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Finally, an Intel

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
In which Bunsen joins the 21st century at long last.

So I was driving home the other day, and noticed I was in the general vicinity of a branch of Cash Converters I hadn't visited for a long while, and had some spare cash in my bank account for a change. I dropped in to have a random look at what they might have. I was mighty tempted by a tiny Thinkpad for $110, thinking it would make a good little hackintosh ...

... till I spotted the $200 MacBook Pro sitting next to it :D A quick check of my bank balance later and I was out the door, with my first ever Intel Mac. Stock 1GB RAM, 120GB HD, dead battery, 30 day warranty.

I've since bumped it up to 3GB RAM with a stick out of my dead netbook. Next upgrades; a working battery (they start around $30 shipped on the eebilpay); a small SSD boot drive (moving the spinning drive to the DVD bay); possibly a BookEndz docking station (or DIY equivalent).

While my 2002 dual 1GHz G4 Quicksilver has served me surprisingly well up till now, this is a substantial leap forward - to 2006, a whole four Moore's law generations, or two tax-depreciation cycles; and puts me within running distance of the present OS refresh cycle. And while $200 MPBs might be common as dirt on the US market, this is an absolute bargain for here, even with the battery issue (which hopefully will be the actual battery and not the charging circuit - tbc)

 

Bunsen

Admin-Witchfinder-General
My thoughts precisely. Gotta admit, I was tempted to go back the next day for that Thinkpad, but I figure I'm better off spending money on maxing this thing out first.

 

PowerPup

Well-known member
Ooo, congrats Bunsen! :D I can't wait to finally get my hands on an Intel Mac. (Desktop or Laptop.) But I'll probably just end up spending my money on some machine I'll setup for Dual booting Windows 7 and Linux. :p Enjoy your new Mac. ;)

 

superpantoufle

Well-known member
2006 MacBook Pro? Hopefully it's a late 2006 Core 2 Duo, and not the terrible 1st gen Core Duo MacBook Pro, with which you'd be far from four Moore's law generations away from your Quicksilver! :cool:

Actually the Quicksilver I use as my backup Mac feels faster running Leopard today than my first Core Duo MacBook felt running Tiger in 2006-2007.

 

jongleur

Well-known member
Good pickup Bunsen!

Just refurbed a white 2008 MacBook last weekend. 4GB of RAM on its way (eBay $25) from a US dealer. New battery to replaces the dead one (eBay $32). 750GB 7200rpm HDD that I had put in my AcerAspire HackBook Nano was transferred. Every now and again it can't detect the charge on the battery, but a quick SMC rest, and bingo! Back on track.

Happy as!

MacBooks are good solid little machines, and this one will see me through a couple of more years. As it is a 2.4G C2D currently running 10.6.8, I can run 10.7 if I need, and maybe even 10.8.

PS. Still using my QS2002 as my main machine as well.

PPS. This weekend will setup Win7 in BootCamp.

 

classic

Well-known member
Welcome to the 21st century!

My GF has a MBP of the same vintage.

The matte screen is easier on the eyes + the keyboard is great to type on (better than my 2009 unibody MBP I think)

$AU200 is a bargain and with the upgrades you plan, it should be a real hum-dinger.

Congrats! :)

 

24bit

Well-known member
Congratulations - from here too!

I would go there again to have a closer look at the X60. If it has a C2D cpu it would run Lion rather easily.

WLAN would have to be exchanged probably for OSX compatibility and the GMA950 only has 32bit drivers for Lion AFAIK.

But it sounds like a deal still.

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Nice score, B. If I ever get used to OS X, I may get an Intel Mac as well.

Most of you are way ahead of me, I'm just now getting my QS'02 set up, but I've been living in an OS 9 bubble on purpose.

 

LCGuy

LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
....A Mac...................

....at Crap Converters.............................

....at a reasonable price....................................... :eek:

I didn't even think such a thing was possible! :O In all seriousness, congratulations, and welcome to the Intel club. :D

 

gobabushka

Well-known member
Congratulations comrade on your fine conquest!

