Old Macbook Pro's - Is Apple HW that fragile?
Printed From: Speakerplans.com
Category: Other Chat
Forum Name: Computer Talk
Forum Description: Help and discussion about your manly PC or girly Mac
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=105526
Printed Date: 26 March 2026 at 5:29pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Old Macbook Pro's - Is Apple HW that fragile?
Posted By: levyte357-
Subject: Old Macbook Pro's - Is Apple HW that fragile?
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 9:14am
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Mate has 2012 MBP I5, and OS stopped booting. He gave it to mate to look at it, 2x days later, battery was duff, and machine wouldn't charge it. I bought £130 MBP 2009, to aid with data recovery. Tried putting my battery in mates laptop, it knackered it. Then the process of swapping batteries between mates laptop and mine, caused my machine to stop Charing batteries. I have Core2duo Dell laptops in loft, going back to 2010, and if I did the above, with them, know there would be no problem. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Replies:
Posted By: APW
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 11:11am
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Because you are paying for a nice shiny expensive “unibody” alloy case and mediocre electronics!! I have a 2010 mac mini here that I bought for a project I had years ago and it has been the biggest pile of useless unreliable &^%$ I have ever owned and has spent most of its life as an expensive paperweight!! A lot of Mac users moan that PC hardware is crap and is unreliable, and yes some of the very cheap low end stuff is, however I still have every PC laptop I have purchases since 1998, and after a little maintenance every single one still runs just fine then plugged into its power adapter…. OK the batteries need replacing but my old Toshiba win 98 laptop is now 22years old and my old Compaq XP laptop now 18years old. My 10 year old Alienware (currently running Win 7) is still used as my primary playout machine. BTW, I don’t hate apple products, what I do hate is all the BS that goes along with them. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 11:25am
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My partner bought MBP Core2Duo in 2009, new for £1K, 3x years later it refused to come on. She then bought new i5 MBP in 2012, 8x years later that refused to boot, then refused to come on. She had bought Asus i3 for her daughter in 2013, but daughter abandoned it 3x years later, due to it being malware ridden, even with McAfee installed. After dilemma with he 2x MBPs, I told her to get Asus out the loft, I upgraded mem to 16gb, put on new install of W10 Pro (Had 8.1 on there so free upgrade), and she is now very happy, even with just 7200rpm HDD, not SSD. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 12:14pm
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Sat here writing this on a mid-2009 MBP. Only had two problems so far; one being a catastrophic HDD failure (about three years ago) and the other being the battery which, to be fair, lasted until this year. The HDD failure resulted in it being upgraded to a 500gb SDD and 8gb ram. It still works perfectly for what I use it for and has a WinXP partition (solely for WinISD, HornResp etc) and a partition for trying different Linux flavours. It still flies, and in all the time I 've had it (from new) I can honestly say it's only crashed once (not including the HDD failure). I have never had a Win laptop that's lasted more than two or three years. Anyway, batteries are a nightmare on Macs; some run at very slightly different voltages, some have different pin-outs on the flylead etc etc. So by getting one from a different model will invariably do damage. I know when I replaced my battery I had to make sure it was for my model, the one from a few months earlier and the one from a few months later would not fit and work. You can only be sure by making sure the 'A' number is correct in the model number. On an MBP it's shown on the base, near the rear in small writing. Mine's an A1278, btw. Edit: Sorry Lev, just re-read that and it sounds like I'm teaching granny to suck eggs! Wasn't meant that way.
