The 5,2 will do El Cap OOTB.
The 4,1 will do Lion OOTB or Mt Lion with patches. Later versions lose graphics acceleration so YMMV.
Last edited:
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What have you done with an early Intel recently?
- Thread starter Project Alice
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The 4,1 will do Lion OOTB or Mt Lion with patches. Later versions lose graphics acceleration so YMMV.
Ah, this is another reminder that whilst Everymac is a great site, it does suffer from occasional inaccuracies.
It would've been a surprise to me if the 5,2 couldn't run El Cap OOTB seeing as I own one (it's in my signature) and 10.11 was its main OS till I upgraded to a 2011 MBP.
The 2009, I've damaged the video port and cable. The remaining 2011s, well, they just don't work at all anymore. I do still still have a good late 2011 though, and I'm keeping my twitching fingers out of that one!
I've got faith in you.
If it's any consolation I've destroyed HDDs, drive enclosures and RAM chips. Among many other things...
I *may* attempt further resurrection on the 2011s. Annoyingly, the 2009 works fine off the mini-DVI port, so the logic board is sound. It may be the the LVDS connector is OK, but I've no way to test it.
Successfully updated the 2012 MBP to OCLP 2.0.1 followed by Sonoma 14.7. Was nervous about doing so at first, but so far so good. Other than that I've been contemplating what to do with the other partition on here. I had Lion on it, but between my preference for Snow Leopard and the updated script for PPCMC 6 no longer working, I stopped using it. I've been considering maybe using the partition to experiment with Sequioa. I've seen at least one fellow MBP 9,2 user who has reported success with macOS 15.0.
Meanwhile, on the 2006 MBP, I've been contemplating upgrading the storage using the SSD from my broken G5. I don't have a lot of space left on my Snow Leopard partition and I've been wanting to make some VHS rips using EyeTV 2. Tests with my PS2 show that the file size of EyeTV 2's recordings aren't exactly small, so I'm thinking either external storage using one of my external USB 3.0 HDDs (plus installing a SL-compatible USB 3.0 ExpressCard to get USB 3 speeds) or putting in a bigger SSD.
Meanwhile, on the 2006 MBP, I've been contemplating upgrading the storage using the SSD from my broken G5. I don't have a lot of space left on my Snow Leopard partition and I've been wanting to make some VHS rips using EyeTV 2. Tests with my PS2 show that the file size of EyeTV 2's recordings aren't exactly small, so I'm thinking either external storage using one of my external USB 3.0 HDDs (plus installing a SL-compatible USB 3.0 ExpressCard to get USB 3 speeds) or putting in a bigger SSD.
Late 2011 MBP: foolishly messed with it (I *TOLD* you not to do that, dummy...) and had to redo from start. Patched Catalina (it won't install HS no matter what I do) to OCLP 2.0.1 to Sonoma to Sequoia and reinstall every damn thing, all now well.
Latest acquisition 2008 white MacBook 4,1: it's a duffer. No display and no video output anywhere else either. More investigating to be done.
iMac 12,1: Sonoma up to 14.7, then later to Sequoia.
Late 2009 Mac mini, Catalina: it just works.
Latest acquisition 2008 white MacBook 4,1: it's a duffer. No display and no video output anywhere else either. More investigating to be done.
iMac 12,1: Sonoma up to 14.7, then later to Sequoia.
Late 2009 Mac mini, Catalina: it just works.
I hope so!Three out of four isn't bad and you might end up prevailing with the MB 4,1.
