hello @FamilyGeekery, I'm getting a new laptop and my budget only covered for a 2011 MacBook pro with 8GB RAM and i5 processor. I've been contemplating on upgrading it which lead me to your awesome video. Can you please elaborate on why you recommend not to upgrade for any models with less i7 ?
I’m amazed. About a month ago, my son asked if he could take my old 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro to check out what was wrong with it. The answer: It needed a new battery, for starters. Then, he suggested an upgrade with more memory, a new battery and a solid state drive. I ordered the parts he suggested and: the battery, 1 T memory and Mac O S High Sierra all installed. He just needs to install the SSD and format it. Cost: less than $200.00. Am really looking forward to running this updated gem, hopefully, soon. BTW, I’m not pushing him to bring it back faster. He works crazy hours driving an 18 wheeler. Am just very grateful.
Sir, thank you, thank you. I’d reached the end of my tether with my 2014 Mac Mini, thru the years I’ve overloaded it and suffered as a consequence... but now, due in very large part to you, I’m the proud owner of a Macbook Pro early 2011. Two weeks ago I bought my ‘old’ Macbook Pro, and with your clear, explicit and well presented video plus the relevant parts by my side, I now have ‘’my’ perfect Mac! Monterey, with the aid of another equally well presented video, now resides on my pride and Joy. Huge vote of thanks for your splendid effort!
Thank you for the kind words. Later this week, I’m actually recording a video about a 2014 Mac mini. Glad you’re happy with the results! Thanks for watching!
I remember doing this to my MBP 13" in 2010. Had never done it before, watched a shed load of YT vids, bought gear from here and there and gave it a crack. Was fun to do and the end result was an awesome upgrade. Good vid mate.
The 2010-11 MBPs were groundbreaking Macs. I still use mine professionally. It has traveled the world, with daily flights, use outdoors in temp ranging from 0-100F. The only drawback is their weight.
in my opinion the 2011, were bad cause of AMD radeon gpu, (if you're talking about the 15 inch,) the 2012 a1286 was a beast, and still runs faster than the retina 2014,only better cooling. Unless you was talking about the 13inch
The 2012 was the best. Both 13 and 15 inch models. If this was a 15 inch 2011, it would be sitting as a paperweight. Same thing with a 27 inch iMac from 2011.
@@TarynnElizabeth619 Mine is 2010, and far from a paperweight. I tour the country with Andrea Bocelli running ProTools 12 in High Sierra. It is also my Vectorworks machine. It was a CTO with 2.8GHz i7 processor. My main studio Mac is a 2009 MacPro, upgraded to 12 core Westmere Xeon 3.46GHz, metal graphics and wifi/bt latest versions. Without a doubt the best Mac ever built. Its job is ProTools Ultimate 2022.10 with HDX, 192 channels of IO, literally the current state of the art, on Big Sur. - flawlessly. I record and post major network broadcasts on that MacPro, with my MBP doing utility work gathering audio on the fly. Apple knows they made that machine too well and took revenge with the trash can. I have built these machines for others, all very happy customers.
I’ve recently, in the last few months, transitioned over from being a Windows user (since 1985) to a MacBook Pro M1…and, honestly, I’m STILL learning about the macOS! Watching you replace the parts in this laptop didn’t surprise me, as, I’ve done the exact same thing with my Windows pc’s. A lot of people don’t understand there’s really not much ‘under the hood’ when it comes right down to it! Great video and I commend you on the way you explained things as you went through the procedure! Stay safe and have a blessed days! ~Jim!
Thanks Jim! I bounce back and forth between Windows and Mac, using Windows mostly for gaming, and Mac mostly for work. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do under the hood on MacBooks with the newer models, but with something like your M1, you really don’t need to, lol. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for watching!
I happen to be among the lucky ones to do something similar to this. I had found an old 2011 Macbook Pro, having been donated to my disability group with some Windows laptops, for some of the other service users to take apart for their science lessons. I thought to myself that it would seem like the perfect thing to fix, so with the help of a local electronics repair service, I managed to clean out the dust, replace the battery and hard drive, which were both absent in this, and got it working again. I installed MacOS X onto it, and discovered it had an i5 Processor, when I thought it had a Core2Duo inside. While the keyboard doesn't work exactly, I was able to work around that with a wireless Bluetooth keyboard. And for some reason, it works better with the power supply attached. But still, it works great. It's useful with programming, and it provides me with some means of connection to Apple's products.
I like your work mate - clear narration and excellent video without the view being obscured ever. I’m about to “inherit” my daughters old 2012 MacBook and will do a ram, battery and SSD upgrade as per your video - looking forward to it now. Keep it up👍
I updated my mid-2010 13” MBP 2 years ago with an SSD and upped ram to 8 gb. It made all the difference. It’s faster now than it was when it was new. It cost a total of about $100. I had considered buying a new laptop, but am glad I updated instead. For my purposes, my updated MBP serves me very well. My only reservation to this is that the camera is very poor by today’s standards. So for Zoom sessions I use my iPad, which has a much better camera.
