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What have you done with an early Intel recently?

Minghold said:
Q1. I've encountered certain older SSDs that, for whever reason, will fail to treat an APFS partition + OS as a viable boot option (i.e., it won't appear on the Mac option-key boot list), but have never heard of one that won't for HFS+ (AKA MacOS Extended-journaled, which is what Mavericks uses), which has a maximum volume size of 9 exabytes.
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It's not about the file system, Mavericks does not support NVMe drives because it does not have any NVMe drivers.

Minghold said:
Q2. What are you running Mavericks on that is even fast enough to fully utilize a hugely expensive >4TB SSD?
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...so, it's actually a Hackintosh, purpose-built for Mavericks compatibility. I have an Intel i7 4790K, an nVidia GTX 780 Ti, and 32 GB DDR3 memory running at 2400 MHz. And, for the moment, a 4 TB Samsung 860 Evo.

Minghold said:
...you'd be better ioff with a 500gb or 1T for your primary, and saving the money for a big 12TB or larger spinner.
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It's just that from a UX perspective, I really don't want to spend time thinking about which files go on which drive. I guess I could set up a Fusion drive, I just haven't heard great things about them.

Or maybe I get a second 4 TB SSD and make an 8 TB Fusion drive out of those? I'm not sure if it will confuse OS X to have a Fusion drive out of two drives that are the same speed.

...Or I could get a second 4 TB SSD and set up RAID 0, which as a side effect would actually improve performance. I'm a bit scared to do that, but I do use Time Machine for backups...
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Does anyone know of an SSD which is greater than 4 TB (preferably 8 TB) and will support Mavericks? Aka, I need something that uses SATA as opposed to NVMe.
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Have you considered creating a Concatenated Disk Set in Disk Utility? Look in the Raid Type: selector under the RAID tab. This could let you concatenate 2 or more smaller, cheaper SSDs to create an 8 TB volume. I've never tried it, but it might be an interesting experiment.
 
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Wowfunhappy said:
It's not about the file system, Mavericks does not support NVMe drives because it does not have any NVMe drivers. ...so, it's actually a Hackintosh, purpose-built for Mavericks compatibility. I have an Intel i7 4790K, an nVidia GTX 780 Ti, and 32 GB DDR3 memory running at 2400 MHz. And, for the moment, a 4 TB Samsung 860 Evo.
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Q. Would El Capitan have the same compatibility that you need as Mavericks? (Once MRT, MDS_store, ReportCrash, Spotlight, and the ever-annoying Notifications are shut off in Terminal, I Find that it consumes barely any more resources than Mavericks/ (IIRC, ElCap was the last version of the MacOS that could launch a 1gb memory system, although it do so with protest, and whch ran fine in 2gb.)
Wowfunhappy said:
Or maybe I get a second 4 TB SSD and make an 8 TB Fusion drive out of those? I'm not sure if it will confuse OS X to have a Fusion drive out of
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Due to how Fusion drives work, I would assert that anything over ~500gb SSD portion is overkill, if not a completer waste., unless you have LOT of giant-filesize VMs. --If I had a 5TB SSD and a big spinner, and wanted a Mac Fusion drive,I, I partition *both* drives, then merge one SSD partition with the first (faster, outer-rings) spinner partition. The pther SSD partition is for VMs and fast application workspace. The second spinner partition is for long-term ffile-storage...or CCC5 boot-system daily backup.
 
WHIDWAEIMR?
Since acquiring the 2017 Retina 4K iMac (for peanuts), I need to thin things out a bit. To that end, I'm aiming to lose the A1181, the older 11" MBA, and the 2011 Mini Server. Damned if the MBA hasn't got a dodgy trackpad. I tend not to notice things like this, because I never use trackpads if I can avoid it. More investigation needed, but not the battery as far as I can see.
 
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So one of my prized 5,2 MacBooks decided to celebrate Pride by telling me via beeps that one of its RAM slots failed (nope, not a bum SODIMM, as I'd hoped), and gift me a spicy pillow as well.