Utilizing my large pile of A1181s in various colors, I "oreo-ed" (or, as @B S Magnet calls it, "piano-ed") my white 2009 Macbook. I stripped down the entire machine, removed the display, then removed the LCD and the Apple logo, and hit the logo with two coats of Plasti-dip, as it has the textured look I wanted, plus I could peel it off if I screwed it up. I reassembled the display using a black clutch cover and bezel, then cleaned out the interior of the case, as well as the fan and mainboard. I repasted the CPU and GPU, then took a $10 optical drive to hard drive caddy apart so I could fit the connector in the machine for a secondary SSD (it wouldn't fit otherwise). I just used some double-sided tape to hold the connector to the case, and a command strip for the drive, in case it ever needed replacing. I put everything back together, then stripped the keys off a (sadly) dead black keyboard (the plastic has no chips in it, hence, "sadly") and replaced the keys on the white top case. The RAM got upgraded to 6 gb. Prior to starting this project, I installed Windows 10 on the secondary drive, using a DVD that I modified for my now-dead 2006 Mac Pro, hunted down a couple of drivers that Boot Camp didn't have, and installed 64-bit drivers individually from the Boot Camp archive. I can boot that up to play some Visual/Future Pinball and for other times I need a Windows machine. The main drive got Big Sur via OCLP, as that seemed to be the sweet spot OS between old and newer for this machine.
Why did I do this? I wanted to utilize some of the many, many parts that I have laying around, and I happened to see this picture:
While that is actually a silver aluminum 2023 MBP, the lighting makes it look white to my aged eyes, and I thought it would be cool to have a white Macbook with a black Apple logo. Here are the results:
(Display image was blurred, as no one wants to see a shirtless old man's reflection. The display itself is immaculate.)
So, totally and utterly pointless other than having a lot of fun putting this together, and I may just do another with the opposite color scheme.
I've done "pointless" things like this in the past with other things, such as guitars. I really dug this Nik Huber Krautster II, but didn't have 4 grand to shell out for one-
... so I "made" one myself out of a cheap Epiphone Junior-
Why did I do this? I wanted to utilize some of the many, many parts that I have laying around, and I happened to see this picture:
While that is actually a silver aluminum 2023 MBP, the lighting makes it look white to my aged eyes, and I thought it would be cool to have a white Macbook with a black Apple logo. Here are the results:
(Display image was blurred, as no one wants to see a shirtless old man's reflection. The display itself is immaculate.)
So, totally and utterly pointless other than having a lot of fun putting this together, and I may just do another with the opposite color scheme.
I've done "pointless" things like this in the past with other things, such as guitars. I really dug this Nik Huber Krautster II, but didn't have 4 grand to shell out for one-
... so I "made" one myself out of a cheap Epiphone Junior-
Last edited:
Great work, @swamprock , i might just be picking your brains soon as I try to revive a dead A1181! Love the guitar too, high praise from a bass player!
Have managed to revive my early 2011 15" MBP! It seems I have been a victim of some dodgy RAM sticks. So now the remaining late 2011 will get another shot. None of this will help the 2008 however, as its demise was largely due to my ham-fisted "repairs".
Last evening, I went over to the home of the three kids I’ve helped to look after for a few years, on evenings when their single parent, a longtime close friend, works late.
These days, they’re old enough to handle things without my needing to cook them supper and help with homework, but they still like me to come over on the “same old night” to just hang out for a little bit, play video games (you know… intergenerational diplomacy), and listen to them as they try to make me understand and appreciate current memes which fall way, way outside my realm (and, real talk, maturity level).
They sometimes call me their “graunty” (my running gag being I maintain I’m perpetually the same age every single year, even after a birthday, and that age is 91 — thus “grandma aunty”). I think of them as my adopted niblings.
One of the kids, now in his teens, found himself getting into a handful of “old people” songs because they’re used in an anime he likes. (Sorry, I can’t remember the title of the series.)
His gateway was the anime’s use of “Roundabout” by Yes, but the series also includes (inexplicably) “Walk Like an Egyptian” by Bangles. (He now knows how much I detest “Walk Like an Egyptian” by Bangles.)
Slowly, he’s starting to listen to other “old people” music, and from “Roundabout”, he came across the 90125 album (which, for me, is like, “Awwwhhyissss MUSIC GATEWAY”). This led to one evening of me pulling up and showing him music videos linked with the directorial work of Godley and Creme, as well as the production style of Steven Lipson and Trevor Horn (including six out of 18 versions of Godley and Creme-directed “Leave It”, of which 17 aired only once on a Saturday sometime late spring 1984, on MTV, leaving me a tween-me giddy that whole day as a new version aired at the top of every hour).