Hi, I learned exactly what i needed to learn on your channel and I did that on my laptop. I came back to your video to say thank you so much. You are great and straight to the point! Much appreciated. I wish you all the best 😊 I also recommend to everyone to upgrade their laptops. It’s worth it.
this video helped me out tremendously. I was about to drop $800 on a refurbished macbook and I got mine loading from chime start in :24 after updating my memory to 16GB from 4 and updating the storage to an Inland SSD 512GB ($39 MicroCenter) and it runs like a well oiled machine for less than $75. Previous load time was about 5:7:00 minutes depending on the day. I couldn't have done it without your expertise and meticulous step by step video! THANK YOU!!
A very useful video! In my opinion, giving the whole computer a good clean is always best and replacing the thermal paste helps to keep the operating temperature down and with older computers I always install a modern Linux OS., such as Linux Mint.
@@VICTHEREALEST I have not, but this link shows a list of YT., videos about installing Linux on various Macs. th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=linux+on+a+macbook+pro
Same procedure works for PC's too, but best to clone the drive first so you don't have to reinstall everything. But make sure to go into the BIOS before cloning and disable Secure Boot!
@@greenman8 depends on what software you have. If you have something like Office 2016 or other device specific software you want to keep, cloning is best if the OS isn’t giving you trouble. Otherwise you have to reinstall everything. I haven’t used the old HDD as an external because I figure it’s a good backup now and it is kind of small.
Thank you for assuring me that RAM capacity can be expanded beyond the maximum 8GB as per specifications. I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro "15" and intending to upgrade the RAM to 16GB.
Where can you find a REPLACEMENT Charger for this old MBP? My computer guy in this small town said they can't find one!!! I am thinking he just doesn't want me to do anything on my MBP. He said Toss it in the trash.... I said, "Bite Your Tongue!"
A few years ago, on my 2012 15" MacBook Pro, I replaced the HD with a 500 SSD, and updated the RAM to 8Gb. It became unrecognizable. 😀 The new M1 Pro 16" is on my Bucket List..but it has to wait until the 15" will eventually die...
In 2015, I upped my 2012 MBP 13.3" i5 to 8GB RAM + 1TB SSD. It was blazing fast on Mountain Lion and Yosemite, but I upped the performance by a factor of 3.3x by installing Linux Mint Cinnamon 64-BIT. I used a benchmark test from Phoronix and it showed 330% of performance. It was the best running MBP in Africa, surely.
Thanks! I've upgraded dozens of these Macbooks, and finally decided to record one. And thanks for the voice acting comment. I get that all the time, lol.
Nice upgrade! If it was possible to upgrade the pre-Retina screen, you could have gotten a high end MBP for not too much outlay! It still performs well in 2022. Congratulations!
Bought this today, comes with the original everything, including box and comes with a extra magsafe, seems it was kept in a case most of its life, should be pretty good lookng on the outside, and im very glad its easy to get this thing uo to speed for basic things :) 90 bucks wasnt wasted at all
Thank you for this great video-helped immensely. I will add that users may want to use Time Machine with an external hard drive prior to switching the hard drives. Whenever I tried to download the operating system I kept getting an error about the server not responding. I just restored using Time Machine and was able to get everything installed and all my settings were there-Thanks again
sir i have macbook pro late 2011 13 inch i want to change my intel core i5 2gen processor to i5 8gen or i7 8gen processor can i do its work or not plez answer my sir plez???
I would probably want to replace that crusty thermal paste too, since the thermal paste can get hardened over time and not cool the processor properly.
OH... One more question... After you upgrade this computer... What is it now... Brand NEW or just updated a little, and by how much? What can you call it now? 2013 or newer?
Thanks for being so excited! And for watching! Go to our website (channel name + .com) and use the contact form. I’ll be happy to help you out however I can.
I have a mid-2009, 13" MacBook Pro, which I tuned up. I put in a new factory battery, 8GB RAM, SSD and a new keyboard. Now Mac OS Monterey(!) runs smoothly on it, easily! That's not bad performance from a Core 2 Duo!
I just did this. I’m super excited for the results. I Followed your steps to download a new OS from the internet. For some reason it’s unable to connect to the server. Any suggestions?
I had same problems with trying to reinstall High Sierra. While reading the comments in this thread today, I saw this comment which may be the answer: @zachscott1089 3 months ago SERIOUS WARNING! High Sierra servers finally expired for good recently. So, what I'm personally doing with my mid 2010 mbp is updating to IOS 12.6 via OpenCore then cloning my drive. Hope that helps!
