What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[MBAir2010]

TheShortTimer , the isle.
thanks,
good movie very original
the "fish hooks" twisted many nerves in 2002,
I saw this with a Korean GF/housemate who was cringing during some parts of the film as well.

 

[SevenTheGamingKitty]

used one to read this post

 

[Sh3ldon]

Long live early Intel!😄

 

[Madr]

I run El capitan on the mac pro 1,1's but no banking. And i run firefox dynasty on there but i think i need a newer version because the graphics are not great. But it runs sites i can't reach on my MBP 2012 with mojave and chrome or Firefox esr/any browser. Topaz forums for instance.

Don't really use the browser on el capitan for sites i don't know though. Also i use the 1,1 every day for a couple of hours.

I use mojave on mbp 2012 for banking with 2 ad blockers/anti trackers and also keep the CC security code off there but never had troubles.

Moved a bit to a 2015 mbp with monterey and typing this on it now but it's not really for security. I don't see MACS get hacked. They really need to target you specific. But i hardly use email and know what not to do so i don't advise it.

 

[ToniCH]

You think any Belkin or Elgato tb dock works?

I have 2pcs of Belkin TB Express Dock (TB 2) and 2pcs of Elgato TB 2 Docks and an Elgato TB 3 Dock. They all work perfectly with all my Intel Macs. Elgatos have faster USB 3.

Belkin and Elgato are around the 50 euro mark here in the EU.

My first Elgato around 2-3 years ago was that much. Rest have been around 10-30 euros. I am in EU too. Old Thunderbolt docs are obsolete in most eyes so they can be had for almost nothing. Of course if you are in a hurry then that might be a problem, but stick around long enough and one probably pops up with reasonable asking price. No point in paying too much.

HP g2 could be found cheaper.

Yeah, but they do not work - so which one is more expensive? 😂

A question (maybe someone has already answered this in these nearly six thousand posts.): does anyone use these early Intels as their primary machine

Yes, I only use Intel machines as my primary machines. For years my primary machine was an iMac 27" 2011 and now its a MacPro 6,1. And my primary used laptops are Intel Macbook Pros up to 2014 vintage. I rarely use anything newer than Monterey so the MacPro is running it natively and others using OCLP. Other machines in this house in daily use include 2pcs of Mac Mini Servers from 2012, Mac Mini Server from 2009.

In addition to my previous question, I just wanted to clarify that what I'm curious about is whether anyone is using these early Intel processors with the latest Apple-supported macOS as primary machines, without using the Open Core legacy patcher. Personally, I'm convinced that if you use a VPN and a supported browser, and only visit trusted sites, these Macs can be used without any problems even if they're no longer officially supported, whether they're High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, or even Mavericks. And I mean for any use, even online banking. Am I wrong?

I run VPN and a "proper" firewall on each of the primary use machines and additionally use the Brave browser with uBlock Origin -extension. I occasionally run a virus scan too but have not seen anything infected in ~30 years of doing so yet.

Of course it is important that the firmware, firewalls and security is up to date on the routers and modems too. So, in practice there are many layers of security before any of the old Macs.

For online banking one must use a browser that is new enough to be supported by the banking system. No problems with anything I use with Monterey.

For hobby I run even older machines occasionally with no problems with them either.

 

[Madr]

I've bought numerous Belkin TB1/2/3 docks and they've all worked with my TB equipped early Intel Macs. From my experience, you can't go wrong with a Belkin. 🙂

Thank you! I saw this some days ago. Joevt also wrote something like it but this made it more clear to me.

The beklins are not so cheap here in the EU as are Elgado's. Or not so cheap as the g2's.

Which i find a bit weird because i just bought an amazon tb4 pro dock next to my Amazon tb4 basis dock because the pro in the US is the same price now as i paid for the basic on amazon.de (tip for M4 users!)

80/90 euro's shipped/VAT everything while the pro docks in Germany are still 160+

And the Belkin's here second hand are close to that amount! But maybe for Mac Pro 2013's because they have similar TB1/2 connecting to TB3/4 dock issues.

But for a new silicon mac it doesn't make sense but you need to know those amazon docks are cheap now.

 

[Madr]

I have 2pcs of Belkin TB Express Dock (TB 2) and 2pcs of Elgato TB 2 Docks and an Elgato TB 3 Dock. They all work perfectly with all my Intel Macs. Elgatos have faster USB 3.