Song after song, he was all, “Oh, this is cool.”
[This was also the kid who called the music I curate “retirement boogie” (for which I trialled a test project I plan to extend once life can settle down a bit). So I find it kind of poetic how the music he was knocking less than two years ago is now music he’s really getting into on his own.]
I’ve started to bring him a sample set of songs, based on the above, which he might or might not enjoy. I’ve started with a dog’s breakfast of stuff to get him going.
To do so, as his school’s chromebook is heavily locked down, making download of VLC player impossible, I was all, “Wait, he doesn’t need his chromebook or phone!” I went and dusted off the white, early 2008 MacBook4,1 I’d set up for the kids several years back, but which they’ve only rarely pulled out to use. (I’ve plans to change that.) Back when I gave it to them, I managed to find an Apple OEM battery, brand new, for something like CAD$35.
Cosmetically, the whiteBook is in pretty good shape, though the clear polycarbonate shell has shown it’s been outside a protective sleeve and has (colourless) spots on its otherwise-shiny clamshell. The top case, notably, is completely intact and not splintering. [In getting it in a 2019 trade, along with my A1261 — for a particular bag of locally roasted coffee, no less — the only thing it needed was a kapton tape mend of the backlight cable, which was pinched and shorting.]
I tried setting up the songs I brought in iTunes 12 on the MB’s Mountain Lion partition, but found there are audio driver issues which have come up for others before. So I rebooted to the 10.6.8 partition and launched the indefatigable iTunes 10.6.3, to find the speakers worked, but sounded like trash (especially the left).
We found some USB-powered speakers and I set it up:
(The room lighting was dim, so apologies on the potatocam quality.)
So far, he’s pretty excited, and the USB speakers really helped. He’s never had experience with Cover Flow, and loved being able to swipe-browse the sleeve covers. I’ve offered to bring over more, 2GB at a time (the capacity of a microSD card I had lying about), in the spirit of making mix tapes and CD-R sets, based on his feedback of what he really doesn’t like and what he really does.
Then unexpected bonus, unlocked:
His younger sister (who’s into all sorts of pop culture stuff I mostly don’t understand, most of it tied to all the “free-to-play” games saturating the world) walked in as this song was playing (the same song I picked up, live, on shortwave, with gqrx and SDR a couple of years back). She turned to the laptop and was all, “Is that Miki Matsubara? No, wait, that’s Junko Yagami!”
My reaction was hit-the-brakes-screech-stunned.
“Y… you know old J-pop?” She went on with her ingenious flex, “I also really like Taeko Ohnuki,” as I went to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the kitchen to sweep up my jaw, which had shattered when it hit the floor.
So now I may have two of them ready to be introduced to a bunch more older stuff across their seemingly different tastes.
I have MISSED being a pop music guide. It’s my happy place. And suddenly, with my niblings, I’ve become a little less alien and inscrutable as an Old.
These days, they’re old enough to handle things without my needing to cook them supper and help with homework, but they still like me to come over on the “same old night” to just hang out for a little bit, play video games (you know… intergenerational diplomacy), and listen to them as they try to make me understand and appreciate current memes which fall way, way outside my realm (and, real talk, maturity level).
They sometimes call me their “graunty” (my running gag being I maintain I’m perpetually the same age every single year, even after a birthday, and that age is 91 — thus “grandma aunty”). I think of them as my adopted niblings.
One of the kids, now in his teens, found himself getting into a handful of “old people” songs because they’re used in an anime he likes. (Sorry, I can’t remember the title of the series.)
His gateway was the anime’s use of “Roundabout” by Yes, but the series also includes (inexplicably) “Walk Like an Egyptian” by Bangles. (He now knows how much I detest “Walk Like an Egyptian” by Bangles.)
