macbook!

[insaneboy]

Finally got my macbook. conquestish since it was $100 and in amazing condition and works perfectly. early 2007 so it's *just* meets the 10.7 cutoff, once I upgrade it to 2GB of RAM.

downside to low use, battery has only 19 cycles, but it is completely dead

was going to use this for the piano(Garage band lessons since the PB G4 I've got for it now can't run them) but it's really quite capable so I'm going to just use it as my own machine :lol: So I went and ordered a 60GB SSD and 2GB of RAM(used) and it looks like I can use the copy of 10.7 I've already bought (shows up in the app store under purchased)

 

[waynestewart]

Seen that before. A lot of people keep their macbook plugged in 24/7 and the battery never cycles and loses it's ability to function.

 

[jongleur]

I found myself in the same boat with a 2008 MacBook I salvaged - you can get a compatible battery for around $30ish (off eBay) delivered if you don't want to buy an original from Apple.

 

[mcdermd]

I did that and it was completely kaput within a month. It had something like 6 charge cycles on it but OS X refused to charge it anymore saying it needed replacement. I decided I would spring the extra cash for a battery with a warranty in the future.

 

[insaneboy]

Thinking of going the cheapy battery route. I got one for the macbook at my mom's work, it sits on a filing cabinet in the hall way all day plugged in(used for employees to clock in/out and check their schedules), just needed something incase the magsafe gets disconnected(a regular occurrence) the OE battery worked, but was bloated and killed the case top. Been about 3 mo, so far so good. That's basically the reason I'll get one, as well as being able to move it from place to place around the house without having to shut it down every time.

Next task will be figuring out this wi-fi annoyance. It says 'connection timeout' when attempting to connect to the home wi-fi (100% fresh install of 10.6 and still doing it after updating to 10.6. 8) I tried it out on the home mini, started doing it as well, may have been updating to 10.8, not a big deal though it's wired. Everything else works fine, PBG4. iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, AppleTV3, Wii, PS3 all good to go. For the time being I'm using an old Airport express with a flaky Wi-Fi section(dies once a week or so) I got that for free, I use it on the home stereo since ethernet and airplay work fine. only thing the macbook will connect to (oh and it works fine at work and it connects to other wi-fi signals in the area) Oh home WiFi is a netgear 802.11g that I've had for years forget the model, white one with a silver front...

 

[olePigeon]

I've been buying from 3rd party battery vendors off and on for the last few years for all the laptops I have at work. My conclusion is, don't ever buy 3rd party batteries. They will die on you in less than a year. Just pay the extra and get an Apple battery, save yourself a headache and eventual additional costs.

 

[insaneboy]

$50 SSD (new) $14 RAM(used) now running OS 10.7.4 quite well. no battery yet. nice little machine.

 

[jongleur]

$50 SSD (new) $14 RAM(used) now running OS 10.7.4 quite well. no battery yet. nice little machine.

Can you post a link to the SSD? What size/brand? I'd be tempted to put it in a Optical Bay Caddy in my MacBook to eek out a bit more speed/performance.

 

[insaneboy]

OCZ Solid 3 60GB not large, but I don't need a whole lot of space on this machine.

went from around 25MB/s(on a 5400RPM WD scorpio blue) to 77/133MBs using the blackmagic speed test. I'm sure the SATA I in this thing is holding the speed down (it's a SATA III capable drive) but the increase is apparent regardless and the computer runs silently (as long as I don't push the processor and cause the fans to kick on)!

actually ordered an optical bay HDD mount for the mini since the optical drive is pooched, planning on getting an SSD for that some day, putting the current 500GB drive in the optical bay thinking of getting a 120GB SSD for that, and it has SATA II so it should be a bigger speed improvement.

 

[jongleur]

60GB SSD for $50, not bad. Plenty of room. I've currently got 10.7.4 running on a 32GB microSD (class10) leaving plenty of room. 10.6.8 & Win7 on the 750GB 7200rpm main HDD.

 

[insaneboy]

SSD prices have really nosedived recently. Prices around $1 per gig seem to be becoming the norm on your basic lower end consumer grade models.

 

[insaneboy]

Received my $21 battery today. so far so good...

computer on the other hand GAAA, wish it could handle more RAM. spinning pinwheel of death comes up WAY too often reminds me of our mini before I upgraded to 8GB of RAM.