What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[mdcmdcmdc]

Just found this thread! So many great uses for these still-powerful machines!

I have a 13" early 2011 MBP that I bought used in 2015. I maxed out the RAM (16 GB) and replaced the original 320GB HDD with a 480GB OWC SSD.

These days, it sits off to the side with two main functions:

1. I have my Time Machine disk attached, and its sharable so my main M1 MBP backs up over the network without having to be attached locally.

2. It runs Network Logger Pro to track outages on my internet. I started doing that during COVID, when my son's college classes were all online, and he used to say the internet was down a lot during the night (most of those turned out to be his machine. The ones shown in the pic below were recent problems that Xfinity was working on and notified me about, but overall the service is very reliable.).

 

[DCBassman]

The really cool thing about using one of these now is how happy OTHER people get when they see them!! Who would have thought that these white MacBooks would become popular again years later... 🙂

Yes, that the thing with these. An all-white laptop was and still is pretty unusual. Got my MB 7,1 a couple of hours ago, and it's in better shape than I thought it would be. Could not get it to reinstall High Sierra, something about update server uncontactable. Mint 22.3 slowish, MX as snappy as always, and now apparently a point release to 25.1.

 

[ToniCH]

Could not get it to reinstall High Sierra, something about update server uncontactable.

No servers or even internet connection are needed for OS installation if you have the media. But, lots of people had trouble installing HS to their machines back in the day. I even scored some good donations to my collection by installing HS to their machines. Sometimes installing el Capitan or something first was needed before it was successful but I always got it done.

I today did a couple of update rounds to some of my old MacBooks. Very first one was my 2008 Blackbook which runs PopOS. It went perfectly. The battery was totally depleted though so it took some time to charge.

Then MBP 2010 i5 17": updated Mint - all went ok but it broke the rEFInd boot manager -installation. That was easily fixed in Mint by issuing "sudo refind-mkdefault" -command in Terminal. Then I updated Kali Linux and it too broke the rEFInd. 😕 This time I could not get it fixed inside Kali. I managed to get Mac boot selector to show up and then booted Catalina and from there I could reinstall rEFInd and that fixed the issue. It detected the old installation and didn't screw it up but just fixed it. 👍

Next I started to update (and still do) my MBP 2012 i7 13". In this one I have the Linuxes installed to VMware Fusion as virtual machines. No problems updating Ubuntu and Kali Purple this far, one more to go. As MacOS I run Catalina in this one too.

Usually it is not necessary to update Linuxes if they are working fine but I am used to doing it every now and then.

 

[MacInTO]

I am not sure this fits anywhere but I did use a 30" Apple Cinema Display, so it kinda fits here. I connected my Samsung Galaxy S7+ tablet to the ACD and, to my surprise, it actually worked! Meanwhile Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave. 😵

Samsung DeX is not very useful, but it can mirror the tablet image also. The resolution of the two devices is very similar, 2800 x 1752 pixels for the Samsung tablet and 2560 x 1600 pixels for the ACD. I did this for fun and likely won't do it again as it is awkward to use a tablet and look at a different screen.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I made a quick calculation and I have now over 40. 😵 That is more than I expected. And do not have enough space to display them so not smart at all. I find myself a very bad in selling any of them away even though I sometimes decide to do it. 😉

EDIT: what I could remember now I have 20 Apple laptops/portables and about 25 desktops. I am sure I forget some but that is about where I roughly am today. Not all work after years or decades of no use but could be repairable.

And speaking of not smart I just made a first deal of this year on quite cheap 2008 MBP 17". I do know they are notorious for GPU problems. 😰 Seller says everything is working normally but could not say if it has been repaired at some point. Didn't want to pressure him to open it so risk is on me. It is probably 2.5GHz, has 4GB RAM and a SSD. He says battery works too.

Houston, I have a problem...this is my 5th 17" MBP and I still do not the one I have been after for years - the PB G4 17". 😂

LOL I am trying desperately to not find anything (like a Cube or Trashcan MP) but in typical fashion, I have committed to a cheap clean i5 late 2012 27" imac for my boys which I need to pick up this week. The only hesitation is that these have a pesky taped in lcd/screen combo that I will have to cut out with my wheelie tool when I upgrade it to a SSD for the machine (IIRC it has a 1Tb fusion drive in it right now). Im not scared to do it but ... WHY MAKE IT SO HARD, APPLE ?!? 😀 lol

Aaaanyways, this means the 2009 24inch core2duo Imac will come back to live with me in my office. As Im sure you can imagine being the owner of 40+ macs, space in my office is at a ... uhh ... premium. LOL.