Slowly, he’s starting to listen to other “old people” music, and from “Roundabout”, he came across the 90125 album (which, for me, is like, “Awwwhhyissss MUSIC GATEWAY”). This led to one evening of me pulling up and showing him music videos linked with the directorial work of Godley and Creme, as well as the production style of Steven Lipson and Trevor Horn (including six out of 18 versions of Godley and Creme-directed “Leave It”, of which 17 aired only once on a Saturday sometime late spring 1984, on MTV, leaving me a tween-me giddy that whole day as a new version aired at the top of every hour).
Song after song, he was all, “Oh, this is cool.”
[This was also the kid who called the music I curate “retirement boogie” (for which I trialled a test project I plan to extend once life can settle down a bit). So I find it kind of poetic how the music he was knocking less than two years ago is now music he’s really getting into on his own.]
I’ve started to bring him a sample set of songs, based on the above, which he might or might not enjoy. I’ve started with a dog’s breakfast of stuff to get him going.
To do so, as his school’s chromebook is heavily locked down, making download of VLC player impossible, I was all, “Wait, he doesn’t need his chromebook or phone!” I went and dusted off the white, early 2008 MacBook4,1 I’d set up for the kids several years back, but which they’ve only rarely pulled out to use. (I’ve plans to change that.) Back when I gave it to them, I managed to find an Apple OEM battery, brand new, for something like CAD$35.
Cosmetically, the whiteBook is in pretty good shape, though the clear polycarbonate shell has shown it’s been outside a protective sleeve and has (colourless) spots on its otherwise-shiny clamshell. The top case, notably, is completely intact and not splintering. [In getting it in a 2019 trade, along with my A1261 — for a particular bag of locally roasted coffee, no less — the only thing it needed was a kapton tape mend of the backlight cable, which was pinched and shorting.]
I tried setting up the songs I brought in iTunes 12 on the MB’s Mountain Lion partition, but found there are audio driver issues which have come up for others before. So I rebooted to the 10.6.8 partition and launched the indefatigable iTunes 10.6.3, to find the speakers worked, but sounded like trash (especially the left).
We found some USB-powered speakers and I set it up:
(The room lighting was dim, so apologies on the potatocam quality.)
So far, he’s pretty excited, and the USB speakers really helped. He’s never had experience with Cover Flow, and loved being able to swipe-browse the sleeve covers. I’ve offered to bring over more, 2GB at a time (the capacity of a microSD card I had lying about), in the spirit of making mix tapes and CD-R sets, based on his feedback of what he really doesn’t like and what he really does.
Then unexpected bonus, unlocked:
His younger sister (who’s into all sorts of pop culture stuff I mostly don’t understand, most of it tied to all the “free-to-play” games saturating the world) walked in as this song was playing (the same song I picked up, live, on shortwave, with gqrx and SDR a couple of years back). She turned to the laptop and was all, “Is that Miki Matsubara? No, wait, that’s Junko Yagami!”
My reaction was hit-the-brakes-screech-stunned.
“Y… you know old J-pop?” She went on with her ingenious flex, “I also really like Taeko Ohnuki,” as I went to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the kitchen to sweep up my jaw, which had shattered when it hit the floor.
So now I may have two of them ready to be introduced to a bunch more older stuff across their seemingly different tastes.
I have MISSED being a pop music guide. It’s my happy place. And suddenly, with my niblings, I’ve become a little less alien and inscrutable as an Old.
Last edited:
Fun Fact: MacOS Snow Leopard and Window 7 were released within two months of each other in 2009, and to this day are fondly regarded for their perfect mix of style and gossamer memory requirements.
Introduce them to the soundtrack from "Gunsmith Cats".View attachment 2422679
“Y… you know old J-pop?” She went on with her ingenious flex, “I also really like Taeko Ohnuki,” as I went to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the kitchen to sweep up my jaw, which had shattered when it hit the floor.