My first Elgato around 2-3 years ago was that much. Rest have been around 10-30 euros. I am in EU too. Old Thunderbolt docs are obsolete in most eyes so they can be had for almost nothing. Of course if you are in a hurry then that might be a problem, but stick around long enough and one probably pops up with reasonable asking price. No point in paying too much.


Yeah, but they do not work - so which one is more expensive? 😂

Thank you! Are any of those pro docks? I think both Elgato and Belkin have a tb3 variant of a pro dock if i remember well. I think i need a pro dock because it has multiple TB3 ports and i need that for a fast TB4 SSD.

Although i'm thinking about just getting fast 10 Gb/s network but not sure yet.

Where in Europa are you located? I'm in the Netherlands and most second hand stuff is cheaper outside of this country. But yes patience is key!

 

[ToniCH]

Thank you! Are any of those pro docks?

No, they are exactly what I wrote they are.

I think i need a pro dock because it has multiple TB3 ports and i need that for a fast TB4 SSD.

I think you need to investigate what the speed of the link between your early Intel Mac and the dock is. I suspect it is nowhere near TB3 or TB4 speeds.

No point in investing big bucks to anything that is 2-3x faster than what your computer can take in.

I find it funny you are concerned that a dock is expensive if it costs 50-90 euros but then talk about fast TB4 SSD. Doesn't make sense to me. And why do you need multiple TB3 ports for one SSD?

But maybe for Mac Pro 2013's because they have similar TB1/2 connecting to TB3/4 dock issues.

What? I have no issues with Mac Pro 2013 and any of my TB2 or TB3 docks. Don't buy HP, Lenovo etc. docks, buy the ones that are known to work with old Macs. No issues.

Where in Europa are you located?

I am in Nordics. I suspect we have small fraction of stuff available vs. than you in the central Europe and still there are plenty available.

 

[TheShortTimer]

The beklins are not so cheap here in the EU as are Elgado's.

Where are you searching for them? I've bought all of mine from eBay UK and they didn't break the bank.

Or not so cheap as the g2's.

I suspect that the G2's are so cheap because they've been sourced from corporate organisations who've abandoned them as old hat and they paid someone to take them away.

But maybe for Mac Pro 2013's because they have similar TB1/2 connecting to TB3/4 dock issues.

This has already been answered but to reiterate, I have no issue with connecting my Belkin TB docks to my 2013 Mac Pro or my TB equipped MacBooks.

 

[DCBassman]

Away house/dog sitting for Christmas. Daily driver is the 2013 13' MBA running MX Linux 25. Backup is an ASUS S200E 11" touchscreen subnotebook running Win 10 Enterprise LTSC. Purely Apple stuff is taken care of by a 2020 iPad running iPadOS 26.2.
And all at an absolute max bandwidth of 4.7Mbps...

 

[Minghold]

2009 C2D 21.5" iMac with MacOS "Mojo" (Mojave-Optimized) w/DosDode1 patch. Hardware-acceleration and OpenGL work, color palette is correct, and machine is using under 2.6gb of 8 ram with the fans barely moving despite two games launched. Cold-boot chime-to-desktop time of 1min15sec off 7200rpm rotational drive with HFS+ boot partition. Hundreds of apps, plus Parallels 18 with BigLinux VM. (Lingering annoyance: occasional problem while cloning bootable backups via CCC5, GetBackup, or SuperDuper yield an imperfect copy that wants to gobble 75-85% ram and run hot despite not showing anything unusual in Activity Monitor. An initial partition sector-copy with Paragon Hard Disk Manager 1.2.241 solves this cloning problem, and CCC5 scheduled backups proceed fine thereafter.)

This machine is the first iMac with a 1080p 16:9 widescreen LCD (the 27" of the same year had the first 1440p display).

Never, ever, *ever* throw out an intel Mac.

 

[davigarma]

I fixed the broken stand on my 27" Haswell iMac. I didn't want to pay the nearly €400 Apple support was asking for, so I found the solution on Amazon USA. It only costs $17.99, but with customs and shipping it comes to €31.27, which is quite a bit less. I never had this problem with my 20" and 21" iMacs, but this one, weighing 9.5 kg, is very prone to breaking. It works perfectly.

iBofans Repair Replacement Hinge Broken Solution Silver for iMac 27" and iMac Pro 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018(Broken Hinge fit)(Broken Hinge Repair)(Adjust The Angle)

www.amazon.com

 

[alex_free]

Been doing this experiment where I’m daily driving my MacBook 2,1 mostly on 10.7. So far I’ve watched movies, the first episode of Fallout season 2, and have been streaming HD YouTube and kick at 480p. Oh, and I just made a huge breakthrough with a C library I’m writing (been trying to understand something about cd image formats for YEARS and it finally clicked). Also with cyberduck I can archive webpages and files on this MacBook and send them over to “home base” (a Mac mini late 2012 with a 20TB HDD). Going from visual studio code (really I use the open source non-micro$oft fork vscodium on Linux) to Xcode wasn’t too bad, and it works well enough as an IDE.

