Upgrading my Mid 2010 Macbook Pro 13''

Hello to all, this is my first post on this forum.
I have come here for advice for a major hardware upgrade.

Here's my why I wish to upgrade my hardware: Im fed up with my macbook pro and its sluggish performance with programs for minor photo editing and periodically terrible performance with apple programs such as Itunes, Iphoto, garageband, and even safari.

Here are my current macbook specs:
CPU: 2.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 1066
RAM: 4 Gb DDR3, 1066
HDD: 320 Gb, 5400 RPM

And this is what I THINK I want to do:
CPU: q9000 Quad, 1066 (not sure if this is necessary)
RAM: 8 Gb DDR3, 4Gb x 2
HDD: 250 Gb, 7200 RPM or 80 Gb Solid State

Any advice? I really dont want to get a new laptop, I feel like Ive been getting new laptops every year... Id rather upgrade my current laptop.

If you know of any upgrades that are better, please tell me. I understand this upgrade will cost me around $300-500, but thats prolly all I'll get for my laptop anyways if I sold it.

Thanks!!!

The CPU is not upgradable on the MacBook/MacBook Pro only ram and hard drive. That spec on the original should not be sluggish unless you have a lot of apps open at the same
time and not enough hard drive free space left.

jmack said:

And this is what I THINK I want to do:
CPU: q9000 Quad, 1066 (not sure if this is necessary)
RAM: 8 Gb DDR3, 4Gb x 2
HDD: 250 Gb, 7200 RPM or 80 Gb Solid State

I understand this upgrade will cost me around $300-500, but thats prolly all I'll get for my laptop anyways if I sold it.

Click to expand...

Like "osxx" mentioned...you can only upgrade the ram & HD. But since you listed a $300-$500 price-tag (including a cpu upgrade)...I would love to know where you got the price information for that estimate?

- Nick

pigoo3,
q9000..............$325
8Gb DDR3.........$85
320Gb 7200.......$62, (I own a 2.5'' SDD, 80Gb, $0)
Total= $472, $410 w/ SDD


Links:
q9000> Item Detail
2x 4Gb> Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Memory for Apple Model 976647A
HDD 320Gb> Seagate ST9320423AS 320GB 2.5" Momentus 7200.4... in stock at OWC

Question: Not to be a "know it all", because when it comes to Mac I really don't know much of anything. But why isnt the q9000 compatible? It is the 472/P socket. Just because it won't work with the OS? I just thought since the p8600,p8700, and p8800 are compatible, the q9000 might be. But, I'm probably wrong.

Question: Not to be a "know it all", because when it comes to Mac I really don't know much of anything. But why isnt the q9000 compatible? It is the 472/P socket. Just because it won't work with the OS? I just thought since the p8600,p8700, and p8800 are compatible, the q9000 might be. But, I'm probably wrong.

Click to expand...

The question that I would pursue is if the current CPU in your MBP is socketed or soldered in. Do you know for sure? Because if it's soldered down, there's probably no way you're going to successfully replace it without destroying something.

You might be able to find out from iFixit: The free repair manual by looking over their take apart instructions for various model Mac machines.

Before I ripped out the CPU and possibly destroyed something I'd add a nice SSD, say a Vertex 2 and up the RAM...and see if I really still had performance complaints.

I say this because with a 5400rpm drive its no wonder your disgusted with performance. ...and RAM, well 4GB should be plenty, but its not expensive so why not double it?

Now, on that possible CPU upgrade. As Chscag mentioned, you want to see if your current CPU is removable. I also wonder about the Mac's firmware and whether or not it will handle such an upgrade. ...be careful there.

Wait... running those standard programs with that computer and you aren't happy with the results? I don't really see how that's possible... iTunes, iPhoto, and Safari all run great on my 08 blackbook (2.2/4gbRAM) and it is overall slower than your computer.... of course there is always faster lol...

But yea if you want more speed and you're running a lot of programs adding more RAM would definitely do the trick; adding another HDD with a higher RPM would help as well. Oh and make sure you actually are quitting the programs and not just hitting the X; doing that closes the window but the program will still run in the background. I'm sure you know this already, just throwing that out there

Go with an SSD. Look into replacing the optical drive with a second HDD if you need more space. And buy 8gb of ram since it is cheap anyway right now.

CPU is soldered on so... good luck with that.

How much free space do you have on the hard drive? You should have at least 150gig for the Mac to run well. If you don't, then first step would be to move all the big files to an external drive, empty your trash, and reboot.

If that doesn't work, then try erasing and restoring your hard drive as outlined at the end of this article...
About disk optimization with Mac OS X

If that doesn't work, then you may need to add memory and/or replace the hard drive.

wheelguy12 said:

How much free space do you have on the hard drive? You should have at least 150gig for the Mac to run well. If you don't, then first step would be to move all the big files to an external drive, empty your trash, and reboot.

Click to expand...

150gb? If your pagefile's big enough to fill that, you've got problems! Surely you meant 15gb? All you need is enough space for OSX to page as needed. About 10gb should be more than enough.

The processor is soldered in on your laptop, meaning it's impossible to upgrade it. I doubt the firmware and chipset would be compatible, even if it were socketed.

As the others have mentioned, it shouldn't be particularly slow for menial stuff like Safari and iTunes. It would bog down if you're doing something like running a big ProTools project, but it's powerful enough for your needs by the sounds of things. Replacing the hard drive might be a good start - I was plagued by random beachball spinning and slowness, which turned out to be a failing hard drive. Reinstalling OSX is also a good idea...