Should I upgrade?

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My birthday is coming up and I'm thinking about upgrading my MBP (2.4) from 10.4.11 to 10.5.4. I have 2GB of Ram right now and I'd like to max it out at 4GB also (maybe it would speed up Parallels Desktop?)

I have CS3, MS Office 04, iWork08, iLife08, Final Cut Pro and the newest edition of Parallels Desktop with Vista Ultimate running on this computer. I DO NOT WANT to MESS up any of the current software and I have never done a Mac OS upgrade before.

Should I go for it? Does the new OS really install right over the old one?

Is it safe to purchase 10.5 on ebay if its sealed and unused? Can I purchase the Ram on ebay also?
 

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When installing a newer OS, whether it be OS X, Windows, or Linux, it's always best to do a clean install. That would be way too much work in your case since you seem to have quite a bit on your machine already.

I'm not sure an "archive and install" would be completely successful and may wind up causing you problems. Perhaps someone else who has more experience in installing Leopard over Tiger (upgrade) can advise you better.

As for purchasing Leopard and memory off eBay..... Memory is inexpensive and can be purchased from sellers such as Crucial, OWC, CanadaRam, etc. All are great to do business with and absolutely guaranty what they sell. You can purchase Leopard from NewEgg, Amazon, and many other legitimate sellers on the web.

Stay away from eBay. (My opinion)

Regards.
 
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Where to buy ram

like the guy said above, you can get it from those stores. But on ebay you just have to be careful, if it is from an established buyer and the seller's selling ram pulled directly from a mac, I'll buy that. But if it is just a picture that looks as if it's copied and pasted from a google search then I'll stay away.

There are many chinese manufacturers who makes counterfeit ram, those ram has a shorter working life than an original one. (Bad sectors) tends to be the issue with ram.


Derek.
 
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Anyone else able to help on the OS upgrade?
 
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Someone must have done this out there?
 
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I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard on my Intel iMac. I didn't do a clean install, just wrote over the old OS. I've had zero problems with it so far, and I upgraded about 8 months ago. I have most of the same software you have, and by now it all works perfectly well on Leopard. I run Windows XP in Parallels (only for watching Netflix online, hehe), and the upgrade didn't screw it up.

I'd buy RAM from here: http://eshop.macsales.com. That's Other World Computing (OWC), a highly reputable source for all kinds of Mac stuff. I got 3 GB for I think $180 a year-and-a-half ago (compared to over $700 to get the same RAM from Apple... ridiculous!).
 
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I did it with no problems.
 
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I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard on my Intel iMac. I didn't do a clean install, just wrote over the old OS. I've had zero problems with it so far, and I upgraded about 8 months ago. I have most of the same software you have, and by now it all works perfectly well on Leopard. I run Windows XP in Parallels (only for watching Netflix online, hehe), and the upgrade didn't screw it up.

I'd buy RAM from here: http://eshop.macsales.com. That's Other World Computing (OWC), a highly reputable source for all kinds of Mac stuff. I got 3 GB for I think $180 a year-and-a-half ago (compared to over $700 to get the same RAM from Apple... ridiculous!).


Thank you. This is exactly what I am looking to hear.
 
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I likewise did a direct upgrade from Tiger to Leopard on my 2.4GHz MBP which, at the time also had 2GB Ram (now I have 4... it's just so cheap!)

Anyways, I had zero problems. Everything worked very well... and having just migrated over from the Windows world when I did that, I was needless to say, quite impressed. (I could tell you horror stories about trying a direct upgrade in Windows).

Last month I re-did a clean install of OS X, but only because I swapped out my MBP's Hard Drive for a bigger one. But I definitely gotta say that Apple has really perfected the whole direct upgrade. No app problems, no malfunctions, no errors. Works like a charm.
 
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Upgrade installation here with many of the same apps as you. No problems here. Had to redo my printers and that's it.
 
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I've got a 4GB (2x2GB) Crucial ram upgrade coming this week.

Keep the upgrading stories coming! Let me know about any issues you all had.
 

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I've got a 4GB (2x2GB) Crucial ram upgrade coming this week.

Keep the upgrading stories coming! Let me know about any issues you all had.


Just curious, but do u remember what the model number of the Crucial RAM you are going to buy?

Crucial is a great brand but I find them a little over priced..>_>"

I just want to do some research on RAM and It's kind of hard since there aren't really any MAC only hardware benchmark websites.
 
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You shouldn't have any major problems doing an upgrade or archive and install. However, there is always a chance something will go wrong. I would make a bootable backup using something like super duper to an external drive first. That way if something goes wrong you can just boot from your external if you have to. Also I would make a time machine back up after installing leopard on another external drive or a different partition on the same drive as the super duper backup. If you have problems after upgrading you can do a erase and install of Leopard and import all your data from the time machine backup. That's just my thought to make sure your data stays intact. Good luck and the extra RAM will give you a nice little speed boost.
 
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Just curious, but do u remember what the model number of the Crucial RAM you are going to buy?

Crucial is a great brand but I find them a little over priced..>_>"

I just want to do some research on RAM and It's kind of hard since there aren't really any MAC only hardware benchmark websites.

Their ram is not overpriced. It is right in line with what other discount online stores are charging. You could get off-brand ram somewhere else for $10 cheaper, but there is really no warranty support with that stuff. You can go onto Crucial.com and use their new Mac system scanner. It will tell you exactly what you need. OR you can use their manual system profile tool. Just hit Apple->Macbook Pro->2.2/2.4 15"
 

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Their ram is not overpriced. It is right in line with what other discount online stores are charging. You could get off-brand ram somewhere else for $10 cheaper, but there is really no warranty support with that stuff. You can go onto Crucial.com and use their new Mac system scanner. It will tell you exactly what you need. OR you can use their manual system profile tool. Just hit Apple->Macbook Pro->2.2/2.4 15"

I beg to differ, Kingston, Corsair and OZC are on par with Crucial and they offer lifetime warranty on their ram as well.

I plan to get myself Kingston Hyper X low Latency memory. :p
 
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Hi I am trying to upgrade from 10.4.11 to 10.5.4. Keep getting a message saying that I cannot to it on my computer and can't go further in the start up. Are my specs wrong for this upgrade? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Thanks for your help!
 

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