 

[next_cube]

Thank you! Are any of those pro docks? I think both Elgato and Belkin have a tb3 variant of a pro dock if i remember well. I think i need a pro dock because it has multiple TB3 ports and i need that for a fast TB4 SSD.

Although i'm thinking about just getting fast 10 Gb/s network but not sure yet.

Where in Europa are you located? I'm in the Netherlands and most second hand stuff is cheaper outside of this country. But yes patience is key!

OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock

Through a single cable the OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock brings 14 ports, convenience, and power to your Thunderbolt 3 equipped Windows PC, Mac, or iPad Pro.

www.owc.com

Bought 2 of these for my Intel Macs and they work just fine.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Strange to think that the "trashcan" Mac Pro was released exactly mid-way through the Intel era of Macs. (7 years 9 months from release of first Intel Macs to the trashcan; 7 years 1 month from release of trashcan to release of first Apple Silicon Macs.)

I just turned mine into my primary home virtual machine server. Upgraded it to 128 GB RAM, added a Thunderbolt 2 hard drive array (four 8 TB used "data center grade" spinning hard drives.) I should probably upgrade the CPU to the 12-core, but my VM workload isn't fully taxing it yet.

It takes over this duty from…. A 2010 ThinkPad (quad-core, 32 GB RAM, dual 1 TB SSDs.)

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Finally got the kids 24" imac back up and running. Chased a few ghosts for a while but ultimately dialed it down to the LCD failing which I bought one from ebay that was destroyed in shipping (poor pack job) got a refund (too bad because it was a great price) and picked up the one I used now for $50 shipped usd which was very, very well packed and appreciated after the prior experience.

Working well. Streaming xmas tunes while I post this.

 

[MBAir2010]

since I somehow injured my right shoulder very bad, I have "sit on my butt" day 2
I need to catch up on my early intel MacBook Air 2010 with Mountain Lion on an original ssd drive.
last several months I had problems installing ML via a thumb drive on the MBP2012 13" i7.
and even posted a new thread here.

that being typed, I might update or ask for help today.

 

[Snowlover]

since I somehow injured my right shoulder very bad, I have "sit on my butt" day 2
I need to catch up on my early intel MacBook Air 2010 with Mountain Lion on an original ssd drive.
last several months I had problems installing ML via a thumb drive on the MBP2012 13" i7.
and even posted a new thread here.

that being typed, I might update or ask for help today.

Sorry about your shoulder.
I just posted to your thread on the 2012 mbp.

"Do you still have Mtn Lion installed on any other mac? You could use carbon copy cloner to make a clone of it onto an external drive and then clone it onto the 2012 mbp.
This scenario is one of the reasons I keep clones of my favorite mac versions"

 

[Minghold]

You could use carbon copy cloner to make a clone of it onto an external drive and then clone it onto the 2012 mbp.
This scenario is one of the reasons I keep clones of my favorite mac versions"

CCC3, CCC4, CCC5, CCC6, GetBackupPro3, Paragon Partition Master, CAINE, and RescueZilla are all extremely useful utilities for making bootable backups of MacOS drives and individual partitions. Disable SIP before cloning. (Always inspect ram usage with Activity Monitor after a clone to see if there's a spike in ram usage; if there is, a different tool may be necessary.)

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

since I somehow injured my right shoulder very bad, I have "sit on my butt" day 2
I need to catch up on my early intel MacBook Air 2010 with Mountain Lion on an original ssd drive.
last several months I had problems installing ML via a thumb drive on the MBP2012 13" i7.
and even posted a new thread here.

that being typed, I might update or ask for help today.

I tore my rotator cuff on my right shoulder earlier this summer helping my elderly parents with some yard work that needed doing in their property. It hasn’t been the same since. Granted I’m not 35 anymore haha. Anyways, I was moving an old 08 41” flatscreen that I keep around (because the I/o is awesome) and reinjured my shoulder moving it in my office. Man that TV is HEA-VY! Not light like modern TVs. Our houses TV is 60” and less than half the weight of this old dinosaur lol but again, the i/o can’t be beat for game systems 🙂

 

[Jesse_Bassett]

I put mint 22.3 onto a mid 2009 macbook laptop. It now does not overheat and my friend can work on her college work on it.