Great video - really gave me the confidence to do the upgrade on my late 2011 MBP. The results are amazing. 16GB of ram and a 500 GB SSD did the trick. If I may disagree with one thing that you said - I have the 2.4 GHz i5 processor and for me it was well spending EUR 65 for these 2 upgrades. I have just watched videos on it for the first time for a long time and I love the colours and brightness of the screen and the feel of the keyboard. I will keep it now thanks to the upgrade. I also had terrible trouble with getting the MAC OS to reload. The internet recovery did not work to install High Sierra - "could not connect to server" even though MBP was connected to wired network. I tried to make a usb boot drive and failed as the terminal command gave me the error that the OS I had just downloaded was not an OS so I could not load it onto the USB stick. In the end, I had to use internet recovery to reinstall Lion OS then upgrade to Sierra OS and then upgrade to High Sierra (as you cannot upgrade Lion to High Sierra directly.) Many thanks again for the video - great job.
I wish I could take back what I said about the i5. I was basically trying to say that it was a no-brainer for my friend’s case since he had a i7. Internet recovery is getting buggy on these older ones. But I did make a HS boot disk this week. Glad you worked through it though! Thanks for watching!
I personally am scared to do this.. Do you professionally do ths... Can I pay you to do this? OR Pay you to talk to me over the phone while I'm doing this. I used to be a Mechanical Draftsman (person) and a Chemical Engineer in the oilfield.. so I am not stupid... and I do feel I could do this since I used to do the Electrical Schematic for cars... but I am scared a little bit to do this... This is so EXCITING... I would LOVE to RE-Do my baby... MacBook Pro but... it has been updated once... to Snow Leopard I think... is that older than High Sierra? Which one came first? Thank you so much for making this video... So EXCITED.
Great video. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro and I basically did the same thing I had a 1 TB SSD installed which is the best thing I’ve ever done with any computer is put in SSDs. Then I upgraded to 16 GB of RAM. I had a computer store do this now only thing I will say is the trackpad never work right after that. Battery was bulging against it. My other problem with the computer is that several of the keys have gone out so I don’t know what to do about replacing the keyboard. I have since bought a brand new M1 because my computer made it almost 10 years which I think is a great but it’s still a solid machine I just need to fix the keypad. I don’t know if that something I can do myself or not.
You'd have to replace to top case but a bluetooth keyboard might be your new friend. I still run a maxed out 2011 for my photo booths what a beast for a theoretically ancient piece of tech now haha.
The same thing happened to me with a MacBook Pro 2011 model I obtained. It was one of a series of old laptops donated to my disability group. They were going to take them apart to see what makes them work. But I thought differently, and took it upon myself to fix the MacBook Pro. I opened it up, and noticed that there was no battery or hard drive. Thankfully it was one that could easily be upgraded without relying on Apple's repair services. Apart from the lack of battery or storage, the logic board was intact, a little dusty, but still in working condition. The disc drive even had a installation disc inside. I purchased a new battery and a hard drive, installed them, and installed the earlier version of MacOS that was on the disc. That was when I discovered that the processor was an i5, rather than the Core 2 Duo I thought it had, due to the date on the casing. Inspired, I decided to purchase 16GB of RAM, and with the help of a friend at a PC repair shop, was able to place them inside the device. Now like Joe Glenn's MacBook Pro, the Keyboard wasn't working 100%. But much like Rafael Unplugged's suggestion, I had a Bluetooth keyboard available, so that covers that. I recently replaced the hard drive with an SSD, and it boots up very quick. For some strange reason, it runs faster with the power supply attached, but that's not a worry for me. So in the end, I was able to get a working MacBook Pro for a reasonable price. And to think they were going to disassemble it for their science class. Thankfully I sense opportunity when there is none.
These are very reliable machines the only exception is heat and the battery... Tho the battery is easy enough to replace and as long as you don't have the GPU model a quick fan clean and repaste should get it good as new..
Another thing you could do is take the old hard drive or another SSD, remove the optical drive and use it as a second storage device. They make brackets to adapt the second hard drive for the optical drive slot. I can't recall ever using the optical drive on my mid 2012 Macbook Pro.
Thanks for the video 👍 It shows, that there is no need to replace always a good device. You just need to upgrade it for a small amount of money. I did it also in 2019 to a Macbook Pro Mid 2012. With the original Hardrive an 4GB of Ram, it stops upgrading at MacOS HighSierra. After upgrading to 16GB of Ram and replacing the HDD to a SDD, I could upgrade it to MacOS Catalina. It still works like a new device. After 10 years the battery is still okay, so I didn't replaced it yet. Greetings from Switzerland. Buttermaker
Another thing to the todo-list is replace the dvd. There is a hd adapter, to install instead the dvd. So you will have a second hdd. You can place a 2tb hdd for data and a cheap 240gb ssd for boot and turbo charge your space.
