Just bought a perfect MacBook Pro 4,1 A1260; any tips/tricks for use with these machines?

[WindowsXPuser]

I bought myself a MBP 4,1 A1260 with some birthday money today and from everything I can tell the machine is absolutely perfect. The seller claims to be the original owner (not gonna dispute that based off of condition), it has the original packaging, accessories, software, and is in almost perfect condition minus a handful of scratches on the bottom. Going by serial it was made in October 2008, which seems to be beyond the cutoff date for faulty 8600M GT chips. This one is the 512MB VRAM version with a C2D T9300 and 4GB of RAM. Going by all the info the seller has provided this seems like a perfect A1260. I've checked through the wikiposts and I'm not sure how much of what's in them applies to a "Pro" machine as capable as this one is. I guess my question is, what tips/tricks do you guys have for using something like this as a daily driver on both old and new macOS? I'm "upgrading" (more of a sidegrade) from a Dell Latitude D830 (C2D T8100, Quadro NVS 135M 128MB/GeForce 8400M GS equivalent, 6GB DDR2, 500GB SSD, 1680x1050 glossy LED panel, macOS 12.0.1 Monterey) which has quite similar specs as you can see above. In macOS Monterey the machine is quite snappy with most stuff but there are some graphical issues (not GPU failure, my D830 is from Nov. 26, 2008, which is past the cutoff for dead GPUs) that really hinder performance in some areas. Can this be expected on an A1260 too, or would the faster GPU/higher VRAM amount help? What browsers do you guys use for best performance in both old and new macOS? I know on Leopard/Snow Leopard TenFourFox is extremely sluggish on my D830, to the point where I can barely squeeze out 20 FPS on YouTube Mobile, and this is an issue on my MacBook 5,2 too. Leopard-WebKit made my PB G4 867MHz 12" totally usable for 360p desktop YouTube but AFAIK there's no Intel equivalent of Leopard-Webkit. On newer macOS I typically use Safari for performance but I've noticed some graphical issues with that. What YouTube solutions do you guys use for older macOS versions? Do you just play it in the browser? What operating systems would you run, and how do you install them? I distinctly remember my MBP 7,1 and MB 5,2 being huge pains in the rear when I tried to install Windows 7 from USB, though both were perfectly happy with a DVD. Of all macOS versions, which do you find to be most performant and which do you find to be most functional on these machines? Do you guys have any alternate software for accessing certain services like PPC folks do? I know Discord can be a bit sluggish on my D830 and Spotify is downright slow.
Just for fun I'll attach a pic of my D830 running Monterey and a few pics of the MBP.

 

[bobesch]

Too many questions ...
As for the A1260, congrats! Even if you might be blessed with a failure-proof GPU keep it cool (e.g. with iLapStand or Just Mobile Lazy Couch etc.)
Most important upgrade is an SSD. The A1260 can officially run OSX 10.5 - 10.11. There are patched-versions of OSX/macOS kindly provided by @dosdude1, that allow upgrades to macOS Sierra to Catalina.
Personally I prefer macOS 10.14 Mojave, because it's the last macOS version to support 32bit-Apps and the Patcher-version is capable of keeping the file system HFS+.
Browsers are current versions of Safari or Firefox etc. ... (Questions about TFF/webkit4Leopard are better to be asked at the PPC-subforum ...)
So I think, that's most about the A1260, patched-OSX/macOS and browsers.
Don't know anything about installing Win7 through USB since I always used a DVD.
A single Windows-Boot configuration required the hard-drive with MBR-partitin table to make the corresponding BootCamp-drivers work without failure. The typical DualBoot-Bootcamp scenario uses a mix of MBR(Win) and GPT (macOS), which I don't like very much, so I keep Win and macOS separated on two separate SSD within my only DualBoot MBP.
Chapeaux to run Monterey on a Dell-Hackintosh!
With an A1260 and any of the Patches from @dosdude1 streaming video (below 4k) feels just like on a temporary Mac.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Thanks for the info! Do you know if there are any ways to force 10.4.11 Tiger onto one of these? I'm assuming some features would be broken (like trackpad) but I'm sure there's some way to do it. Tiger through Monterey would be cool on one of these, I've only ever done something like that on my D830.

