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DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
yes 😂.

I have a complete set of spare parts and a backup now.
Folks, wonderful thread. I m trying to bring back to life a neglected MBP 17 early 2008. Re-pasted it and here is the problem: the right side fan seems to be running screaming high. TGPro shows temps all around at normal 50C and both fans at 2K, all while the right side of the machine is still emitting a jigsaw-like screaming noise. Before repasting it did make similar noises, hence I decided to re-paste. CDRW drive works and is not the source of the noise. Any ideas?
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
6,975
6,354
there
Thank you, friend. Will give that a try. Would a light cycling grease be adequate? (never lubricated bearings this small before)
I would only use computer made lubes
because cycling grease has polymers like lithium and other materials that could harm the logic board over time.
in 1993, i applied some great to a seat post on my Pinerello Frameset
and that stained within several month,
the oria tubing had a bad reaction to the grease i was after told.

'hope this helped!
 
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DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
The fan bearings might need some lubrication. :)
Just cant thank you enough. All it took is literally a half a drop of oil! These fans are much easier to fix than I could possibly imagine:) The only confusing place was the black thermo tape that didn't want to stick back to the fan's surface so a lil glue fixed that. Now its dead quiet, literally, quieter than my 2019 MBP.
Onto the next: the white insert of the Apple logo on the lid seems to be unlglued and sometimes slides to a side. Judging by the iFixit must be a royal pain to disassemble the whole screen to get there, or is it?
 
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DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
I would only use computer made lubes
because cycling grease has polymers like lithium and other materials that could harm the logic board over time.
in 1993, i applied some great to a seat post on my Pinerello Frameset
and that stained within several month,
the oria tubing had a bad reaction to the grease i was after told.

'hope this helped!
Thank you! I found some very basic machine oil laying around.
 
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alex_free

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2020
1,084
2,312
Did you get USB3.0 working with that card?
I only found auctions of PCCards with the NEC chip, that didn't work on my MPB.
It did not, and I never followed up as I mostly just use my Mac mini servers to transfer files.
 
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DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
I have an early 2008, 17 HD glossy screen, C2D, 4 gigs of ram and a fast new SSD I installed. While at it, I replaced the thermopaste and re-lubed the fans, so they are super quiet. On El Cap, which is its last official OS, I find it a bit a struggle to work with. Teams worked but barely so, with the video being choppy. Editing a Word document with a photo inserted also was beachball galore. It just takes too long, on every little step. I will try to max out the ram to 6 and see if it gives it a much-desired speed up. And I am not expecting it to be a speed demon powerhouse of any kind, just was hoping for a bit of a speedier performance. The screen is still a marvel to look at and its huge, but in its present shape it is a bit too laggy for my typical office use case.
 

alex_free

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2020
1,084
2,312
I have an early 2008, 17 HD glossy screen, C2D, 4 gigs of ram and a fast new SSD I installed. While at it, I replaced the thermopaste and re-lubed the fans, so they are super quiet. On El Cap, which is its last official OS, I find it a bit a struggle to work with. Teams worked but barely so, with the video being choppy. Editing a Word document with a photo inserted also was beachball galore. It just takes too long, on every little step. I will try to max out the ram to 6 and see if it gives it a much-desired speed up. And I am not expecting it to be a speed demon powerhouse of any kind, just was hoping for a bit of a speedier performance. The screen is still a marvel to look at and its huge, but in its present shape it is a bit too laggy for my typical office use case.
Snow Leopard and Debian Linux is what Im trying to set up on mine. Newer Mac OS is just an unoptimized lag fest compared to Linux+XFCE4 and Snow Leopard.
 
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Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,783
12,183
Thank you for this, @Amethyst1 ! I removed the long-dead battery and the system instantly became noticeably snappier! Kudos! Might actually enjoy using it now:)
So it’s snappier without the battery? That’s interesting because to my knowledge, MacBooks also downclock when there’s no battery. My battery-less 2007 17” MBP is definitely more sluggish than its fully-loaded 15” brother, despite having the same CPU, amount of RAM, GPU and SSD.
 

DenisK

macrumors regular
Nov 6, 2008
183
33
So it’s snappier without the battery? That’s interesting because to my knowledge, MacBooks also downclock when there’s no battery. My battery-less 2007 17” MBP is definitely more sluggish than its fully-loaded 15” brother, despite having the same CPU, amount of RAM, GPU and SSD.
Interesting! It definitely feels snappier without the stock battery that its dead (wouldn't take charge at all). I will locate a replacement battery in a few days (I hope) and will report back. Finding these is a challenge: one arrived looking stock and was DOA, another did not look stock but was working, except it started bulging in just a few days of operating, so I removed it for safety concerns and put the original (dead) stock one in. With that in the system felt sluggish, and without it feels normal. I am typing this now on it, while having quite a few Safari tabs open, a doc in Pages, Mail and Calendar running and even streaming news on Safari - all is good, on 4GB of ram:)
 
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