At least that's the Mac where my cherished 4 GB DDR2 800 SODIMM lives. I'm contemplating getting another replacement battery off of Amazon. Sigh. Oh well. Happy Pride everyone. 🏳️‍🌈
 
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rampancy said:
So one of my prized 5,2 MacBooks decided to celebrate Pride by telling me via beeps that one of its RAM slots failed (nope, not a bum SODIMM, as I'd hoped), and gift me a spicy pillow as well.
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The pillow is likely the cause of the problem. When they inflate enough they can crack the logicboard and/or memory slots, screw up the kbd and trackpad etc. Remove the battery and try if the slot starts to work. If not, then its too late already.
 
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ToniCH said:
The pillow is likely the cause of the problem. When they inflate enough they can crack the logicboard and/or memory slots, screw up the kbd and trackpad etc. Remove the battery and try if the slot starts to work. If not, then its too late already.
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*sobs*

I'm actually surprised - given the position of the battery and my experiences with other A1181s I would have thought that the damage would be more focused on the circuitry for the trackpad and keyboard, which is located on the topcase right above where the battery would be.

And I did try to troubleshoot the memory slot with the battery removed - sadly, all of the RAM I tried (including the 4 GB DIMM) didn't work in it. Sigh.
 
rampancy said:
I'm actually surprised - given the position of the battery and my experiences with other A1181s I would have thought that the damage would be more focused on the circuitry for the trackpad and keyboard
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Well, that could be the case too but I imagine that in extreme inflatory pillow case the whole case could be warped and it could thus cause damage to the logic board too, theoretically. But, yeah its more likely with MPBs and MBAs.
 
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I updated the web browsers on my early-2009 A1181 MacBook with 6 GB 4 GB of RAM, using a working battery borrowed from one of my 2008 A1181s. I'm keeping a close eye on this battery to make sure it doesn't turn into a spicy pillow too. At least the optical drive bay caddy doesn't have a bad case of amnesia like on one of my other 2009 MacBooks.

ToniCH said:
Well, that could be the case too but I imagine that in extreme inflatory pillow case the whole case could be warped and it could thus cause damage to the logic board too, theoretically. But, yeah its more likely with MBPs and MBAs.
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The odd thing is, it wasn't even a very severe bulge. I would say I was fortunate enough to catch it early before it got really bad. However, IIRC I think the memory slot may have been troublesome even when I first got this MacBook.
 
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rampancy said:
The odd thing is, it wasn't even a very severe bulge. I would say I was fortunate enough to catch it early before it got really bad. However, IIRC I think the memory slot may have been troublesome even when I first got this MacBook.
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Well, then maybe the slot has cracked solder joints. That can happen too. I know there are some Macs where this is quite common but cannot remember which ones had the problem. Can happen to any computer if somebody is hard handed when removing dimms though.
 
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ToniCH said:
Well, then maybe the slot has cracked solder joints. That can happen too. I know there are some Macs where this is quite common but cannot remember which ones had the problem. Can happen to any computer if somebody is hard handed when removing dimms though.
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I have a similar 2009 A1181, slot furthest from drive bay is bad. Unibody Macbook Pros also commonly have one slot or another fail, one of my 2011s is like this.
 
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DCBassman said:
I have a similar 2009 A1181, slot furthest from drive bay is bad. Unibody Macbook Pros also commonly have one slot or another fail, one of my 2011s is like this.
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ToniCH said:
Well, then maybe the slot has cracked solder joints. That can happen too. I know there are some Macs where this is quite common but cannot remember which ones had the problem. Can happen to any computer if somebody is hard handed when removing dimms though.
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I was juggling SODIMMs between several machines yesterday evening, and removed the 4GB from the A1181. Stuck in two ddr800 modules, held the battery in place, and fired it up. No beeps. Optical shuffle. Chime! Fine, but what does it actually see?
2x2GB.
At this point, I reversed out carefully, powered down, and put it back together.
Powered back up. Still the full 4GB!
I'm not messing with that one any more...just in case!
 