I have MISSED being a pop music guide. It’s my happy place. And suddenly, with my niblings, I’ve become a little less alien and inscrutable as an Old.
I couldn't sleep, so what did I do with my energies? Use them to install Ventura on my 2013 Mac Pro via OCLP. Well and truly a cakewalk - all I had to do was remember to apply the EFI update to the internal SSD. The patcher took care of everything else.
Looks perfect to me. Mission accomplished.
Looks perfect to me. Mission accomplished.
Last edited:
Was browsing away while streaming a video game on YT when the Mac Pro started beachballing. Had to force shut down. Mac won't boot now and it's streaming code errors that are indicating it's the boot drive.
So, I booted from the Sonoma USB stick and was going to try reinstalling the OS but the drive picker tells me that there are SMART errors. Tried a few other things, nope, no joy.
So, at this point I have to figure a SSD showing 98% of lifetime left has failed. It's neither surprising, nor concerning. It is for this reason that I have my backups. However, I finally end up getting the OS back on there, my data is safe on my NAS. And this SSD was bought a couple years ago, the Chinese Zheino brand. Not surprising it would fail out of the blue - I don't shut down my Macs.
It's interesting though, because about a month ago I bought a 1TB Western Digital Blue SSD off Amazon for some other specific thing. But it's been sitting there doing nothing. And it's already mounted in the drive cage I use. Right now I'm using the 2011 MBA to copy over my disk image back up from the NAS to my 3TB USB drive. The new SSD is already connected to the MBA.
Going to attempt a restore from the drive image. I tried it from the actual NAS but Disk Utility objected, We'll see what happens next. Ultimately, if I have to drop the new SSD in to the MP, install Sonoma and then transfer data that's what I'll do.
But, surprisingly I am not sweating this. I still have my MBA and my other Macs and access to everything I need access to. I have decided, however, that based on my current experience a few tweaks to the actual restoring process from backup are needed. A dedicated USB drive for one. I have drives, just need another case.
But the primary reason I'm zero stressed about this is that, like I said…my data is safe and accessible. Oh! That and all my critical files are saved on Dropbox, which is on an entirely separate drive AND on Dropbox itself. So, nothing lost there either.
This post typed in on my 2011 MBA with connected BT keyboard and Magic Mouse.
The MP below, rinse…lather…repeat.
So, I booted from the Sonoma USB stick and was going to try reinstalling the OS but the drive picker tells me that there are SMART errors. Tried a few other things, nope, no joy.
So, at this point I have to figure a SSD showing 98% of lifetime left has failed. It's neither surprising, nor concerning. It is for this reason that I have my backups. However, I finally end up getting the OS back on there, my data is safe on my NAS. And this SSD was bought a couple years ago, the Chinese Zheino brand. Not surprising it would fail out of the blue - I don't shut down my Macs.
It's interesting though, because about a month ago I bought a 1TB Western Digital Blue SSD off Amazon for some other specific thing. But it's been sitting there doing nothing. And it's already mounted in the drive cage I use. Right now I'm using the 2011 MBA to copy over my disk image back up from the NAS to my 3TB USB drive. The new SSD is already connected to the MBA.
Going to attempt a restore from the drive image. I tried it from the actual NAS but Disk Utility objected, We'll see what happens next. Ultimately, if I have to drop the new SSD in to the MP, install Sonoma and then transfer data that's what I'll do.
But, surprisingly I am not sweating this. I still have my MBA and my other Macs and access to everything I need access to. I have decided, however, that based on my current experience a few tweaks to the actual restoring process from backup are needed. A dedicated USB drive for one. I have drives, just need another case.
But the primary reason I'm zero stressed about this is that, like I said…my data is safe and accessible. Oh! That and all my critical files are saved on Dropbox, which is on an entirely separate drive AND on Dropbox itself. So, nothing lost there either.
This post typed in on my 2011 MBA with connected BT keyboard and Magic Mouse.
The MP below, rinse…lather…repeat.