I have a link to a great kit in the description that has everything you’d need. Or you can buy individual drivers. You’d need a #00 Philips, a T6 Torx, and possibly a triwing, depending on your exact model.
great information. I have this mac and its still working for me. I havent gotten a new one because I have some software that I dont want to lose. But now some websites do not work when I go online so I go to my tablet to use those websites. Can I keep the same driver and just upgrade the ram and the battery?
These macs have a limit to the OS u can installl, without doing some trickery. The Facebook group Mac Pro upgrade and Mac book pro upgrade has a community of experts working together to ensure solutions exist. As I’ve found multiple times and as others will know too, this particular model has a defect with the GPU so that chip will fail after this, giving us grey screens or glitchy graphics. Rather than paying for the chip to be replaced or reballed, this community helped me find a solution to disable the graphics chip in the OS and so only used the CPU
Great tips! I’ve got some videos coming up soon showing how to install newer versions of macOS, after Apple stops officially supporting them. Thanks for watching!
I've done all the same upgrades to my 15" a few years back with great results. However, it's time to replace the battery again. Got one from Amazon but my MacBook Pro just refuses to recognize it. I've tried a few hardware resets to no avail. From your experience, is there one "Chinese" brand that's better than others? Thanks!! Btw, I also swapped out the optical drive and repurposed the original 500GB HDD as secondary storage by mounting it with an adapter bracket from OWC. Just a thought.. =)
Buying MacBook batteries is really like Russian roulette, lol. Sometimes you get lucky, other times not so much. As for the data doubler idea, check my more recent videos :) Thanks for watching!
I did the OWC adapter years ago and installed 2 SSD's (2TB and 4TB) and have had no problems with the hardware. The funny thing is the Apple DVD player software won't acknowledge my external DVD drive, but who cares, I never use their player software anyway! For battery replacements I have gotten them all at the Apple Store so the machine would see and monitor them correctly. It's more expensive but worth it.
Does this upgrade allow the use of streaming music and video? I have this same computer, but can no longer access apps like Apple Music. It would be idea as a component in a stereo system, if the upgrade would facilitate this. Thanks for a useful video.
Someone who sucks at computers needs to know, how do I save all my stuff before I do this and what external storage do you recommend? I’m totally doing this! Thanks.
I also have a 13' 2011 MBP but with a core i5. Do you think it's worth getting a RAM upgrade on it? Also, can I change the hard drive without taking out the battery?
Not a fan of the BX500. It slows down once the buffer is full. So I bought an MX500. For a second laptop. I now own three of these 2012 Mac book Pro's.
If you have a 2010, you can see a similar video here: th-cam.com/video/td_UgqpuLag/w-d-xo.html
With open core you can take all the way to Mac OS Monterey. In the video that fan needs some dust remove. Good ideal is to replace therm paste
hello @FamilyGeekery, I'm getting a new laptop and my budget only covered for a 2011 MacBook pro with 8GB RAM and i5 processor. I've been contemplating on upgrading it which lead me to your awesome video. Can you please elaborate on why you recommend not to upgrade for any models with less i7 ?
I’m amazed. About a month ago, my son asked if he could take my old 2011 15 inch MacBook Pro to check out what was wrong with it. The answer: It needed a new battery, for starters. Then, he suggested an upgrade with more memory, a new battery and a solid state drive. I ordered the parts he suggested and: the battery, 1 T memory and Mac O S High Sierra all installed. He just needs to install the SSD and format it. Cost: less than $200.00. Am really looking forward to running this updated gem, hopefully, soon. BTW, I’m not pushing him to bring it back faster. He works crazy hours driving an 18 wheeler. Am just very grateful.
I also suggest upgrading the screen to a matte one. They can go anywhere from $25USD to $50USD
Sir, thank you, thank you. I’d reached the end of my tether with my 2014 Mac Mini, thru the years I’ve overloaded it and suffered as a consequence... but now, due in very large part to you, I’m the proud owner of a Macbook Pro early 2011.
Two weeks ago I bought my ‘old’ Macbook Pro, and with your clear, explicit and well presented video plus the relevant parts by my side, I now have ‘’my’ perfect Mac!
Monterey, with the aid of another equally well presented video, now resides on my pride and Joy.
Huge vote of thanks for your splendid effort!
Thank you for the kind words. Later this week, I’m actually recording a video about a 2014 Mac mini.
Glad you’re happy with the results! Thanks for watching!
I remember doing this to my MBP 13" in 2010. Had never done it before, watched a shed load of YT vids, bought gear from here and there and gave it a crack. Was fun to do and the end result was an awesome upgrade.
Good vid mate.
The 2010-11 MBPs were groundbreaking Macs. I still use mine professionally. It has traveled the world, with daily flights, use outdoors in temp ranging from 0-100F. The only drawback is their weight.