And on we go with our Apple Gear Acquisition Syndrome. 🙂

 

[ToniCH]

Could not get it to reinstall High Sierra, something about update server uncontactable

Check this out:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...erra-on-an-ancient-macbook-pro-fixes.2426566/ 👍

 

[DCBassman]

No servers or even internet connection are needed for OS installation if you have the media. But, lots of people had trouble installing HS to their machines back in the day. I even scored some good donations to my collection by installing HS to their machines. Sometimes installing el Capitan or something first was needed before it was successful but I always got it done.

Check this out:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...erra-on-an-ancient-macbook-pro-fixes.2426566/ 👍

I got it done by digging around my extensive collection of flash drives. I knew there was a HS installer in there *somewhere*...
And so it proved, and all is just fine. On a related note, finding a 2x8GB memory setup for this was looking pretty pricey on eBay. No idea why. Anyhow, Amazon had a Timetec 'made for Mac' kit for a better price, so that's on its way.

 

[DisraeliGears]

Man, I think I really cooked this Mac Mini (for reference this is a mid-07 Core 2 Duo model). Per the suggestions here I reset PRAM and SMC to no avail. I wasn't able to boot into Single User mode at all, so I got my USB installer for 10.5 back out and was able to spin up a Leopard installer, but now Profiler doesn't display the SSD. I ran diskutil list and it didn't show up either.

Throwing darts at the wall, I tried to get into target disk mode, and it threw up the target disk mode bouncing icon. Cool, so I hauled out an Intel iMac, got out my firewire cable and...nada. Not IDed at all, not the disc drive nor the USB drive.

The other interesting thing is that Startup Manager (Opt on boot) doesn't work to select the USB drive. It displays the icon but doesn't function when you click on the arrow. The only way I get into an installer is through holding C at boot. Again, no Single User or D function at boot either. I'm pretty resigned to taking it apart and checking the drive through other tools (and I have a 32gb SSD not in use I can stick in for testing) but dang, this is the worst fail I've had in quite awhile

 

[ToniCH]

I decided to install a new Linux to MBP 15" 2010. Something has happened with many new Linux kernels that do not co-operate with the machine. Probably it's the Nvidia drivers. OS always end up with corrupted screens after first boot or already in the end of installation. I tried also without the extra drivers but got crashes so got bored and installed an older OS version. This could probably be fixed by modding some config files before enabling the drivers but used too much time already so didn't investigate more.

The ones that didn't work were: Zorin OS 18, Elementary OS 8.1, Mint 22.2, BigLinux with Kernel 66.

The ones I know that work with this machine: Zorin 17.3, Mint 21.2. So, I installed the Zorin.

 

[ToniCH]

So, I today received the MBP 17" 2008. It is a C2D 2.6GHz with 190GB SSD and has the optional LED backlit antiglare 1920x1200 display. Also came with 2 chargers and the original HDD and a protective case.

Well, it is not as pristine as I hoped. There are some dents and dings and it is a bit bent too. I need to remove the bottom case and play some tinsmith magic on it trying to make it better. It does not have the green sticker on the RAM bridge either. Would need to dismantle it fully to verify if it has the fixed GPU or not but I don't plan to do it as there is not much I could do about it anyways.

But the good thing is that everything seems to work at the moment. It came with Linux. I installed the Retail Snow Leopard and I am currently installing updates.

 

[ToniCH]

And now I have put basic sw in it: Office 2011, iWork 09, iLife 11, CS4, PowerFox browser, Macs Fan Control, Coconut Battery, Filemaker, CCC, Toast, Little Snitch, Aperture... etc.

I now notice it has an aftermarket battery from Cameron Sino. Don't know if the Coconut's results are accurate but it seems old but almost unused, which is nice.

BTW. it seems like the whole case is bent. Like somebody sat on it at some stage. I don't know if I can straighten this. And behind the Apple logo on the back of the display it looks like there is a black line, maybe something got loose. Oh, well - luckily this was not expensive - and works.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Man, I think I really cooked this Mac Mini (for reference this is a mid-07 Core 2 Duo model). Per the suggestions here I reset PRAM and SMC to no avail. I wasn't able to boot into Single User mode at all, so I got my USB installer for 10.5 back out and was able to spin up a Leopard installer, but now Profiler doesn't display the SSD. I ran diskutil list and it didn't show up either.

