What have you done with an early Intel recently?

[chaosbunny]

@chaosbunny Beautiful laptop. I actually just purchased my first Mac ever and it was also the A1342 2010 Macbook. I had always wanted one with the white design and decided to jump in given how cheap these are. After some cleaning, it looks decent now.

It came with 8gb of ram and I swapped out the HD for a 512GB SSD and am surprised at how zippy it is.

Are you using High Sierra? I have been thinking of upgrading to Catalina, but am not sure about the benefits.

Yeah, the white design was special. These days almost all laptops look similar - some shade of silver & black.

I just got mine and the ram only came yesrterday. The seller set up a clean install of Sierra, which I used to test everything. I hope I'll have time to install the ram and ssd soon. Then I'll set up High Sierra, install all the programms I want, clone it and later try to get Montery running.

In my opinion one of the major benefits of Catalina is dark mode.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

BTW, I don't know why, but apple decided to keep this device (at least my A1342) more quiet than cool (with it's default fan controlling profile or how is it called). So I've installed Mac's Fan Control & set it to 50 degrees (C). Funny thing that right after startup & login it displays quite high temperature - 65 and sometime even more. Don't know what make it so hot, nothing heavy installed (Steam & Blizzard launcher as startup items).

 

[Amethyst1]

I have been thinking of upgrading to Catalina, but am not sure about the benefits.

Compatibility with more and newer versions of applications and Dark Mode come to mind. In my experience (on a more powerful 2011 MacBook Pro), Mojave and Catalina are a bit slower than High Sierra though.

BTW, I don't know why, but apple decided to keep this device (at least my A1342) more quiet than cool (with it's default fan controlling profile or how is it called).

Maybe a preference for quieter machines in exchange for high temperatures. My 2011 MacBook Pro is the same: the fan doesn't really ramp up until the CPU is at 80°C (!), then it ramps up very quickly.

 

[chaosbunny]

Now that was one easy installation of a SSD compared to my early 2008 mbp!

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

easy installation of a SSD

Try to install it instead of ODD .

until the CPU is at 80°C (!)

I don't want to melt notebook, so configured it for my liking.

 

[chaosbunny]

Try to install it instead of ODD .


I don't want to melt notebook, so configured it for my liking.

One of the reasons I got it was to watch our Disney DVDs with my little daughter on the couch or in bed, so no. I don't want to get Disney+ after what they have done to Star Wars ... so I'm collecting the classics on used DVDs.

And yes, Macs Fan Control is something I have been installing on all my laptops for 15+ years.

 

[MicroByte]

So I ended up installing Catalina and then uninstalling it a while later. Things just didn't feel as snappy as High Sierra. Maybe I'll try again someday, but I ended up back to High Sierra for now. I did mess with Bootcamp and managed to get Windows 10 installed which again, feels really snappy on this older MacBook.

Ordered 16GB of ram so hopefully this will keep things feeling good for a while.

Thanks also for the info on Macs Fan Control. Are there any other nice utilities you would recommend?

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

@chaosbunny
About DVD drive - just made some from extracted drives (not from macbook, but who cares ) and boxes with 2 USB ports (power + data). M.b. not the best looking combo when connected but I personally really not need it daily . It's a pity A1342 don't havr firewire port, I've made really great device from Toshiba HD-DVD (writes quite anything but HD-DVDs ) + box from Acer (if I remember correctly) external drive (well, may be I'll find HD-DVD disk in some distant future, who knows ).

 

[B S Magnet]

So I ended up installing Catalina and then uninstalling it a while later. Things just didn't feel as snappy as High Sierra. Maybe I'll try again someday, but I ended up back to High Sierra for now. I did mess with Bootcamp and managed to get Windows 10 installed which again, feels really snappy on this older MacBook.

Ordered 16GB of ram so hopefully this will keep things feeling good for a while.

Thanks also for the info on Macs Fan Control. Are there any other nice utilities you would recommend?

f.lux is another good one to have handy.

 

[avz]

Finally decided to replace a thermal paste on my Late 2008 unibody MacBook. After 14 years with the original paste it was definitely overdue.

 

[eyoungren]

So I ended up installing Catalina and then uninstalling it a while later. Things just didn't feel as snappy as High Sierra. Maybe I'll try again someday, but I ended up back to High Sierra for now. I did mess with Bootcamp and managed to get Windows 10 installed which again, feels really snappy on this older MacBook.

Ordered 16GB of ram so hopefully this will keep things feeling good for a while.

Thanks also for the info on Macs Fan Control. Are there any other nice utilities you would recommend?

You might try a middle ground between HS and Cat. That'd be Mojave. Still 32-bit app support if you want that and real Dark Mode. There's a script I found for dark mode on HS, but it's a per app thing and patchy. I only use it on Finder on my work MBP (which is running HS).

 

[eyoungren]

f.lux is another good one to have handy.

I used to be a heavy user of f.lux. But once I was able to start getting dark elements into the UI it started being inconvenient because the yellow tint it generates doesn't mix well with the black elements or dark themes. I've also tried Nightshift, but its not as strong or customizable as f.lux.

For that reason, and the slight yellow tint on one of my Cinema Displays I ditched f.lux a while back. Still a great app though.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Inspired by another user on here, I partitioned an old SATA HDD and an old SATA SSD (both 120 GB) and put various macOS installers on them. I did the HDD awhile back, way before I bought the 2012 MBP. I partitioned the old HDD as follows:

1) Lion
2) Mountain Lion (ParrotGeek patched)
3) Mavericks (ParrotGeek patched)
4) High Sierra (DosDude patched)
5) Mojave (DosDude patched)
6) Catalina (DosDude patched)

The first three were intended for use with the 2006 MBP and the last three were intended for use with the Early 2009 Mini. Since this worked out well, I decided to do it again with the old SSD that was in the 2012 MBP. I partitioned it thusly:

1) Snow Leopard
2) Lion
3)Mountain Lion
4)Mavericks
5) El Capitan
6) Mojave

Snow Leopard is obviously intended for the older Intels in my collection and I thought it would be good to have a backup in case the SL DVD stopped working. Lion is a repeat just to fill up space. El Capitan is just here to fill up space too. Mountain Lion and Mavericks are on here because despite the patched versions of the installers working just fine on officially supported machines, I thought maybe it was best to use the vanilla versions on the machines that support those. Mojave is here for the same reason, in case I decide to put it on the 2012 MBP.

 

[avz]

After replacing the thermal paste on my Late 2008 unibody MacBook I decided to upgrade HDD with the SSD as well. I did a fresh install of High Sierra as I would like to keep things as "native" as possible. What I have found interesting is that Apple did not support the Night Shift feature on a MacBook6,1, MacBook7,1 and MacBookPro7,1 so even though these Macs do support High Sierra natively you will still have to disable SIP if you want to use the Night Shift. So if you are like me and want to use the Night Shift you will have to run your "supported" Mac with the SIP disabled just like I do with my "unsupported" MacBook5,1.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I spent the good part of this morning trying to get Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 to play nicely with my university distance learning website on my 08 macbook and 09 mbp. Each and every time, I try to log in, the browser freezes and then the entire gui forcing a reboot. I am currently at a loss as to how to move forward from that. Being that the issue is present through two unbuntu revisions, it seems to me that it's linked to something like a driver that is in use for both builds. I dont however know what driver or bit of software could be linked to something like a microsoft secure login feature on the university website that would cause the gui to crash - aside form that single feature, the experience is pretty solid. Anyhow to double down, I figured I'd install Void on the macbook but the void installer will not see the SSD in there and I cannot figure out how to manually bring up cfdisk to format the disk to something void might see which is probably my lack of terminal linux skillset. Just a lot of head banging against the wall this Sunday morning

Might just take an El Cap install to something like hisi and use that but can imagine how sluggish comparatively that experience would probably be. I am trying really hard to not have to buy an $2300 Apple Silicon 16" mbp months before xmas for a crummy $200 distance learning class which is just absurd. Gotta walk away from this for now - wasted enough time. Going to go hang out with the kids.

 

[Grumpus]

...So if you are like me and want to use the Night Shift you will have to run your "supported" Mac with the SIP disabled just like I do with my "unsupported" MacBook5,1.

I too have a MacBook5,1 running HS installed with the dosdude1 patcher and the Night Shift patch applied. But I'm at a loss as to how to turn it on and off. There is no Night Shift tab in the Displays setting, nor is there a toggle in the notification area. Is it simply "on" if the patch is applied? Any ideas on turning it off?

EDIT: I ran the Patch Updater app, which indicated that the Night Shift patch is installed, but I right-clicked it and reinstalled it anyway. After the reboot, I now have a Night Shift tab in Displays and a Night Shift toggle in the notification area.

 

[InAWhiteRoom]

I cannot believe that worked. Surgical tools were needed. And loo roll holders!

The X bench scores for read/write improvements are pretty dramatic. What I’ve lost in space (the HDD was 2TB(!), the SSD 256GB) I’ve more than made up in speeeeeeed.

Also - this imac was *given away free* after it’s owner upgraded, presumably due to slowdown with a too strenuous OS and nearly full HDD. Amazing what you can rejuvenate with a bit of tinkering.

 

[eyoungren]

Spent some time messing around trying to get an image (1) color-balanced, (2) remove Getty images stupid watermark by dropping in a section of a duplicate image that did NOT have a watermark and (3) cutting out the image.

(2) was work because this particular image is so wildly color-whacked because multiple people have scanned it. I'm pretty sure it's a pale-blue to mid-blue dress, but some scans people did came in GREEN! So, trying to match the color balance of the hi-res image that has the watermark with another higher but off-color hi-res image was infuriating. I'm not a Photoshop Pro. My skills are down to what I need to do my particular job.

Anyway, finally just said screw it and decided to use a mask to fade the dress in at the point where Getty's watermark is. Looks like one of those pale blue to dark blue dresses you see out there which is kind of cool.



Julie London, from the cover of her 'Best of Julie London' album. Yes, Nurse Dixie McCall from Emergency.

As a side note, I have no idea why Adobe removed the variations feature from Photoshop. Had to open up CS4 to get what I want. I really hate that they removed that, just haven't mentioned it before.

 

[eyoungren]

And, again with the MacPro 5,1 and Photoshop CC21…adjustments. Got the bottom of the dress to match.



Original, if anyone cares…LOL!

 

[avz]

I too have a MacBook5,1 running HS installed with the dosdude1 patcher and the Night Shift patch applied. But I'm at a loss as to how to turn it on and off. There is no Night Shift tab in the Displays setting, nor is there a toggle in the notification area. Is it simply "on" if the patch is applied? Any ideas on turning it off?

EDIT: I ran the Patch Updater app, which indicated that the Night Shift patch is installed, but I right-clicked it and reinstalled it anyway. After the reboot, I now have a Night Shift tab in Displays and a Night Shift toggle in the notification area.

I am glad you got it working. I believe the situation like yours is one of the reasons that inspired dosdude1 to include a Patch Updater app in his patcher. Another reason is of course to introduce any new patches that might be available in the future.

I patched the Night Shift manually by using a pikeralpha method, it was confusing at first but it was a good exercise with a bit of learning.

 

[chaosbunny]

I finally had the time to try OCLP Montery on my white Mid 2010 MacBook yesterday and I'm really impressed. Installation was smooth, almost as easy as an officially supported macOS. Performance is great too, I do not notice a big difference to High Sierra while doing general stuff. The MacBook also does not run hotter than before. Here I am, posting from a 12 years old machine with an up to date OS and browser.

At the same time, it also makes me sad thinking about the planned obsolescence at Apple and all our technology in general.

 

[theMarble]

I finally had the time to try OCLP Montery on my white Mid 2010 MacBook yesterday and I'm really impressed. Installation was smooth, almost as easy as an officially supported macOS. Performance is great too, I do not notice a big difference to High Sierra while doing general stuff. The MacBook also does not run hotter than before. Here I am, posting from a 12 years old machine with an up to date OS and browser.

At the same time, it also makes me sad thinking about the planned obsolescence at Apple and all our technology in general.

View attachment 2060066

I've got 11.6.8 on my 7,1. I find that once I get a few apps open the system slows down a lot? Is Monterey any better?

 

[chaosbunny]

I've got 11.6.8 on my 7,1. I find that once I get a few apps open the system slows down a lot? Is Monterey any better?

So far I have just tried browsing while listening to Amazon Music, streaming Netflix, watching a DVD and doing some stuff in Affinity Photo with zero problems. I've only had 2-3 apps open at the same time though. I'll do further testing in the next couple of days and post results. My whitebook has 16gb ram, I guess that helps a lot. Even with High Sierra I noticed that about 3-4 gigs were quickly used by the OS and background tasks.

But since all apps open very fast from the SSD anyway it's no big deal to just open and close them a little more often than I would on a more modern machine.

 

[B S Magnet]

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I cannot believe that worked. Surgical tools were needed. And loo roll holders!

View attachment 2058216

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The X bench scores for read/write improvements are pretty dramatic. What I’ve lost in space (the HDD was 2TB(!), the SSD 256GB) I’ve more than made up in speeeeeeed.

View attachment 2058221

Also - this imac was *given away free* after it’s owner upgraded, presumably due to slowdown with a too strenuous OS and nearly full HDD. Amazing what you can rejuvenate with a bit of tinkering.

Thank you for posting these pics and giving me plans/ideas for when I prepare the everything-at-once upgrade of my 2013 iMac (HDD to SDD, addition of NVMe blade, upgrading the CPU, and maxing the RAM) — all-at-once, as you now know, because of that foam seal. Like you, it was given to me, gratis, by someone who tinkered with Macs for a minute before returning to custom-built gaming rigs.

The tp rolls are an especially handy thing I’ll apply once that time comes!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Interesting journey to get Catalina on the 1047 late 2008 C2D 2ghz aluminum macbook. The DD1 Catalina patcher actually would not install on this machine showing the incompatibility circle of doom. I had to install it on a Late 2009 Macbookpro and then swap the ssd into the a1047. This was unexpected but I got it to work, so all is well accept wifi does not work consistently. If this machine goes to sleep, when waked, wifi does not work. This is the same behavior on both the late 2008 and 2009 machines. I think the issue can be resolved with reinstalling the post installer scripts/patches which I will have to do later. Also which I expected was pretty high CPU usage overall. The cores idle around 50-70% with just opera running. Again, Im not too surprised by this and expect the cpus to calm down eventually - perhaps its some internal function like indexing etc. The other thing I notice about this is that Catalina is chewing through this battery nomnomnom

Anyhow, this will need some work to get that wifi issue resolved but assuming that works, I will probably put this drive back into the 2009 mbp as it has beefier cpus.