Yeah, they’re not the lightest things, lol. But I wouldn’t want them to go back to the Polycarbonate days. Thanks for watching!
in my opinion the 2011, were bad cause of AMD radeon gpu, (if you're talking about the 15 inch,) the 2012 a1286 was a beast, and still runs faster than the retina 2014,only better cooling.
Unless you was talking about the 13inch
The 2012 was the best. Both 13 and 15 inch models. If this was a 15 inch 2011, it would be sitting as a paperweight. Same thing with a 27 inch iMac from 2011.
@@multiomer1997 Yes, 15”. Sorry I didn’t mention that.
@@TarynnElizabeth619 Mine is 2010, and far from a paperweight. I tour the country with Andrea Bocelli running ProTools 12 in High Sierra. It is also my Vectorworks machine. It was a CTO with 2.8GHz i7 processor. My main studio Mac is a 2009 MacPro, upgraded to 12 core Westmere Xeon 3.46GHz, metal graphics and wifi/bt latest versions. Without a doubt the best Mac ever built. Its job is ProTools Ultimate 2022.10 with HDX, 192 channels of IO, literally the current state of the art, on Big Sur. - flawlessly. I record and post major network broadcasts on that MacPro, with my MBP doing utility work gathering audio on the fly. Apple knows they made that machine too well and took revenge with the trash can. I have built these machines for others, all very happy customers.
I’ve recently, in the last few months, transitioned over from being a Windows user (since 1985) to a MacBook Pro M1…and, honestly, I’m STILL learning about the macOS! Watching you replace the parts in this laptop didn’t surprise me, as, I’ve done the exact same thing with my Windows pc’s. A lot of people don’t understand there’s really not much ‘under the hood’ when it comes right down to it! Great video and I commend you on the way you explained things as you went through the procedure! Stay safe and have a blessed days! ~Jim!
Thanks Jim! I bounce back and forth between Windows and Mac, using Windows mostly for gaming, and Mac mostly for work. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do under the hood on MacBooks with the newer models, but with something like your M1, you really don’t need to, lol. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for watching!
@@FamilyGeekery 👍you’re welcome! 😁
I love your narration. Clear and loud and straight to the point. Now, I am more confident to upgrade my MBP 2011 on my own. Thank you, Sir!
Thank you for the kind words. Good luck on your upgrade! Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for watching!
I happen to be among the lucky ones to do something similar to this. I had found an old 2011 Macbook Pro, having been donated to my disability group with some Windows laptops, for some of the other service users to take apart for their science lessons. I thought to myself that it would seem like the perfect thing to fix, so with the help of a local electronics repair service, I managed to clean out the dust, replace the battery and hard drive, which were both absent in this, and got it working again.
I installed MacOS X onto it, and discovered it had an i5 Processor, when I thought it had a Core2Duo inside. While the keyboard doesn't work exactly, I was able to work around that with a wireless Bluetooth keyboard. And for some reason, it works better with the power supply attached. But still, it works great. It's useful with programming, and it provides me with some means of connection to Apple's products.
I had done upgrades to macos Catalina Patcher and now its great with it..running a fully 64-bit on it in 2023..
I like your work mate - clear narration and excellent video without the view being obscured ever. I’m about to “inherit” my daughters old 2012 MacBook and will do a ram, battery and SSD upgrade as per your video - looking forward to it now. Keep it up👍
Thank you for the kind words. Glad it helped. Let me know if you end up with any questions. Thanks for watching!
You can't upgrade RAM on Macbook Pro 2012, it is soldered
I updated my mid-2010 13” MBP 2 years ago with an SSD and upped ram to 8 gb. It made all the difference. It’s faster now than it was when it was new. It cost a total of about $100. I had considered buying a new laptop, but am glad I updated instead. For my purposes, my updated MBP serves me very well. My only reservation to this is that the camera is very poor by today’s standards. So for Zoom sessions I use my iPad, which has a much better camera.
an older laptop prevents hackers from getting in!😀
Best computer video I’ve ever seen thank you it’s all about the detail you go into and that you do it slowly and clearly. Thank you
Hi, I learned exactly what i needed to learn on your channel and I did that on my laptop. I came back to your video to say thank you so much. You are great and straight to the point! Much appreciated. I wish you all the best 😊 I also recommend to everyone to upgrade their laptops. It’s worth it.
this video helped me out tremendously. I was about to drop $800 on a refurbished macbook and I got mine loading from chime start in :24 after updating my memory to 16GB from 4 and updating the storage to an Inland SSD 512GB ($39 MicroCenter) and it runs like a well oiled machine for less than $75. Previous load time was about 5:7:00 minutes depending on the day.
I couldn't have done it without your expertise and meticulous step by step video! THANK YOU!!