------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: spongebob
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 12:53pm
| Watch Luis Rossman on youtube and decide if you'd ever buy a macbook |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 1:11pm
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I must say, MBPs from 2009, still look more modern than some 2015 onwards PC laptops. Add to that the slick Gui with OS, you can't fail to be impressed, when the things work. However, you can't install latest OS (without hackery), if you have really old Machine !? Put SSD and 16gb in old i5 PC laptop, and Windows 10 installs and very nippy. Really wanted £140 MBP, to use just as tablet, but the hardware just seems so weak compared to PC laptops. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: Ionkontrol
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 1:50pm
| Typing this on a 2010 Macbook Pro. Apart from a SSD upgrade, all tickety-boo. Still going strong. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 2:12pm
Just took another look at my el cheapo MBP, did a serial no search using: https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup" rel="nofollow - https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup And verified it is an A1278, even though 2009. So my £120 MBP 2009, won't charge battery, won't come on even with mains attached. Will take it to Mac repair dude, and if diagnosed fix is > £50...  ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
djeddie wrote:Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 22 July 2020 at 5:01pm
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May some dumb, but are the connector of the power lead and the port on the side of the MBP clean? Also, what's the condition of the cable near the connector plug? They're pretty fragile. Mine's still as good as the day I bought it... step-daughters 2012 MBP, however, has had to have me get the soldering iron out twice now. There are loads of YouTube vids on charging faults on MBP's... best thing I found was not to just watch (and believe) just one, watch a few and you'll suss it. Like I said, apart from the HDD failure, I've never had to repair mine but have done repairs for family etc and YT was they way I did it. ------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 23 July 2020 at 11:20am
Done all that mate, was working fine, problems started when I started interchanging batteries with a problematic machine.
I did hear MBP logic boards are extremely sensitive to static, but I've been building PCs since '88, and never lost a board, or memory, or CPU to this. Gonna have to bite bullet, and get machine repaired, as it does look good, when you pull out MBP on the train.  ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 23 July 2020 at 6:13pm
Bloody poser!!! But yep, static is a problem. I've always worn my earth strap for 'puter work. ------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: Phil B
Date Posted: 07 September 2020 at 4:29am
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I have a 2007 MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo, 2.2. Battery life is useless...pretty much get about 45 mins if your lucky. Main problem has been the graphics chip but after I discovered the " cook your Macbook " trick it gets a visit to the oven about once a year and we're back up and running. %20" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjeKqWbTg4&ab_channel=Tuts%2BComputerSkills Using it as my daughters home learning comp' and it works really well for all the online video stuff but as it's running OSX El Capitan way back I can't get Zoom installed on it.... Cost me $50 3 years ago..... I have a Windows Surface Pro as my main device... wouldn't swap it for anything else....! .p. ------------- Mostly harmless.... except if catering is shut. Solar Sound System Shennanigans.. http://diyhifi.biz/" rel="nofollow - http://diyhifi.biz/ |
Posted By: jolliver
Date Posted: 07 September 2020 at 7:02am
| Have you tried a PRAM and SMC reset? |
Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 07 September 2020 at 5:55pm
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And if the battery hasn't been changed already, I'd change that. Apple don't do one any more that will fit, so it will have to be an OEM of some descript.
------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: SamV
Date Posted: 18 September 2020 at 12:42pm
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Dunno what you guys are doing but all my macs are still working (going back to Titanium powerbook), whereas windows machines just decide to die on me. My beautiful 2018 top spec XPS15 just stopped working a year in. It's been back to Dell 3 times now, and has supposedly been replaced and still has issus with it swapping between graphics cards continuously. Serves me right for buying a laptop just cos it looked nice |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 18 September 2020 at 1:17pm
Non Apple repair shop tried fixing machine, no success. Something wrong with charging circuit on mainboard. Put in charged working battery, machine boots, wont't charge battery, then knackers battery. Advertised machine on FB Marketplace, keep getting contacted by FB numpsies, not reading add, thinking they are getting working I5 2012 MBP for £120.  Taken ad down, problem is new mainboard fitting, will cost more than price of used DELL I5 7450, which is very sexy and capable machine. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: djeddie
Date Posted: 19 September 2020 at 11:23am
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Does the Mac run off the mains PSU without the battery being installed?
------------- Chas n Dave : it's like Drum and Bass but with beards. E=mc² ±3dB |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 19 September 2020 at 11:29am
Nope. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: spongebob
Date Posted: 19 September 2020 at 2:27pm
| Lev, look up Luis Rossman on youtube. If the idea of messing about with it at SMD level sounds like fun, he'll have all the info you'd need |