2006 Black Macbook --- LoBo Swap?

[Superdos]

I'm probably some sort of goof for trying to make this happen, but I recently acquired a mid-2006? black Macbook A1181 with a Core Duo T2500 onboard, and it's pretty wrecked. I have to replace the entire top casing and bottom casing, optical drive (which will probably get a hard drive adapter) and the heatsink fan as that's gone sticky... Thanks Sunon.

I've looked and it seems there's been interest in the far past in replacing the logic board in these suckers with something newer, and to that extent, more efficient. I'm perfectly comfortable and able to do a logic board swap, as I've had to do it numerous times in the past... but never an upgrade. Some forum posts from MacRumors and other sites have pointed that some things are going to need replacing such as the actual CPU heatsink as from one model to the next they revised it down to one temperature sensor, something with an inverter cable...? and something else about a bluetooth module. Yet, on both boards, I want to call that utter crap since most of the connectors are the same, if not just placed differently.

Has anyone ever attempted to do any sort of swapping between the original design A1181 13.3 Macbooks before, and if so, how does one go about it? Preferrably I'd like to move up to at least something with a T8100 2.1 or T8300 2.4, as I can already find logic boards on eBay for under $40 for that amount. I want to avoid the GMA950 altogether if I can afford to, especially since my goal is to boot Linux on the Macbook as the main OS, or possibly Windows 7 for kicks to start.

Currently if I just go about getting replacements for the system as it stands it will cost me about $50 in parts which includes the bottom casing, upper assembly with diffferent keys missing than mine currently, and a delta fan instead of a Sunon Maglev. May consider an Adda if I can find one cheap, they tend to make pretty good fans. I can hold off on an upper assembly for now and just get the missing keys, perhaps, since there seems to be no damage other than the plastic peeling syndrome they all face... but it just looks bad.

ALTERNATIVELY, I can find the entire bottom casing of a blackbook on eBay with board and heatsink/fan/etc. for a decentish price in the low-$50 range. but then i'm reading things need to be replaced, AGAIN, because stuff with the inverter cable and such-- this doesn't make any sense... the cables for the display look exactly the same as they did in 2006 as they do for the 2008 board! Can someone explain this to me as to why someone's saying this?

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

The Santa Rosa/Penryn models did revise quite a bit. I know the 2009 standoffs were different for board mounting, I'm not sure on 2006-2008 swaps.

 

[Superdos]

The Santa Rosa/Penryn models did revise quite a bit. I know the 2009 standoffs were different for board mounting, I'm not sure on 2006-2008 swaps.

The one thing I noticed was the temp sensor placements, that's about it to a certain extent I can see as far as the LoBo standoffs themselves-- past that, I want to know why I'd have to get a new inverter cable. IIRC the only reason I can think is someone saying a cable from the inverter goes to the wireless card-- which wouldn't make any utter sense unless it was to add a third antenna for a tri-antenna MIMO card instead of the BCM94321 cards used in some models. My mom has a Late 2007 model with the 4321 I dropped in from a Dell, uses both the original 802.11g card's antennas just fine and hasn't had a single problem. I have a small cache of 4321's I can make use of that are out of Dells and other macbooks that'll just make everything work out for that, but sheeeeeeesh.

Another thing I'm seeing is the addition of the PRAM battery now being housed under the lip of the Superdrive on the right-hand side of the bottom housing, out from under the 2006 model's location under the LoBo. probably because of the board revise they didn't have the ability to hide it under there anymore. This then also requires you get the newer speakers, and the right speaker assumes two standoffs, oen in the same first-mount location and the other doesn't exist on the 2006 housing. At this point it'd be easier to just get a bottom housing with board/heatsink/fan from a mid/late 2008 model and drop all my existing parts on that aren't the board.

Right now I MUST replace the logic board as it's no longer charging the battery at all, and it doesn't make either of the Magsafe chargers I have which are known good light up when connected... but it'll still apply power to the port and board allowing it to turn on. if I could figure out that problem (already tried resetting the SMC, any other ideas?), I can go right ahead and swap the board with this late 2006 white one I have sitting here which is another of my mother's Macbooks she's taking back and forth with her to her job so she doesn't have to care if it's stolen. She only needs 10.6.8, so the T2500 board in the blackbook would do her more good than the one with the 1.83 Twhateveritis C2D that won't be doing 64-bit stuff anyway! Doing that swap would be a walk in the park because of how minimal the difference in the logic board and connected peripherals there is. it's insane. it'd at least make for a good stop-gap until I can do some proper not-so-rushed research into anything I'd have to do to get it running as a much newer version of itself. and with the small abundance of these logic boards up on eBay and elsewhere, it's not hard to find them if so necessary.... I just don't want a Core Duo. I do NOT want a Core Duo. it has to be Core 2, and it has to be 45nm, hence why the 2008 models are what I'm shooting for. From what I understand and know of from experience in modern PC laptops from that time, a 65 to 45nm upgrade drastically improves upon the efficiency of the heatsink it's contacting since there's less contact area to work with, so the heatsink is actually a little bigger than it originally was for its intention to be used on a 65nm chip. As I've never used used a 45nm Core 2 Macbook for more than 5 minutes I can't necessarily attest to that being the case with them, but I can at least dream.