 

[eyoungren]

I have @bobesch to thank for my A1260, the same model you have. He sent it to me all the way from Germany (I'm in Phoenix, AZ). I'm running Catalina on mine, although I was on Mojave for a while. I also dropped in a 500GB SSD.

Up until a few months ago I was using mine mainly for web browsing, email and some light word processing. Vivaldi, my main browser now, runs just fine on this Mac.

I ended up being mainly at my desk at home now so the MBP is seeing much less use. But it's a great daily driver Mac.

 

[Amethyst1]

Do you know if there are any ways to force 10.4.11 Tiger onto one of these?

Yes, by using a 10.4.10 install disc for a 2007 MacBook Pro and removing the machine check.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

It arrived yesterday and was in much better condition than I could've hoped, though the hard drive was slower than I expected. Even the feet were in perfect shape. I swapped the 250GB HDD for a 500GB SSD and upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 6GB. While I was doing that I noticed the serial number printed on the RAM slot was different from what macOS reports and from what was written on the case. The motherboard serial puts it at having been made in week 38, which is late September. The case and macOS serial puts it at week 40, which is early October. I checked the GPU because I figured if this thing really was from September it'd have the G84-602-A2 and it did. There are zero signs of problems so far and the PCIe lane width is still x16, so that's good. What's not so good are the thermals. With the original 13 year old thermal paste the CPU idled at about 65 C and the GPU at 75 C, which is concerning considering what GPU this is (and it's the 512MB variant!) so I chose to replace the thermal paste. It barely helped. Using Macs Fan Control I saw that macOS sets the fan at 2000 RPM automatically unless the thing gets really hot. I cranked it up to 4000 RPM on both fans and while the thing did get noticeably louder and I could feel the air moving out of it, the temperatures on the GPU were still rough. The CPU dropped to about 55 C and the GPU went down to 70 C. Is there anything more I can do? My Dell Latitude D830 with a CPU of the same gen and a GPU of the same gen runs significantly cooler and that thing is famous for overheating. The D830 will sit at 35 C on the CPU if you're not doing anything and the GPU will rest at about 40 C in the same scenario. Also, what would you guys be willing to do on an 8600M GT 512MB machine with a G84-602-A2? I'd like to play a few games (Minecraft, From The Depths, CS:GO, etc) but I absolutely don't trust this GPU now, especially considering that it's not one of the unrevised GPUs that was in use for 13 years as this thing was used extremely lightly in a business environment for a very short period of time.

 

[Amethyst1]

Is there anything more I can do?

Undervolting the CPU can decrease temps quite a bit. However, CoolBook only runs on Snow Leopard and older versions. I’m not aware of other software to undervolt on macOS.
Not to doubt you, but are you sure the new thermal paste has been applied “properly”? Is the heat sink making proper contact? Is the machine really idle or is e.g. Spotlight at its antics?

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Well.... I sorta ran out of thermal paste about a week ago without realizing it, so I scraped a few recently repasted machines to get the paste from them onto here once I figured out the thing had the original paste and the 602. I only had enough to repaste the GPU and CPU, so the 965 chipset just has to put up with being toasty until I can acquire some new paste. The paste itself was applied fine and seemed fine, so hopefully it's okay. The temperature before being repasted was taken on Mac OS X 10.7.5 after Spotlight and everything else had finished. The temperature after was taken on whatever the latest version of Catalina was after Spotlight and everything else had finished running, though performance was still impressively bad (I clicked the Safari icon in the dock and it took so long for it to start bouncing in the dock that I actually forgot I had opened it, it took another 2 minutes after that to open) so I started the process of installing El Capitan last night. Not sure how much progress it made because I fell asleep before it finished. I'm not really concerned with the CPU temperatures, my main worry is with the GPU because I spent all of my money to get the thing so I can't afford to replace the GPU until Christmas if it fails. Maybe this worrying is useless, my Latitude D820 also had a known faulty nVidia GPU (four generations in a row nVidia! GeForce 6, GeForce 7, GeForce 8, and GeForce 9 along with their Quadro counterparts) that sat at 107 C for 15 minutes (in my lap! It was quite painful) along with the CPU at 99 C the whole time. It still works fine with no signs of trouble other than some slightly melted plastic.