 

[Minghold]

I put mint 22.3 onto a mid 2009 macbook laptop. It now does not overheat and my friend can work on her college work on it.

For those considering Linux-on-Mac options (without running it in a VM), I strongly recommend BigLinux, with the default proprietary drivers option. (Most i-series intel Macs will otherwise be missing Broadcom wifi drivers, among other things.) Note: BigLinux has a Cinnamon version.

 

[TheShortTimer]

My 13" 2012 MBP running Ventura enabled me to further my appreciation of Korean cinema (and world cinema generally). With the help of VLC, I watched "Untold Scandal" - a Korean retelling of the French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses.

I prefer it to the 1988 Hollywood adaptation by Stephen Frears because the intrigue, villainy and sexual tension are more charged but without veering into the territory of tastelessness and the antagonists possess a greater level of despicable and cunning behaviour.

 

[DCBassman]

WHIDWAEIR? Given a lot more thought as to just what to do with the, to me, excessive collection I've amassed.
The 2013 13" MBA was my daily driver over the Christmas period while away from home, which trivial task it performed flawlessly running MX25 Linux. The only other Mac that is "present" is the late 2012 i7 Mini, which sits on a shelf below my main table, on the floor under which are the two Windows 10 LTSC boxes. So, 10 examples of Powerbook/Macbook/Macbook Air/ Macbook Pro. I may well keep the 2011 11" MBA. Also one (the i7) 13" 2011 MBP. I think everything else should go. So this would be three Powerbooks (a 12 and 2 17s), a Macbook A1181 2009, Macbook Pros 2011(1x13", 2x15") Macbook Pro 2007 17", and MBA 2013 11" i5.
Keep: Mini, MBA13" MBA11" and that's it. Over the next two or three years, I'll change everything to some flavour of Linux, both the Macs and the Windows PCs. Then it's simply a quest to keep everything going until either they or me gives up the ghost!
😀

 

[DouglasCarroll]

WHIDWAEIR? Given a lot more thought as to just what to do with the, to me, excessive collection I've amassed.
The 2013 13" MBA was my daily driver over the Christmas period while away from home, which trivial task it performed flawlessly running MX25 Linux. The only other Mac that is "present" is the late 2012 i7 Mini, which sits on a shelf below my main table, on the floor under which are the two Windows 10 LTSC boxes. So, 10 examples of Powerbook/Macbook/Macbook Air/ Macbook Pro. I may well keep the 2011 11" MBA. Also one (the i7) 13" 2011 MBP. I think everything else should go. So this would be three Powerbooks (a 12 and 2 17s), a Macbook A1181 2009, Macbook Pros 2011(1x13", 2x15") Macbook Pro 2007 17", and MBA 2013 11" i5.
Keep: Mini, MBA13" MBA11" and that's it. Over the next two or three years, I'll change everything to some flavour of Linux, both the Macs and the Windows PCs. Then it's simply a quest to keep everything going until either they or me gives up the ghost!
😀

One of my "resolutions" last year was to get rid of a pile of Macs that I had around the house but weren't really being used. It was a little hard to get rid of them at first but what made it easier for me was I erased them all, upgraded them all with memory and SSD's that I had laying around the house, installed the latest versions of the OS that they would run natively, and then donated them all to a local computer recycling place that resells systems to people. That made me feel a lot better knowing that I left them all in great shape ready for the next person who got them. I turned in some pretty nice machines, no junk, so I hope that I was able to give back a little to the community that way and hopefully someone(s) out there are at this moment enjoying the systems. The only machines that I kept are in my signature line and each one was for a specific reason either as "for fun" machines (like the 2013 Mac Pro and 2008 White MacBook) or for traveling light (my 11" MacBook Air) or for a specific use (my 2012 MacBook Pro to sync with my iPod since it "just works" with that specific iTunes and MacBook) or my main daily up to date machines (My 16" MacBook Pro I'm using now or the M1 Mini for my Son).

Anyways, good luck with getting rid of your excess machines but if you take the time to do it right (maybe donate them to someone else who would enjoy them?) you can come out feeling pretty good about it in the end and also have less clutter in your life which is another reward.

🙂