a month before.
i usually write 15-20 a day for 2 or 3 hours while editing the scenario that day.
Over the weekend, Imade the tragic mistakejoined in the storied tradition of EIM folks who dared step foot in the MBP8,2/8,3 mess.
A local, hi-res antiglare, early 2011 A1286 turned up nearby (for about $35 in freedom dollars). It’s a base 2.0 quad i7-2635QM — same as to appear on the quad-core mid-2011 Mac mini server.
It came with a magsafe adapter which, between that and the display upgrade, are probably worth more than the entire unit. It was alleged to not power on, so my expectations were as one might expect for a non-13-inch 2011 variant.
First problem, solved promptly: I was supplied with a 60W adapter. A1286 and A1297 need the 85W variant.
After an SMC bypass, I was able to get to POST, fans blasting, and to a desktop of Yosemite 10.10.1, of what was probably the original owner’s state of things when the system failed (and whose last files seemed to end right around 2014, presumably when the Radeon GPU left the chat).
Cosmetically, the aluminium case is mostly pristine. On one end, the clutch cover has common cracking underway. I’ve had to replace these before on my 13-inch uMBPs, and they’re a cheap, easy fix.
Beyond that, the issues on this unit are few, but not unexpected. I’ve made this a project to see what I can fix and what I can’t, and also what will need replacing.
ippi
- The dGPU has gone the way of what one would expect. (So I’m saving all my love for you, AMD.) A hardware bypass of the dGPU is necessary, as the nvram/EFI byoass in that wikipost doesn’t seem to bear any changes (I may need to set aside an evening to skim over the thread’s voluminous, 123 pages).
- The OEM battery is completely dead. To verify it wasn’t a bad SMC or P-Bus/PowerBus, I connected a working battery from a 13-inch unibody MBP. The charge light turned amber, verifying both SMC and P-Bus are probably OK. (System power draw from that battery is beyond for what it was engineered and prevents proper POSTing.). So I’ll need to find a working battery.
- The board isn’t damaged from liquid, as all the white dots are white and not rendered tomato-red from moisture exposure. So that’s promising.
- With first POST attempt, the front status light flaed six times (bad battery) and gave three chimes (bad RAM). I pulled out the two, 2GB OEM sticks and put in one 8GB stick I had lying around. RAM is now being tested with the EFI Apple Service Diagnostics (3S144), one stick in at a time. When I left home earlier, that was underway.
I suspect there may be problems with the RAM board/bridge, as this 8GB stick in Yosemite was showing as 4GB; when in the other slot, the screen began to “red-artifact” and kernel-panic, even during verbose boot and single-user mode. Less clear is whether this was the dGPU or RAM-related. If it turns a bad RAM bridge is implicated, then there’s no point to continue with a dGPU hardware bypass. It’d be less trouble to find a working board cheaply (or an Ivy Bridge board) and to complete the dGPU hardware bypass on it.
I got what I paid for, and I wanted a fresh challenge. Let’s goooo.
Pictures to follow!
UPDATE:
I had a suspicion the hinky, sluggish behaviour I was witnessing when I first brought this home was not simply the dGPU. Without bothering to look deeper (frankly, I didn’t see the point), there was no way of knowing what kind of messy and/or corrupt config settings were encapsulated in that OEM HDD with the first owner’s setup and contents from 2011–14. (Plus, it was hecking Yosemite… QED.)
Also, despite Disk Utility and S.M.A.R.T. verifying, respectively, the HFS+ volume and test verification, the sluggishness suggested the spinner was damaged and probably on its way out to pasture in that familiar, classic way spinners can fail.
So… I dropped in the OEM HDD which shipped with my early 2011 13-inch MBP in August 2011. It was pulled out on the first day, because it was bundled with the-then one-month-old Lion (and a hard nope to that, ever). So for the last 13 years, that HDD has sat, basically unused, in a anti-static bag.