Undervolting the CPU can decrease temps quite a bit. However, CoolBook only runs on Snow Leopard and older versions. I’m not aware of other software to undervolt on macOS.
Not to doubt you, but are you sure the new thermal paste has been applied “properly”? Is the heat sink making proper contact? Is the machine really idle or is e.g. Spotlight at its antics?

 

[Amethyst1]

Is performance better on El Capitan?
Is kernel_task going on a rampage (which would point to thermal throttling)?
Is the battery present and working (a dead/missing battery downclocks the CPU to 1 GHz)?

 

[MBAir2010]

Do you know if there are any ways to force 10.4.11 Tiger

which was the reason i finally trashed my powerbook G4 in 2015,
5 years of trying to get the OSX was annoying.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Is performance better on El Capitan?
Is kernel_task going on a rampage (which would point to thermal throttling)?
Is the battery present and working (a dead/missing battery downclocks the CPU to 1 GHz)?

That battery thing explains a lot. The machine is in perfect condition but the battery failed at some point in the last 13 years so the seller didn't include it (but he did include the plastic that covers the keyboard when you first unbox it! not sure how he decided that was more important than the dead battery) so I've got to order one for myself at some point. It also surprises me, are you sure the 1GHz thing is right for all of them? I've got the T9300 (2.5GHz) and it felt quite fast on the web with Firefox Legacy on Lion. 1080p60 YouTube played fine and it felt a lot snappier than my Latitude D830 did with a 2.1GHz C2D T8100 or even with a C2D T7500 boosting to 2.4GHz.
As far as I'm aware it's not causing any trouble. Would it really be thermal throttling at 55 C/70 C?
I haven't tried El Capitan yet, I started the installation process and went to sleep right away then had to go to school when I got up. For all I know the installation may have failed, El Capitan can be a real pain in the rear during the install process.
Slightly off-topic: Do you have any battery brands that you know of that work well in these machines? I've been burned (literally and figuratively) by cheap "new" off-brand batteries for older machines in the past. Most of them stop functioning after a couple months with no noticeable decline. All of them had horrible battery life compared to what the machines originally got according to reviews. My Latitude D830 struggles to hit 2 hours with a "new" 87Wh 9 cell battery at minimum brightness with only iTunes running while reviewers in 2007 were hitting up to 8 hours with the 87Wh 9 cell battery at the same settings and about 6 hours for slightly more intensive tasks. Even my 14 year old Rayovac 9 cell Latitude D630 battery lasts longer, that thing can last over 3 hours in Windows 10 while playing Minecraft which is just crazy for a very well used 14 year old battery.

 

[Amethyst1]

It also surprises me, are you sure the 1GHz thing is right for all of them?

99.99999999999% sure. Try Geekbench 2. A 1.4 GHz SU9400 gets around 2,000 iirc. If yours doesn’t bench substantially higher it’s downclocked.

 

[bobesch]

@WindowsXPuser
Oh, you should wait with any havy tasks or better leave the MBP unused at all until it's got properly repasted.
The SSD puts the system under additions distress, because data-throughput is sometimes more, than CPU/GPU can handle and makes them work at the upper limit.
For me an iLapStand is mandatory each time I use the MBP4,1 intensively and I have those Lazy-Couch helpers for on the go.
Temperature here (17"MBP4,1) is at 65°C(CPU)/75°(GPU) with fans at basic activity (2000RPM).
Whenever high loads are expected, a cooling-pad from the fridge covered in a kitchen-towel can keep temperatures down.

 

[Amethyst1]

Whenever high loads are expected, a cooling-pad from the fridge covered in a kitchen-towel can keep temperatures down.

