Macbook upgrading questions

Hi, I am completely new to macs and to this forum! Of course, I have many questions... :Blushing:

My girlfriend has gifted me her old macbook, purchased mid 2008. It's a 2.1 Core2Duo with a gigabyte of ram and (I think) 120Gigabyte 5400 HD. I'm wondering what to upgrade on the machine. Here are my thoughts:

Firstly, I'm definitely thinking of adding some ram, like 2, maybe 4 of these: Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced 1GB DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Memory for Apple Notebook Model 971504A.

Then also would love to get an SSD, but am not sure which one would be a good pair for the macbook. I also realize that OS X 10.5 doesn't support TRIM, though I'll probably upgrade to Tiger in a few months. Will this one work? Newegg.com - Kingston SSDNow V+100 KR-S1296-3H 2.5" 96GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I haven't really figured out how good the battery still is, but it would probably pay off to replace it with a new one. Now, official replacement is $130. Has anyone had any luck with offbrand batteries for cheaper?

What are everybody's throughts on that? As you can see, I like tinkering with my hardware.;P But I'd like to make sure the computer performs its best, and I can continue using it for years into the future. Thanks for your time!

From the sounds of it, you have the same MB I do - a 2.1 C2D, early 08 MB. As for your RAM question, you only have two slots so you can't put in four chips. If you want 4GB of RAM, you'll need 2x2GB (preferable) or 1x4GB.

It would also seem that you have your OS X order mixed up - Tiger preceded Leopard (Tiger is 10.4, Leopard is 10.5). That machine can support Lion which I believe has at least limited TRIM support (I'll have to defer to someone else here for clarification).

As for the battery, only you can determine how well it works. I bought mine in July of 08 so it would seem as if our MBs are about the same age. The condition of my battery is noted as "replace soon" but I likely use my MB in different ways than your girlfriend did. Check out the condition first before you commit to purchasing a new one.

I would update to Snow Leopard and definitely upgrade the ram , I am partial to Crucial as I have never had a problem with them. As for the drive thats user preference but I would rather have a WD 500GB at 7200 RPM at a whole lot cheaper price.

Thanks for the quick reply! +rep

vansmith said:

From the sounds of it, you have the same MB I do - a 2.1 C2D, early 08 MB. As for your RAM question, you only have two slots so you can't put in four chips. If you want 4GB of RAM, you'll need 2x2GB (preferable) or 1x4GB.

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Yeah, I didn't check! Will this set do the trick: Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Memory for Apple Model 976559A ?

vansmith said:

It would also seem that you have your OS X order mixed up - Tiger preceded Leopard (Tiger is 10.4, Leopard is 10.5). That machine can support Lion which I believe has at least limited TRIM support (I'll have to defer to someone else here for clarification).

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YES! I mean 10.7 Lion. I still get confused with the cat names. I favor Ubuntu naming convention as slightly less difficult to keep up with.

vansmith said:

As for the battery, only you can determine how well it works. I bought mine in July of 08 so it would seem as if our MBs are about the same age. The condition of my battery is noted as "replace soon" but I likely use my MB in different ways than your girlfriend did. Check out the condition first before you commit to purchasing a new one.

Click to expand...

Is there a built in software utility that tells on the condition of the battery? Or is it just a matter of seeing how long the computer lasts without a charger? I'd really love it to last about 3 hours (length of my typical class) - I'll have to check to see if it can be done!

saurongt said:

Is there a built in software utility that tells on the condition of the battery? Or is it just a matter of seeing how long the computer lasts without a charger? I'd really love it to last about 3 hours (length of my typical class) - I'll have to check to see if it can be done!

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Two ways:

1. Go to "About This Mac" (Apple menu)...then click on "More Info"...then click on "Power" in the list on the left.
2. Download & install a program called "Coconut Battery".

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/

HTH,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Two ways:

1. Go to "About This Mac" (Apple menu)...then click on "More Info"...then click on "Power" in the list on the left.
2. Download & install a program called "Coconut Battery".

coconutBattery 2.7 - by coconut-flavour.com

HTH,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try that tonight!

osxx said:

I would update to Snow Leopard and definitely upgrade the ram , I am partial to Crucial as I have never had a problem with them. As for the drive thats user preference but I would rather have a WD 500GB at 7200 RPM at a whole lot cheaper price.

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Thanks, yeah, I'm having second thoughts about it. Especially if I go with Snow Leopard instead of Lion (and it looks like I can't directly upgrade to Lion anyway), I'll probably end up getting a 7200k drive. Though in future, I'm thinking along the lines of a 90-120G SSD and an external 500G+ for big data.

Can you post a link to any crucial products which would fit my macbook? I could only find their desktop memory on newegg.

benm said:

In response to your battery question, if you do need a new battery you can get cheaper ones than Apple's that are pretty good quality. Sites like CurrentWerks and OWC have excellent choices. I prefer CurrentWerks, but its up to you where to get a replacement battery. If you don't want to spend the full 130, there are definitely places out there with cheaper batteries with comparable quality. Cheers.

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Thanks! I will definitely check them out after I try conditioning the existing battery.

+1 for the 500GB 7200 RPM drive. The SSD just isn't worth the money.