Laptop advice

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elma
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Laptop advice

Post by elma »

My laptops becoming prity much torturous to use. It's so slow on the internet compared to everyone else's and it takes an age to open or do anything.

The laptop is a mid 2010 Macbook Pro, 2.4ghz core 2 duo, 8Gb ram, NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB with its original 5400rpm 250Gb hard drive.
It's batteries due replacing as well as it used to last about 6 hours but now only manages 30 to 45 mins.
I need a useable laptop but I want to spend the bare minimum achieving it. I only write letters, emails, spreadsheets and browse the internet so I don't need anything mega powerful.

I'm not sure if I should replace the hard drive with this ssd. Replace the fan like for like and replace the thermal compound, cost of about £20. Then if it works properly again buy a new battery like this which I'm not sure if I trust for some reason.

Or would it be better to spend £40 more and just get a new chrome book with a warranty?
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Re: Laptop advice

Post by spider »

Although Mac OS does not quite 'age' as much as Windows can, a fresh installation (backup *everything* you want to keep) can work.

Ensure you do a reformat so it does not keep any old bits / data fragments.

I do not think machines get slower as such, its just over a year or three they 'appear' to as they collect so much junk. :)

There is a possibility if its getting too hot then thermal management may be slowing the CPU down, for this personally I'd just check the fan works ( ! ) and its not dust clogged and if possible refresh the thermal grease too. It is surprising how much of a "dust monster" these things can become.

The other thing about the HDD, well that will potentially improve its speed. I brought one of the first 128GB SSD's a few years back with a view to reduced power consumption mainly as well as shock resistance. It was only for a netbook that has Diag on it, nothing else. Its speed is shockingly slow even with 4K alignment and several firmware updates, other users reported similar. To put this into perspective, its unlikely you'd get a bad one.

Hard drives do have thermal management too (well, kind of)

Summary: Try the fresh installation first if you can as this is cheaper. :) At a minimum I'd ensure your fan is working and you've removed excess dust from it as well as the processor heatsink.
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Re: Laptop advice

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Have you tried the free CCleaner for Mac? It's very good at clearing all the crap left behind by programmes and websites.
You can also uninstall stuff you no longer use with it.

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner-mac
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elma
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Re: Laptop advice

Post by elma »

Thanks.

The fan works so I'll pick up some paste en route home from work. It'll be very happy for a hoover as well.

I've only got 40gb free on the HDD, usually have around 100gb so will have a thorough clear out with ccleaner. If it's as good as carbon copy, which I think is the same people I have a lot of faith in it.

I'm going to replace the HDD but undecided weather I'll go like for like at £40 or ssd at £85. Only doing it because of the age and I get constant errors on permissions nowadays which used to be a rare occurrence. Probably will go old fashioned, need to buy a new car and pay some debts off.
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Re: Laptop advice

Post by elma »

This weekend I stripped down the laptop and gave it a good service. It got a de dusting firstly as there was a fair amount in there. I changed the thermal paste as well, the old stuff was like dry blutack so it was overdue. It's had a decent clear out too, about 90gb of junk is gone.

I still wasn't happy so I verified and repaired the disk permissions. Then I reset the SMC and the PRAM. Seems to have made a significant effect but I'm still not finished just yet. I have ordered another battery as I've read that cpu power can be cut if the battery health is poor. I'm toying with getting an SSD still, I'm paranoid about my 6yo hdd failing even if it seems good today. Probably will be ordering one in the near future.

Regarding a fresh install. I keep time machine and carbon copy clone backups on separate hard drives. Is it sensible to do a fresh install and restore content from time machine? I'm assuming if I use the carbon copy it will just put all the clutter straight back in.
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