Use ice blocks — MBP on the rocks

 

[WindowsXPuser]

99.99999999999% sure. Try Geekbench 2. A 1.4 GHz SU9400 gets around 2,000 iirc. If yours doesn’t bench substantially higher it’s downclocked.

I got a score of roughly 1,800 IIRC in the 32-bit benchmark. That explains a lot! Not even twice as fast as a 1.6GHz single G5. I removed the IOPlatformPlugin.kext which has dramatically improved performance. I wasn't sure if doubling the clock speed like that would hurt thermals but I got lucky because it didn't. Minecraft 1.12.2 without Optifine is getting about 35 FPS at 8 chunks, max smooth lighting, and fancy graphics in full screen. Not bad! 1.18 won't launch though, which is weird. Did they raise the OpenGL requirement for 1.18? I know 1.17 bumped it up to 3.3 from 2.0 but Tesla GPUs support exactly 3.3 and it does work on 1.17, so unless the issue is El Capitan I'm not sure what can be done about that.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

@WindowsXPuser
Oh, you should wait with any havy tasks or better leave the MBP unused at all until it's got properly repasted.
The SSD puts the system under additions distress, because data-throughput is sometimes more, than CPU/GPU can handle and makes them work at the upper limit.
For me an iLapStand is mandatory each time I use the MBP4,1 intensively and I have those Lazy-Couch helpers for on the go.
Temperature here (17"MBP4,1) is at 65°C(CPU)/75°(GPU) with fans at basic activity (2000RPM).
Whenever high loads are expected, a cooling-pad from the fridge covered in a kitchen-towel can keep temperatures down.

I've found temperatures to be surprisingly good with Macs Fan Control. I've got both fans set to be based off of the GPU thermal sensor, with fan speed climbing from 60 C and a max temp of 68 C being the settings I've chosen. The CPU sat at about 55 C while playing Minecraft 1.12.2 and the GPU was at about 65 C. Not bad at all! I really like how the aluminum body seems to spread the heat throughout the case instead of focusing it on one area. I'm probably the only person here who really likes the warm keyboard, trackpad, and palmrest though. I don't think the SSD will put it under much more stress, this is a SATA I machine and the SSD has no DRAM cache, so it's not gonna be particularly fast. It's really handled every load I've thrown at it like a champ. 1080p60 YouTube playback was butter smooth in full screen, and that was at 1GHz! At 2.5GHz even 1440p runs nicely, though there's really no point in stressing the GPU and CPU like that on a 900p display. Minecraft 1.12.2 without any performance mods did a solid 35 to 45 FPS in a densely built area on a server at 8 chunks, max smooth lighting, and fancy graphics in full screen. WiFi download speeds are a bit slower than I expected, they fall short of my Intel 4965ABGN card from 2007. That card can pull about 130Mbps, this thing seems to get up to 40Mbps. Still an improvement over the DW 1490 I was using in macOS but it's not quite what I was expecting. Other than that performance and temperatures are spectacular, both meeting and exceeding my demands in most things.

 

[Amethyst1]

I'm probably the only person here who really likes the warm keyboard, trackpad, and palmrest though.

It’s nice to have in the winter, less so during a hot summer though

 

[bobesch]

Not bad at all! I really like how the aluminum body seems to spread the heat throughout the case instead of focusing it on one area. I'm probably the only person here who really likes the warm keyboard, trackpad, and palmrest though.

MeToo!
And yep, the whole case is a huge radiator ... But nothing compared to the 12" 1,5GHz PowerBook!

I don't think the SSD will put it under much more stress, this is a SATA I machine and the SSD has no DRAM cache, so it's not gonna be particularly fast.

Oh, believe me, there is a difference. Just clone Your running system back to a spinning drive, swap drives and start to run all Your stuff again. Beyond loosing patience You will notice the difference ...
Well, finally that isn't of any importance anyway. SSD is the way to gain speed and all other means have to support that task as good as possible.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

Oh, believe me, there is a difference. Just clone Your running system back to a spinning drive, swap drives and start to run all Your stuff again. Beyond loosing patience You will notice the difference ...