Was browsing away while streaming a video game on YT when the Mac Pro started beachballing. Had to force shut down. Mac won't boot now and it's streaming code errors that are indicating it's the boot drive.
So, I booted from the Sonoma USB stick and was going to try reinstalling the OS but the drive picker tells me that there are SMART errors. Tried a few other things, nope, no joy.
So, at this point I have to figure a SSD showing 98% of lifetime left has failed. It's neither surprising, nor concerning. It is for this reason that I have my backups. However, I finally end up getting the OS back on there, my data is safe on my NAS. And this SSD was bought a couple years ago, the Chinese Zheino brand. Not surprising it would fail out of the blue - I don't shut down my Macs.
It's interesting though, because about a month ago I bought a 1TB Western Digital Blue SSD off Amazon for some other specific thing. But it's been sitting there doing nothing. And it's already mounted in the drive cage I use. Right now I'm using the 2011 MBA to copy over my disk image back up from the NAS to my 3TB USB drive. The new SSD is already connected to the MBA.
Going to attempt a restore from the drive image. I tried it from the actual NAS but Disk Utility objected, We'll see what happens next. Ultimately, if I have to drop the new SSD in to the MP, install Sonoma and then transfer data that's what I'll do.
But, surprisingly I am not sweating this. I still have my MBA and my other Macs and access to everything I need access to. I have decided, however, that based on my current experience a few tweaks to the actual restoring process from backup are needed. A dedicated USB drive for one. I have drives, just need another case.
But the primary reason I'm zero stressed about this is that, like I said…my data is safe and accessible. Oh! That and all my critical files are saved on Dropbox, which is on an entirely separate drive AND on Dropbox itself. So, nothing lost there either.
This post typed in on my 2011 MBA with connected BT keyboard and Magic Mouse.
The MP below, rinse…lather…repeat.
View attachment 2425135
By chance, is the WD Blue SSD you picked up recently the SA510 or the Blue 3D?
Also, your backup regime is solid. There are many lessons to pick up from the methods you rely on to keep everything humming along.
Its the SA510. I'm not that worried. Eventually, we'll be in the financial spot I can finally lay money down on better SSDs. The current one (Zheino) gave me 3.5 years so I'm not unhappy with that, especially considering it was on 24/7 for all of that.
I'm working on a (probably less than credible) hypothesis which, for now, I can't really try in earnest (my test boxes, ones booting from the iRecData and Dogfish SSDs) are packed away for the moment.
The hypothesis (well, I'm sure engineers have run the tests, ad nauseam, and the data are out there, in plenitudes, but not from the angle of using them in older systems): that the long-term durability of SSDs with onboard DRAM caches versus those lacking them, when using the drive as a boot volume, will wear-level more evenly, leading to a longer time horizon before entire blocks can no longer be written (i.e., from VM swapping, scratch disk use, etc.) — leading to a longer horizon before a rash of S.M.A.R.T. failures bring down the whole drive with scant warning.
Whatever the case, going forward I'm working with an approach, however unfounded, that I'll continue to use non-DRAM cache SSDs for long-term storage in which writes are infrequent, whereas boot volumes will only be outfitted with DRAM-cached SSDs.
Last edited:
Revived the 2009 A1286 as I spent a LOT of time renewing the keyboard. Have it running as a clamshell as there's no internal working display, via a miniDP-to-HDMI converter. The only problem the machine is exhibiting is that there's no MagSafe LED. Power is showing around 15% and the icon says it's charging. Occasionally it's coming on during boot, but that's it. Have checked the charger with other Macs, no issue, and tried other chargers on the machine. Same result. Looking at System Report shows charger connected but nothing charging.
EDIT: did all the SMCs, PRAMs etc, still nothing. Then remembered that I'd also tried turning the PSU off for a few minutes. Switched it back on, and bingo, we have charging! Phew.
EDIT: did all the SMCs, PRAMs etc, still nothing. Then remembered that I'd also tried turning the PSU off for a few minutes. Switched it back on, and bingo, we have charging! Phew.
Last edited: