My first Mac - Macbook Pro 5,5. Now what?

S

sharp

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 9, 2003
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I had a powerbook G3 and tower G4 and I remember basically zero. A little [H] guidance would be fantastic.

- Though it says 8gb is the max it'll take, could if I upgrade to 16gb if I install some other 'bios'/El Captain/etc? The model on EveryMac is MB990LL/A and it shows 8gb as the max. : /

- It's sata... like the first one. No problems just grabbing any random newer SSD and installing the OS over the net? (Other than it clearly can't make full use of some sata3 love)

- Is that the best way to do a clean install on this? Is that even needed on Macs after years of use? (Even if not, I may do it for fun if reinstalling office is still just moving the directory over... it's like office 12 or some old thing so I'm not super concerned and would just use the Mac office suite instead... it's a play thing and for coding, not for office typing.)

- Should I El Captain this action or no? It's running 10.9.5 right now.

- Monitors. Can I hook a decent monitor to this or will the 9400 series GPU just up and die (puke ultra lame framerates/tearing)? Web browsing / coding are the uses. not gaming : )

Thanks. I'm really hoping this can make a decent little laptop for my son as he works on his coding courses (Sublime3 FTW).
 
Most of these questions are Googleable. Which is more or less what I did.

8GB is the Max, shouldn't need 16GB for coding or desktop usage anyway.
Yes you can install any HD you want, including an SSD. Generally it's highly recommended as it will extend the life of the machine in terms of performance.
If you're installing a new HD, I'd recommend reinstalling the OS. Some people like to use some sort of clone software, but really it's not like it's going to take that much time out of your life with a decent connection.
OS is up to you. But there isn't a reason to not run the latest OS. There are various improvements including speed improvements.
External monitors will work just fine. It is a 9400M however. Don't expect the world. It's not going to do anything seriously GPU dependent, but if you want an external to browse, code, or do other office work on it'll be a fine experience. Max external resolution is 2560x1600, which should be sufficient.
 
I Googled.. thus the answer asking for confirmation and EveryMac reference. Thank you for answering (esp if you thought I needed a lmgtfo link).

Sometimes, in days of yore anyway, enthusiasts had hacked bios to extend abilities, or 'developer tools' to improve the same. I was hoping there was a similar option to boost the ram since the extra 8gb would be so little extra cash.

On the OS I'm seeing noise about the older systems dragging under El Captain; but maybe those are just people trying to run it off 4gb (or even 2gb) systems. Thus I seek the thoughts of [H]. Sounds like you at least think with 8gb of ram I'd be better off with El Captain here. Works for me.

Good reminder on the max res. Thanks on all counts.
 
There are some models in which Apple states the maximum amount of supported RAM is "X" whereas the the actual amount of RAM that is installable is higher. In the case of your MBP, that isn't the case. Unfortunate, but for what you're using the machine for, it won't really matter. 16GB+ would be useful for lots of PS, gaming, or other memory intensive applications. I would say you should be okay.

The big issue you'll have his the slowness of the C2D. Sadly, it hasn't aged nearly as well as older i7's. Still, I think under El Capitan it should be fine. Worst case scenario, you just end up having to reinstall. I personally don't think that will be the case. Installing an SSD like you plan should really help. At least it will keep all IO operations speedy which will at least offset a bit of the relatively slow processing speed.
 
sharp said:
I Googled.. thus the answer asking for confirmation and EveryMac reference. Thank you for answering (esp if you thought I needed a lmgtfo link).

Sometimes, in days of yore anyway, enthusiasts had hacked bios to extend abilities, or 'developer tools' to improve the same. I was hoping there was a similar option to boost the ram since the extra 8gb would be so little extra cash.

On the OS I'm seeing noise about the older systems dragging under El Captain; but maybe those are just people trying to run it off 4gb (or even 2gb) systems. Thus I seek the thoughts of [H]. Sounds like you at least think with 8gb of ram I'd be better off with El Captain here. Works for me.

Good reminder on the max res. Thanks on all counts.
Click to expand...


It's been a couple days. If you can, post back with your experience. It will change our (or at least my) future recommendations on older machines.
 
Not quite done (three kids, work, etc...)

So far OSX El Captain in on there. I made a bootable USB installer with it, had the 'won't install over SATA bit' when I tried to install the SSD directly and just setup the drive/installed it via an external enclosure on USB (with the 'can't verify this install package' or whatever bit too so the terminal date adjustment trick did work for me).

I'm going to be MIA until Sunday at least, but I'll try and have the drive in the system give a response on overall feel vs before as soon as I can. Ram upgrade (came with 5 : / ) is on order to bring it to 8.

Total cost so far is like $150 (it needed a charger) or so. Maybe not worth it on a 'bang-for-buck' I suppose, but worth it for the fun of bringing a 'dead' machine back and learning a bit about fruit.
 
sharp said:
Not quite done (three kids, work, etc...)

So far OSX El Captain in on there. I made a bootable USB installer with it, had the 'won't install over SATA bit' when I tried to install the SSD directly and just setup the drive/installed it via an external enclosure on USB (with the 'can't verify this install package' or whatever bit too so the terminal date adjustment trick did work for me).

I'm going to be MIA until Sunday at least, but I'll try and have the drive in the system give a response on overall feel vs before as soon as I can. Ram upgrade (came with 5 : / ) is on order to bring it to 8.

Total cost so far is like $150 (it needed a charger) or so. Maybe not worth it on a 'bang-for-buck' I suppose, but worth it for the fun of bringing a 'dead' machine back and learning a bit about fruit.
Click to expand...


Cool. I look forward to hearing more. For $150, I still think you did well. If you don't have another laptop, it will be more serviceable than any netbook. It should be useful when you need more than a phone. If you're not doing anything crazy intensive, it'll be more than enough.
 
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