Oh I've definitely noticed a difference, I just don't think it's able to hit speeds to really strain the chipset, especially considering the chipset is designed for SATA II but runs at SATA I speeds in these MacBook Pros. Using the same SSD in my Latitude D830 (SATA II) with the same installation of El Capitan but worse specs overall yields noticeably quicker boot and app launch times, though on the MBP it's still significantly better than an HDD.

 

[bobesch]

Oh I've definitely noticed a difference, I just don't think it's able to hit speeds to really strain the chipset, especially considering the chipset is designed for SATA II but runs at SATA I speeds in these MacBook Pros. Using the same SSD in my Latitude D830 (SATA II) with the same installation of El Capitan but worse specs overall yields noticeably quicker boot and app launch times, though on the MBP it's still significantly better than an HDD.

Ah, I might have the wrong impression about SSD and significant CPU-distress on the MBP4,1.
I remember that experience was mainly based on my first ever Mac, a 13" late2009 MBP, where heat and fans first came to my attention after upgrading to an SSD. But yes, Your are right, there's the difference in throughput between SATA1 and SATA2 and I wasn't aware that the early2008 MBP4,1 still has SATA1. Good point, thanks!

Apropos SATA - I shared a discussion about Windows on a Mac at another forum a few days ago and mentioned, that I do favorize Win and macOS on different drives (using a drive-caddy to replace the optical drive) over a single MBR/GPT-hybrid-drive. Then there was the objection, that the optical drive only might sport SATA2 compared to harddrive's SATA3.
As for the (my) mid2012 15" MBP9,1 with two SSD (Win10pro/macOS) I can confirm, both SATA-connections run SATA3, which made me really happy.

 

[Amethyst1]

Then there was the objection, that the optical drive only might sport SATA2 compared to harddrive's SATA3.

This is the case on my 2011 13" MBP.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

The perfect A1260 is perfect no more! While still in near-mint condition (it seems that a wire of some kind has fallen behind the Apple logo, which looks really ugly now lol), I think I may be experiencing the start of GPU failure here. The lane width is still x16, I don't let it go above 80 C (at least, not for more than a few seconds), and I've been careful to not run anything intense, but yesterday it locked up. Well, the video did. Totally frozen, no response at all. Then it unfroze after a few minutes and all of the things I'd done while it locked up showed up now. It happened again a few minutes ago. This time it was worse. The video turned off, the fans started ramping up, and I couldn't get it out of this state. The sleep light turned itself on too. I closed the lid, then opened it again and it started working fine. Are these symptoms of imminent GPU failure? I have the 8600M GT 512MB 602, not 603. The CPU is a 2.5GHz C2D T9300, so pretty toasty. Currently running High Sierra with the dosdude1 patcher, which should support these GPUs fine.

 

[rampancy]

Yep, sounds like (an imminent) failure of the GPU to me. Especially since it has the 602 revision of the 8600M GT.

 

[B S Magnet]

it seems that a wire of some kind has fallen behind the Apple logo, which looks really ugly now lol

My A1261 presents the same issue.

Although I haven’t disassembled the LCD assembly, I’m fairly certain Apple used a thin, foam-lined adhesive which, with age, loses both its adhesiveness and springiness, which eventually lets the diffuser, sandwiched between the LCD and the lid case, slip out of place and move about. The diffuser, I believe, is a circular piece of translucent plastic, but because I can’t find an iFixit photo to verify this, I’m hazarding an educated guess based on the curved shape of what shows through on mine.

In short, what I think you’re probably seeing is this foam-lined adhesive showing through the Apple-shaped window. It can be annoying, but it’s easy to forget about when you’re using it.

 

[WindowsXPuser]

That sucks. I'll have to send it down to Dosdude1 sometime. I don't want to swap the board since everything is in such great condition and I want to keep the original board with the machine. It's not a high priority (currently using a 2013 MBA which is noticeably snappier) so it'll be a few months.

Is there anything that can be done about the foam? I like this thing because of how good of shape it's in, and that's a pretty hideous blemish on an otherwise perfect machine.