Throwing darts at the wall, I tried to get into target disk mode, and it threw up the target disk mode bouncing icon. Cool, so I hauled out an Intel iMac, got out my firewire cable and...nada. Not IDed at all, not the disc drive nor the USB drive.

The other interesting thing is that Startup Manager (Opt on boot) doesn't work to select the USB drive. It displays the icon but doesn't function when you click on the arrow. The only way I get into an installer is through holding C at boot. Again, no Single User or D function at boot either. I'm pretty resigned to taking it apart and checking the drive through other tools (and I have a 32gb SSD not in use I can stick in for testing) but dang, this is the worst fail I've had in quite awhile

Well if we're sharing worst fails LOL, Ive bricked not one but TWO powerbook G4 12"s and both in ways that made it impossible to combine them to make one good one - derp 😛 . Comes with the territory. 😀

I had a similar experience with my wife's Intel Mini running hisi. I updated Apple supplied firmware to it and the thing bricked itself. This was like 5 or 7 years ago LOL and I dont recall how I got it back up and running but I did - I assume it was through a backup. Anyways, it took me like a week of screwing with it to get it back, so dont give up. I really like them & their foot print, but my experience with Minis is that they are a grumpy lot of PITAs 🙂

Good luck!

 

[DCBassman]

And behind the Apple logo on the back of the display it looks like there is a black line, maybe something got loose.

This is an adhesive fault with this range of MBPs. The plastic loses adhesion and slips around. Apple went back to whatever they'd used before after this series. My 2007 is the same. An 'easy' fix if you think dismantling the display is 'easy'...

I decided to install a new Linux to MBP 15" 2010. Something has happened with many new Linux kernels that do not co-operate with the machine. Probably it's the Nvidia drivers. OS always end up with corrupted screens after first boot or already in the end of installation. I tried also without the extra drivers but got crashes so got bored and installed an older OS version. This could probably be fixed by modding some config files before enabling the drivers but used too much time already so didn't investigate more.

Just got a 2010 Macbook 7,1 Core 2 Duo. Can take 16GB just like the later Core series. MX 25 and now 25.1 install and run everything out of the box, and in a very short time, too. Worth looking at this newer versions, I reckon.

 

[ToniCH]

An 'easy' fix if you think dismantling the display is 'easy'...

No thanks! Doesn't bother me as it is facing the other way. 😉

EDIT: I find dismantling easy but putting them back together so that they look like they were never opened much harder.

 

[DisraeliGears]

Okay! Turns out that the SSD straight died. Pulled it from the Mac Mini, put in a different one and after some quirks getting it partitioned (the 10.5 installer I had doesn't let me switch from APM to GUID? This SSD was in a G3 previously, anyway 10.6 gave me the GUID option) I'm installing Snow Leopard now.

Weird that the SSD just gave up the ghost, I got it less than a year ago from OWC, so not a total nothing brand, and it's not like I've been pushing it. I tried it with two different SATA to USB adapters/enclosures and it refused to show up anywhere. Maybe I can get OWC to send me a new one.

Ah well, this is all just part of the fun isn't it? I do hate taking apart this Mac mini era though.

 

[DCBassman]

EDIT: I find dismantling easy but putting them back together so that they look like they were never opened much harder.

I'm definitely with you on this one!
😀

 

[ToniCH]

Okay! Turns out that the SSD straight died. Pulled it from the Mac Mini, put in a different one and after some quirks getting it partitioned (the 10.5 installer I had doesn't let me switch from APM to GUID? This SSD was in a G3 previously, anyway 10.6 gave me the GUID option) I'm installing Snow Leopard now.

Weird that the SSD just gave up the ghost, I got it less than a year ago from OWC, so not a total nothing brand, and it's not like I've been pushing it. I tried it with two different SATA to USB adapters/enclosures and it refused to show up anywhere. Maybe I can get OWC to send me a new one.

Ah well, this is all just part of the fun isn't it? I do hate taking apart this Mac mini era though.

Have you checked it with any disktool like DriveDx or something similar? DriveDx free version does not check external disks so it needs to be installed internally. But, the software is good and a good investment if one has few or more drives in rotation.

I've had few times Mac formatted drives go so haywire I have only been able to reformat them in a Windows or Linux machine ie. one with totally different file system. Also sometimes older MacOS Disk Utilities can do stuff newer versions can not. Worth a try. But, if it is dead then it is dead.