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What I did today with my 2009 A1181 was set up a AEBS that I got from someone off of Kijiji for $20. I got it to replace my (used) A1264 Airport Express that just up and died after five years of service as a USB printer sharing device and WiFi range extender.

Funny thing is, I thought I was getting another A1264; I opened up the bag and noticed it was a (1st gen?) A1143. I'm not complaining, since the A1084 and A1264 have always seemed to have issues with PSU failures. Here's to hoping I get some use out of this AEBS for a little while longer.

I've been keeping an eye on the battery I've been using on this Mac. So far, no spicy pillows yet...

ToniCH said:
Well, then maybe the slot has cracked solder joints. That can happen too. I know there are some Macs where this is quite common but cannot remember which ones had the problem. Can happen to any computer if somebody is hard handed when removing dimms though.
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I'd be tempted to say it's Macs from the era when Apple first started using lead-free solder, since that's when we started to see BGA GPU failures in Macs. But yes, it could happen to any Mac, really. I'm fairly sure I've inadvertently killed at least one A1181 via cracked solder joints, when I was overzealous with tightening heat sink screws while doing a thermal paste replacement.

DCBassman said:
I was juggling SODIMMs between several machines yesterday evening, and removed the 4GB from the A1181. Stuck in two ddr800 modules, held the battery in place, and fired it up. No beeps. Optical shuffle. Chime! Fine, but what does it actually see?
2x2GB.
At this point, I reversed out carefully, powered down, and put it back together.
Powered back up. Still the full 4GB!
I'm not messing with that one any more...just in case!
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Ah yes, I've also witnessed oddities with DDR2 800 memory in older model A1181s. I always assumed that DDR2 800 DIMMs would act like DDR2 667 or 533 DIMMs in a non 5,x A1181. In reality, with all DDR2 800 DIMMs, I'd get a black screen with beeps, or maybe only one of the two DIMMs recognized.

It was only after I'd paired it with a DDR2 667/533 module that DDR2 800 modules would behave properly. Again, I'd always assumed that DDR2 800 memory would play nicely with a system with a 667 Mhz memory bus (I've seen DDR2 800 modules used with no issue on PC notebooks), but it seems like in the early Intel MacBooks, higher clocked memory needs to have lower clocked memory present for them to do the necessary downshifting.
 
For no good reason, I went after the early 2011 MBP 15", just to see if it could be revived. Found an 8GB RAM stick and a spare 512GB Patriot SSD. RAM slot a bit flaky at first, but stabilised. Needed date reset from scratch, and I also had to rremake my Catalina patched installer. Having done that, it all went smoothly.
Now, should I move the logic board into the dead late 2011, so as to have the HiRes display? Hmmm, choices...
 
DCBassman said:
Now, should I move the logic board into the dead late 2011, so as to have the HiRes display? Hmmm, choices...
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Well, no need. After much reading and trying all sorts of things that I'm confident I've tried before, I did the Shift-CMD-Opt-Power SMC reset, and up it came! Then did PRAM reset, GPU power prefs command in single-user mode, and am installing Catalina as we speak...

So I've gone from two 2011 MBP 15s on the scvrap pile, to two working machines, assuming they stay that way!
 
DCBassman said:
Well, no need. After much reading and trying all sorts of things that I'm confident I've tried before, I did the Shift-CMD-Opt-Power SMC reset, and up it came! Then did PRAM reset, GPU power prefs command in single-user mode, and am installing Catalina as we speak...

So I've gone from two 2011 MBP 15s on the scvrap pile, to two working machines, assuming they stay that way!
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You have done the same thing for them a dozen+ times already, why would this time be any different?
 
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ToniCH said:
You have done the same thing for them a dozen+ times already, why would this time be any different?
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No idea, except it was supposed to read Shift-Ctrl-Opt...oops.
However it has happened, I now have my favourite MBP back! Unless being left to die with no power of any sort for several months has contributed to the reset in some way?
I will be a good boy and not mess with it any more, just in case!
 
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