All kidding aside, I have a 1st gen MacBook, I will say that OSX performance was marginal at best. So...I put Xubuntu on it, and it runs awesome! Even with a bunch of things open, it doesnt slow down. Normally, I run Virtualbox with an XP install, maybe my linux of the day flavor that i'm playing with. Also Chrome, and LibreOffice for work. It runs like a bat out of hell now.

 

ianj

Well-known member
Actually the Quicksilver I use as my backup Mac feels faster running Leopard today than my first Core Duo MacBook felt running Tiger in 2006-2007.
Eh? I have a Core Duo MacBook Pro, and while the Intel Mac experience was kind of weird until 10.5 hit, it was definitely faster than the MDD G4 that was my desktop at the time, in every way. Not so much faster that I stopped using the G4 as a primary desktop (that came five years later), but it was hard not to notice.

 

MultiFinder

Well-known member
Congrats mate! You're limited to Snow Leopard, but it's not like that's a bad OS by any means. I have my Core Duo MacBook here that I still use quite often, and it's a little champ of a performer. And for $200, great deal!

 

Rodus

Well-known member
Bargin price mate, just watch out for the dreaded X1600 GPU failure, although the machine may very well have already been repaired, most of them have.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
Those first-gen MacBook Pros turned out to be pretty miserable lemons when my workplace bought them; I actually held onto my 1.67Ghz Powerbook until almost 2008 because of the teething issues. All sorts of overheating and wireless problems mostly, but there were a few that also had this issue with the DVD ROM drive jamming if any pressure was applied to the wrist rest when it was spinning. That couldn't help but make me laugh because I hadn't seen that issue since the first generation Titaniums.

That said, not every one of them was bad and they did perform decently well. Keep yours cool and hopefully you'll get a few miles out of it.

 

superpantoufle

Well-known member
I have a Core Duo MacBook Pro, and while the Intel Mac experience was kind of weird until 10.5 hit, it was definitely faster than the MDD G4 that was my desktop at the time, in every way.
It most certainly is! What I meant was that Core Duo Macs (especially compared to the first Core 2 Duos) didn't feel that fast back then.

 

ianj

Well-known member
I was the one who said that, and yes, they did. At a time when most Mac users were either on a single G4 or G5, they felt fast, and they were fast in 2006.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
Yeah, I'm not sure where this idea that they were "slow" comes from. They had construction quality and design issues, but they were lightning fast compared to any G4 when running native software. They could get a little sluggish running old programs under Rosetta, I guess, but "sluggish" is a relative term.

They *would* sometimes slow down if they were overheating, which wasn't that rare of an occurrence, but even throttled they could probably outdo a Powerbook. (I held onto my Powerbook for reliability reasons, not performance.)

 

coius

Well-known member
be careful. That optical drive is ATAPI. not SATA, which the MacBook Pros run SATA Drives. If you can somehow shoe-horn the SATA drive into the optical bay, and assuming they exist, you would have to find a way to interface with the Intel AHCI SATA ports, which you can't just parallel off another. There might be a way considering the chipset in them supports at minimum 4 SATA devices, but you will need to find pads to do it.

That MBP also only has SATA 1.5Gbit/s so a SATA-II SSD, while may be fast will still max out at about 130MB/s realistically (like the 2007 iMac C2D 2.0Ghz white with an OCZ Vertex-II which is a SATA-II SSD on a SATA-I controller)

I think you would be better putting windows 7 and 10.6 on it. Otherwise, use the ExpressCard slot to put an eSATA port on it. With a Syba eSATA/USB II 3-port ExpressCard adapter for my 2008 MBB (nVidia GeForce 8600M GT) it will boot off the eSATA with the ExpressCard (Return of bootable expansion bays!!!) assuming you have an expresscard. I can't remember if that gen of 15" did have it. I think they ommited FW800 for some reason)

Your alternate would be to carry a 2.5" usb 2.0 portable case with the drive in it for data you need access to.

Of course in the USA, SSDs are down to less than $1USD/gig. and getting cheaper!

 
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