2009 MacBook Pro Found at Thrift Shop

[MacPlus2300]

Hi. Today I found a unibody 2009 13" MacBook Pro at the thrift. Here is what it looks like:



I noticed that the palmrest had some very bad indents in it.




Upon further inspection, it seems someone else has been inside the MacBook.



A few screw heads were definitely showing signs of use, and I decided to open it up first.



On the inside, there was a SSD that someone else had put in. There was also 4GB of ram installed and it was quite dusty inside. A few connectors were undone as well an a mount on the battery was broken.



I removed the battery for further inspection, and found this, thing?
I put it back in the spot it seemed to go.



I promptly removed the cooling fan, and found some dust guys in there.



The fan cleaned up well.



I took the motherboard out since I knew it would have been dusty under there as well.



I cleaned off the board. It looked better than before.



I noticed there was some gunk on the MagSafe port so I scrubbed that as well.



I then put it all back together, made sure to plug everything in. It is dust free now. I need to get a magsafe charger, as I don't currently have one for this model. But it cleaned up well for what it is.

 

[finkmac]

mmm... popsicle...

 

[Franklinstein]

I got one of those at a flea market for like $20. It was in good condition but wouldn't boot. Turns out something goes bad in the top case and so the power button (and keyboard) doesn't respond. It turns on by shorting a couple traces on the logic board but it's mostly useless if it only powers up as a dismembered, input-less hulk. Fixing it usually involves replacing the top case with one that works. I haven't bothered yet.

 

[MacPlus2300]

This macbook was 19.99 at the shop I went to, having a few bins of stuff. I definitely want to try turning it on and testing it with my benchtop supply

 

[Unknown_K]

My newest Mac is a MacBook 5,1 (2008) and I was surprised how easy it is to work on (coming from G3/G4 iBooks and PowerBooks). The top case is decently thick that you really need to hit it hard to ding it. It was a cheap local find missing RAM and HD.

Cleaning out the CPU fan is pretty easy. A soft bristle brush will clean out the rest of it.

I haven't been to a thrift shop in ages maybe I should check them out again.

 

[MacUp72]

yeah those Intel Core 2 Duo Macs are quite common, but I prefer the early i5/i7 , they a bit more useable today.
I recently found one of those 2006 black MacBooks but couldnt find a use for it actually, sold it..

 

[Unknown_K]

They make decent mobile support machines for older Macs (burning CDs or Ethernet file transfers).

Would be cool to have a USB to SCSI adapter for working directly with old SCSI HDs in a dock.

 

[MacPlus2300]

yeah those Intel Core 2 Duo Macs are quite common, but I prefer the early i5/i7 , they a bit more useable today.
I recently found one of those 2006 black MacBooks but couldnt find a use for it actually, sold it..

you are definitely correct, I used to have a 15" 2009 i7 mac that I used for many years, should have kept it. Funnily enough this machine was also a Core 2 Duo.

 

[MacUp72]

you are definitely correct, I used to have a 15" 2009 i7 mac that I used for many years, should have kept it. Funnily enough this machine was also a Core 2 Duo.

yeah, I find that any early i5/i7 iMacs with 27" display ( which are cheap and plenty) are very useful at home still..a good industrial design, only plug in keyboard/w mouse and off you go, perfect for elderly and kids..even supports Windows in Bootcamp.

 

[MacPlus2300]

yeah, I find that any early i5/i7 iMacs with 27" display ( which are cheap and plenty) are very useful at home still..a good industrial design, only plug in keyboard/w mouse and off you go, perfect for elderly and kids..even supports Windows in Bootcamp.

Definitely agree there, my grandmother loves using her iMac. Definitely super easy to set up to be accesible.

 

[Byrd]

yeah, I find that any early i5/i7 iMacs with 27" display ( which are cheap and plenty) are very useful at home still..a good industrial design, only plug in keyboard/w mouse and off you go, perfect for elderly and kids..even supports Windows in Bootcamp.

Yep my wife uses a 2013 27" iMac and super happy, takes a bit of work needs an SSD but RAM is cheap. OpenCore supports all hardware and Sonoma 15.5 runs happily on it still. The older iMacs which have lesser GPUs do struggle though, or the models that need a better GPU installed. From my experience bon't bother with the Chinese flashed NVidia MXM cards, they are rubbish and not worth the effort spent installing modifying heatsinks etc.