First, I ran ASD — both OS and EFI. With SMC bypass, OS test failed promptly. (There’s something about a giant “failed” on screen which feels awkwardly… personal — like the system is truly seeing me,)
Without SMC bypass, everything (amazingly) passed:
EFI test failed only at the battery check. The battery is quite dead.
Next, I booted into bog-standard-from-2011 Lion 10.7.0, which was fine and not sluggish. Given how this unit was built the week of July 30th that year (and my early 2011 13-inch MBP was built maybe a week later), this would have been precisely what shipped originally with this unit. But despite the 8GB stick in there (sourced from my early 2011 13-inch), it was still reading as 4GB.
I went ahead, partitioned the disk, and installed an HFS+ dosdude-patched Mojave on the second partition.
Mojave launched, although there are some issues:
1) The 8GB stick was still being detected as 4GB, no matter what method I tried. I know said stick is good as 8GB and is from Corsair. It’s what my early 2011 13-inch MBP has used for maybe seven or eight years.
I tried both slots, and I tried it solo and with a 4GB spare lying around. It still won’t read that stick at 8GB. Just to be sure, I threw in the 8GB into my late 2011 13-inch and it registered correctly. And then I brought over my two, 1333MHz 8GB sticks from that late 2011 into the A1286, and at long last, the system reported 16GB.
So that’s one mystery of a cranky A1286 I haven’t solved, but there is a way to navigate around it.
2) The screen cap foreshadowed the other unexpected issue: the patched Mojave won’t recognize the MBP’s trackpad.
Although dosdude noted in the Mojave patcher FAQ this can be an issue with the MBP5,2, I wasn’t anticipating this here. So I’ll re-run the patcher tonight. If that doesn’t do it, then a fresh install and double-checking patcher settings is in order.
At the end of the evening, I went in to change the thermal paste — which was, as expected, crumbly and semi-oily like stale cake.
Overall, it was clean inside. I just needed to dust everything lightly (even the fans and grilles were mostly clean with just thin, fine dust from past use).
And to close, enjoy a glow-up for the most loved GPU in all of Apple history:
Without SMC bypass, everything (amazingly) passed:
EFI test failed only at the battery check. The battery is quite dead.
Next, I booted into bog-standard-from-2011 Lion 10.7.0, which was fine and not sluggish. Given how this unit was built the week of July 30th that year (and my early 2011 13-inch MBP was built maybe a week later), this would have been precisely what shipped originally with this unit. But despite the 8GB stick in there (sourced from my early 2011 13-inch), it was still reading as 4GB.
I went ahead, partitioned the disk, and installed an HFS+ dosdude-patched Mojave on the second partition.
Mojave launched, although there are some issues:
1) The 8GB stick was still being detected as 4GB, no matter what method I tried. I know said stick is good as 8GB and is from Corsair. It’s what my early 2011 13-inch MBP has used for maybe seven or eight years.
I tried both slots, and I tried it solo and with a 4GB spare lying around. It still won’t read that stick at 8GB. Just to be sure, I threw in the 8GB into my late 2011 13-inch and it registered correctly. And then I brought over my two, 1333MHz 8GB sticks from that late 2011 into the A1286, and at long last, the system reported 16GB.
So that’s one mystery of a cranky A1286 I haven’t solved, but there is a way to navigate around it.
2) The screen cap foreshadowed the other unexpected issue: the patched Mojave won’t recognize the MBP’s trackpad.
Although dosdude noted in the Mojave patcher FAQ this can be an issue with the MBP5,2, I wasn’t anticipating this here. So I’ll re-run the patcher tonight. If that doesn’t do it, then a fresh install and double-checking patcher settings is in order.
At the end of the evening, I went in to change the thermal paste — which was, as expected, crumbly and semi-oily like stale cake.
Overall, it was clean inside. I just needed to dust everything lightly (even the fans and grilles were mostly clean with just thin, fine dust from past use).
And to close, enjoy a glow-up for the most loved GPU in all of Apple history:
Still more to do and more to plan for, but to go from “2011 15-inch won’t turn on” to “it’s running” has far exceeded my managed expectations.
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