Macbook Pro mid 2011 still alive and kicking

Mobile Tech Laptops & Netbooks
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So I had my first and only macbook for 6 years. As soon as I got it I put a 250gb ssd in it. I also upgraded from 4gb to 8gb of ram.

2017 Upgrade consists of 16gb of ram the same boot drive just clean installed and will put a 1tb samsung 850 evo. The laptop is sandy or ivy bridge (forget which came first as it is the second gen i7). It is a quadcore 8 thread cpu.

This is my second laptop I ever bought. It is also my only mac product. But it does what i need it to do. Watching netflix and movies/tv shows on vlc. With 16gb of ram it could last until 2030s imo. It has a shit display though. Like the viewing angles are terrible. This is pre retina macbooks.

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Apple will probably stop releasing upgrades for it in a year or two but you could always go to Linux after that.

Why the memory upgrade, doesn’t make sense for Netflix and VLC?

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For webdesign I use virtualbox and my adobe software. I don’t own master collection for mac.

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I had a macbook pro from 2011. It was a great laptop. Mine survived getting thrown off a work top and having a wine bottle dropped on it but a year ago it got stolen.It had a poor screen compared to modern macs but Apple were making solid quality devices in 2011 with more than one port. The only problem i had with it in 5 years was a charger died and apple replaced it for free.

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Mine survived falling out of a book bag in high school landing on the concrete.

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Wow cool! Those things have gpus that explode. Maybe I’ll look into one :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yup, I have a 2009 core2duo 15" MBP, it is currently playing spotify and is still fine for web browsing, office stuff and so on. 240GB crucial SSD and 8 gigs of memory gave it a new life. At some point I guess the nvidia graphics gonna just stop but so far it is fine.

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They did have a fault where the gpu was killing the logic board. It was an OS configuration issue that was fixed.

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Oh shit totally grabbing one then. They can be had for like 130 on ebay and they’re fuckin everywhere.

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@Sonic @FaunCB Most of the products still do. Any and all Intel macs(macbook, mac mini, imac) pre 2012 that has a secondary GPU from either AMD or Nvidia is affected by this issue. Apple played it down by saying “only specific models” but realistically its all of them. The GPU itself has a flaw in its design that only shows up after it overheats for a prolonged period of time. OS configurations wont fix it, its a physical flaw with the GPU and cooling solution that can only be temporarily fixed by doing BGA Rework on the GPU and replacing the failed chip with a non-failed one(which basically doesnt exist anymore). I say temporary because even the “new” replacement GPU is going to fail again as well.

Only real solution is to upgrade to the newer model machines. Nothing else apart from forcing iGPU usage, and even this only works if your machine is still capable of booting. Most macs that experience GPU failures typically end up having more severe issues such as kernel panics, unable to boot, no display at all, or failed POST.

If any of y’all got any pre-2012 macs, dont use them for anything more video intensive than youtube otherwise the machine will kill itself and GL getting that fixed easily. there is a way to force the macbook to use the intel GPU only but again, only works on machines that are still somewhat usable. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/force-2011-macbook-pro-8-2-with-failed-amd-gpu-to-always-use-intel-integrated-gpu-efi-variable-fix.2037591/

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I see you’re doing fine with virtualbox.
Here’s an idea https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/exchange-product-language-os.html which may interest you. Take it with a grain of salt, but hey, if you like Mac more it can be an option! :slight_smile:

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It’s funny that my macbook was used to play csgo and launch vm and yet has failed. It gets extremely hot when gaming though. Same thing with my lg g4. The g4 has an issue when it heats up the cpu solder loosens and the phone starts to boot loop. I must be lucky for not having a laptop that has failed yet or a boot loop issue with my lg. Hell I am using a cheapo laptop charger I bought for the macbook off of ebay. It cost me like 15 bucks. I was afraid it would explode the machine. But it hasn’t yet.