A very useful video! In my opinion, giving the whole computer a good clean is always best and replacing the thermal paste helps to keep the operating temperature down and with older computers I always install a modern Linux OS., such as Linux Mint.
still using osx HS on my mbp2011, runs fast but only issue is battery drain. have you tried linux on an old mbp?
@@VICTHEREALEST I have not, but this link shows a list of YT., videos about installing Linux on various Macs. th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=linux+on+a+macbook+pro
@@laurencejohnson4106 thanks mate 👍
Ditto. With great results, I do that MacMint thing myself.
Excellent video.
Thank you very much!
Excellent DIY video! Thank you 🙏 I was in the market for a new MacBook Pro and retiring my late 2011 13pro….I guess not anymore, cheers!
Glad you liked it. Good luck with your upgrade, and let me know if you have any questions.
A great video. What I particularly like is the tempo of your narrative makes for much better viewing and understanding. Thanks. M from Malvern UK
Thank you so much for the kind words! Some people use the pacing of my voice to help them go to sleep, lol. Thanks for watching!
Same procedure works for PC's too, but best to clone the drive first so you don't have to reinstall everything. But make sure to go into the BIOS before cloning and disable Secure Boot!
I was thinking that too. That, or using the old HDD in an external enclosure/adapter, and moving files after updating OS to the newest version.
@@greenman8 depends on what software you have. If you have something like Office 2016 or other device specific software you want to keep, cloning is best if the OS isn’t giving you trouble. Otherwise you have to reinstall everything. I haven’t used the old HDD as an external because I figure it’s a good backup now and it is kind of small.
Thanks for the video!! I have been wanting to bring my 2011 back to life
'As good as new', you said. I beg to differ.
It is better than new!
how about updates and security? and being able to run current OS?
Awesome! Thank you very much for sharing this info 🙏🏻
Thank you for assuring me that RAM capacity can be expanded beyond the maximum 8GB as per specifications. I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro "15" and intending to upgrade the RAM to 16GB.
Where can you find a REPLACEMENT Charger for this old MBP? My computer guy in this small town said they can't find one!!! I am thinking he just doesn't want me to do anything on my MBP.
He said Toss it in the trash.... I said, "Bite Your Tongue!"
I truly miss the upgradability of these older laptops.
Thank you !
A clear short precise informative video.
A few years ago, on my 2012 15" MacBook Pro, I replaced the HD with a 500 SSD, and updated the RAM to 8Gb. It became unrecognizable. 😀 The new M1 Pro 16" is on my Bucket List..but it has to wait until the 15" will eventually die...
I saw that 16" in the iStore today and decided it was a little toy. I need real estate for 8K video editing, not a gadget from Toys R Us.
Excellent video, thanks to you I was able to update my father’s Mac
Thanks for watching. Glad it helped!
In 2015, I upped my 2012 MBP 13.3" i5 to 8GB RAM + 1TB SSD. It was blazing fast on Mountain Lion and Yosemite, but I upped the performance by a factor of 3.3x by installing Linux Mint Cinnamon 64-BIT. I used a benchmark test from Phoronix and it showed 330% of performance. It was the best running MBP in Africa, surely.
Great tip! I’ll check it out. Thanks for watching!
Nice video, I love to see upgrades, you should use your voice to do some voice acting btw
Thanks! I've upgraded dozens of these Macbooks, and finally decided to record one. And thanks for the voice acting comment. I get that all the time, lol.
Nice upgrade! If it was possible to upgrade the pre-Retina screen, you could have gotten a high end MBP for not too much outlay! It still performs well in 2022. Congratulations!
Yes, I’ve done several others with better specs on this channel. This one happened to belong to a friend. Thanks for watching!
Bought this today, comes with the original everything, including box and comes with a extra magsafe, seems it was kept in a case most of its life, should be pretty good lookng on the outside, and im very glad its easy to get this thing uo to speed for basic things :) 90 bucks wasnt wasted at all
This video clip just gave me a glimpse of hope to give a new life to my MacPro production 2011 ...
Glad to help. New life for sure. Just don’t expect the same performance of a M1/M2 MacBook Pro, lol. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for this great video-helped immensely. I will add that users may want to use Time Machine with an external hard drive prior to switching the hard drives. Whenever I tried to download the operating system I kept getting an error about the server not responding. I just restored using Time Machine and was able to get everything installed and all my settings were there-Thanks again
I’m having this same issue. When I select the Time Machine option, I don’t see anything coming up though.
Sir, i am not able to recover high sierra from internet I got 2011 model
sir i have macbook pro late 2011 13 inch i want to change my intel core i5 2gen processor to i5 8gen or i7 8gen processor can i do its work or not plez answer my sir plez???
No, this will not work unfortunately.
Good Tutorial. Thank you
great work
Thank you!
Very helpful. Thank you.