 

[DCBassman]

Finally got the RAM kit for the Macbook 7,1 2010 Unibody Poly.
Just swap in the SODIMMs, right?
Wrong. Oh, so wrong.
It took an hour of checking each SODIMM in each slot, thrusting modules in and out of slots, praying to whatever deity I could think of that I didn't have a bad RAM slot. Scraping and cleaning the SODIMM contacts - these are brand new cards, so they might be a bit gunky - and eventually it booted with no beeps and full capacity. Starting from scratch with High Sierra and will attempt to set this up as my away-from-home daily driver, ie email and browsing.
I was captivated for a while by the 11" MBA format, and still like it, but accidentally acquiring a 13" MBA and a couple of A1278 MBPs has got me socked in to the 13" format, at whatever resolution. So my away-from-home toybox for the moment will be an A1342, an A1378, and an A1466. And possibly an iPad. And...and...
😀

 

[DCBassman]

So my away-from-home toybox for the moment will be an A1342, an A1378, and an A1466.

I will be putting all these on High Sierra for the moment, and reinstating an A1355 Time Capsule 4TB to keep things backed up. This will sit in the under-desk place where my Mac Mini currently sits until it is sold off. Just about every other Mac I own will also be moved on, so if you're in the UK and needing something, DM me.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Have you checked it with any disktool like DriveDx or something similar? DriveDx free version does not check external disks so it needs to be installed internally. But, the software is good and a good investment if one has few or more drives in rotation.

I've had few times Mac formatted drives go so haywire I have only been able to reformat them in a Windows or Linux machine ie. one with totally different file system. Also sometimes older MacOS Disk Utilities can do stuff newer versions can not. Worth a try. But, if it is dead then it is dead.

This was my experience as well. This has happened to me a number of times - SSD borked unrecoverable in macOS. Iirc I used DiskGenius to recover the disk. Works fine now, repurposed as my Remix boot drive in my Powermac G5.

 

[ToniCH]

I must say that now after couple of days playing with Snow Leopard I really like it. It feels so quick, everything happens instantly. 😎

I did use SL daily until I swapped to HS when it came out. I skipped all the OS versions between them for daily use. I used HS until I started using OCLP and Monterey. My iMacs didn't support Dosdudes patches due their GPUs so I could not use them between those phases. With laptops I had much more variety OS-vise. Now my daily OS is natively installed Monterey (MP 6,1).

Now if I only could get the iTunes 11.4 radio to connect. I installed the Aqua Proxy and it did connect once but no success after that, now I get "there was an error connecting to Radio-service". Tips?

 

[DCBassman]

I must say that now after couple of days playing with Snow Leopard I really like it. It feels so quick, everything happens instantly. 😎

I wanted to put SL on this A1342, but cannot get it to work. Have found, by some idle browsing, an A1342 SL install dvd on eBay, so that's incoming. That is 10.6.4, so we'll see what happens. I've presumed, while messing with this, that one has to reset the date to install? I#d really like to put SL on at least one machine and give it a proper workout, now that Powerfox is available.

 

[ToniCH]

I wanted to put SL on this A1342, but cannot get it to work. Have found, by some idle browsing, an A1342 SL install dvd on eBay, so that's incoming. That is 10.6.4, so we'll see what happens. I've presumed, while messing with this, that one has to reset the date to install? I#d really like to put SL on at least one machine and give it a proper workout, now that Powerfox is available.

I don't have any experience on the A1342 but I had no problems installing SL from SL Retail DVD to the A1261. Booted from the DVD, formatted the SSD and then normal installation. After installing the software update worked normally too.

The preinstalled OS for A1342 is 10.6.1 or 10.6.3 depending on the model. Have you tried internet recovery (if it was available in 2009-2010?)? And have you tried this or this retail version? Then there is this one that according to reviews worked for some people on various machines.

 

[DCBassman]

One of the SL flash drives I've made causes the A1342 to insist on a restart. The same installer works flawlessly on my 2009 A1181. It's a bit of a mine field.

And have you tried this or this retail version?

Downloading as we type, thanks.

 

[ToniCH]

I just remembered that my Mac Mini 3,1 Server is also running Snow Leopard. It acts as a file transfer server between my various machines. So, if I need to transfer something from one machine to another over the network I usually do not try to do it directly (so don't have to enable filesharing on all machines) but connect to my "SLServer" instead. It has a 180GB SSD and a 1TB spinner. Works great with all my machines and more modern OSes too.

I noticed that I do not have an image file of my retail SL so I started the disk utility on my 2008 MBP, installed the DVD and now make a disk image and it is saved directly to the server drive. I will them move it from there to my archive drive.