I have the 2009 Macbook Pro , upgraded with an SSD and 8GB RAM, it works perfect
Isn’t I amazing how well they’ve held up over the years? Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
miuns the software upgrade and security patches...LOL
I would probably want to replace that crusty thermal paste too, since the thermal paste can get hardened over time and not cool the processor properly.
Nice! Watching this video I also kept thinking "wouldn't it be great to upgrade people the same way, breathe new life into them".
Lol so true👍
OH... One more question...
After you upgrade this computer...
What is it now... Brand NEW or just updated a little, and by how much?
What can you call it now? 2013 or newer?
Thanks for being so excited! And for watching! Go to our website (channel name + .com) and use the contact form. I’ll be happy to help you out however I can.
@@FamilyGeekery
Thank YOU so much...
Will be in touch soon.
What did this cost you to do all of this?
Nice vids, Chris. Hope in the future your content appear on my recomendation. Definitly subscribe !
Thanks!
Just 2 days ago i breath a new life to 8yo laptop with SSD and new RAM, surprisingly the battery still hold up for 2-3 hours.
I have a mid-2009, 13" MacBook Pro, which I tuned up. I put in a new factory battery, 8GB RAM, SSD and a new keyboard. Now Mac OS Monterey(!) runs smoothly on it, easily! That's not bad performance from a Core 2 Duo!
hi, i like to know how i can install macos monterey
@@dannywdc1 open core legacy patcher
Excellent! Thank you.
I just did this. I’m super excited for the results. I Followed your steps to download a new OS from the internet. For some reason it’s unable to connect to the server. Any suggestions?
I had same problems with trying to reinstall High Sierra.
While reading the comments in this thread today, I saw this comment which may be the answer:
@zachscott1089
3 months ago
SERIOUS WARNING! High Sierra servers finally expired for good recently. So, what I'm personally doing with my mid 2010 mbp is updating to IOS 12.6 via OpenCore then cloning my drive.
Hope that helps!
Great video - really gave me the confidence to do the upgrade on my late 2011 MBP. The results are amazing. 16GB of ram and a 500 GB SSD did the trick. If I may disagree with one thing that you said - I have the 2.4 GHz i5 processor and for me it was well spending EUR 65 for these 2 upgrades. I have just watched videos on it for the first time for a long time and I love the colours and brightness of the screen and the feel of the keyboard. I will keep it now thanks to the upgrade. I also had terrible trouble with getting the MAC OS to reload. The internet recovery did not work to install High Sierra - "could not connect to server" even though MBP was connected to wired network. I tried to make a usb boot drive and failed as the terminal command gave me the error that the OS I had just downloaded was not an OS so I could not load it onto the USB stick. In the end, I had to use internet recovery to reinstall Lion OS then upgrade to Sierra OS and then upgrade to High Sierra (as you cannot upgrade Lion to High Sierra directly.) Many thanks again for the video - great job.
I wish I could take back what I said about the i5. I was basically trying to say that it was a no-brainer for my friend’s case since he had a i7.
Internet recovery is getting buggy on these older ones. But I did make a HS boot disk this week. Glad you worked through it though! Thanks for watching!
I personally am scared to do this..
Do you professionally do ths... Can I pay you to do this?
OR Pay you to talk to me over the phone while I'm doing this.
I used to be a Mechanical Draftsman (person) and a Chemical Engineer in the oilfield..
so I am not stupid... and I do feel I could do this since I used to do the
Electrical Schematic for cars... but I am scared a little bit to do this...
This is so EXCITING... I would LOVE to RE-Do my baby... MacBook Pro
but... it has been updated once... to Snow Leopard I think... is that older than High Sierra?
Which one came first?
Thank you so much for making this video... So EXCITED.
Thanks FamilyGeekery.
Still have my 2013. It’s one of the last models with a built in cd drive.
thanks, it actually let me through so i could download it.
Glad it helped. Thanks for watching!
Would be nice to also upgrade to a current MacOS right? With High Sierra I still can't do all I need...
Great video. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro and I basically did the same thing I had a 1 TB SSD installed which is the best thing I’ve ever done with any computer is put in SSDs. Then I upgraded to 16 GB of RAM. I had a computer store do this now only thing I will say is the trackpad never work right after that. Battery was bulging against it. My other problem with the computer is that several of the keys have gone out so I don’t know what to do about replacing the keyboard. I have since bought a brand new M1 because my computer made it almost 10 years which I think is a great but it’s still a solid machine I just need to fix the keypad. I don’t know if that something I can do myself or not.
You'd have to replace to top case but a bluetooth keyboard might be your new friend. I still run a maxed out 2011 for my photo booths what a beast for a theoretically ancient piece of tech now haha.
The same thing happened to me with a MacBook Pro 2011 model I obtained. It was one of a series of old laptops donated to my disability group. They were going to take them apart to see what makes them work. But I thought differently, and took it upon myself to fix the MacBook Pro.
I opened it up, and noticed that there was no battery or hard drive. Thankfully it was one that could easily be upgraded without relying on Apple's repair services. Apart from the lack of battery or storage, the logic board was intact, a little dusty, but still in working condition. The disc drive even had a installation disc inside.
I purchased a new battery and a hard drive, installed them, and installed the earlier version of MacOS that was on the disc. That was when I discovered that the processor was an i5, rather than the Core 2 Duo I thought it had, due to the date on the casing. Inspired, I decided to purchase 16GB of RAM, and with the help of a friend at a PC repair shop, was able to place them inside the device.
Now like Joe Glenn's MacBook Pro, the Keyboard wasn't working 100%. But much like Rafael Unplugged's suggestion, I had a Bluetooth keyboard available, so that covers that. I recently replaced the hard drive with an SSD, and it boots up very quick. For some strange reason, it runs faster with the power supply attached, but that's not a worry for me.
So in the end, I was able to get a working MacBook Pro for a reasonable price. And to think they were going to disassemble it for their science class. Thankfully I sense opportunity when there is none.
I still use my 2012 MacBook Pro With Catalina. I put 8 gigs of Ram and a solid state memory and it works great
Yup. I love these old macs. They make great machines. Thanks for watching!
Re-applying some fresh thermal paste would have been a nice addition while you had it open
SSD is awesoem!
pretty cool thing! i will update my macbook pro! really thanks!
You’re welcome! And thanks for watching!
Thanks bro finally someone who isn't posting malware or fake stuff, you deserve my subscribe!
My pleasure! Thanks for watching. I have no tolerance for malware or fake stuff. Just trying to put out helpful content.
Ive got the newest macos on my 2008 and works goid
10:49
?how do you charge and discharge the battery fully WITHOUT using the device.
I usually just turn all the power saving setting off, then run a video on TH-cam until it dies. Then I plug it in and let it charge fully and repeat.
These are very reliable machines the only exception is heat and the battery... Tho the battery is easy enough to replace and as long as you don't have the GPU model a quick fan clean and repaste should get it good as new..
i am still using my mac mid 2012 non retina ..does well for basic non work stuffs.
i did this for my wife's 17 inch macbook pro 2tb ssd and up it to 16 gigs of ram now it runs like a new laptop superfast
hi dude, are the parts needed for the 17 inch is same as written in the video description?
Thank you very much sir
thank you very very very much, you help me a lot
Thank you for showing how to upgrade the hardware... now if we wanted to upgrade the software to a newer mac OS, how could that be done?
Thank you Sir
Thank you for this! Super cool video! A+++
Thanks for watching!
What year of MacBook can you upgrade them before they soldered the hardware?
Thanks so much
What's about Display Graphics upgrade, not supporting 4k?
Another thing you could do is take the old hard drive or another SSD, remove the optical drive and use it as a second storage device. They make brackets to adapt the second hard drive for the optical drive slot. I can't recall ever using the optical drive on my mid 2012 Macbook Pro.
Yup. I’ve done that in other videos, just not on this particular laptop. Great tip! Thanks for watching!
I'm going to try this - what kind of screwdrivers?
Thanks for the video 👍 It shows, that there is no need to replace always a good device. You just need to upgrade it for a small amount of money.
I did it also in 2019 to a Macbook Pro Mid 2012. With the original Hardrive an 4GB of Ram, it stops upgrading at MacOS HighSierra. After upgrading to 16GB of Ram and replacing the HDD to a SDD, I could upgrade it to MacOS Catalina. It still works like a new device. After 10 years the battery is still okay, so I didn't replaced it yet.
Greetings from Switzerland.
Buttermaker
Thanks Buttermaker! Glad you enjoyed the video. And thanks for watching!
The only thing I would have added was new speakers (while you already have the back off and everything disconnected). Good video.
This is the best free software Ive seen. Respect.
I dont know why, it felt like i was watching some guide video of World of Warcraft back in a days. 😂😂
What is the latest Os you can update to once you make these changes?
Another thing to the todo-list is replace the dvd. There is a hd adapter, to install instead the dvd. So you will have a second hdd. You can place a 2tb hdd for data and a cheap 240gb ssd for boot and turbo charge your space.
Great tip. I actually did that in a more recent video. Thanks for watching!
Hello Chris. Can you please confirm the screwdriver used for this.
I have a link to a great kit in the description that has everything you’d need. Or you can buy individual drivers. You’d need a #00 Philips, a T6 Torx, and possibly a triwing, depending on your exact model.
Great video! I'd upgrade my 2011 i5 mbp, but it'll hardly have any browser support. 😢
Awesome. Well done.
Thank you. And thanks for watching!
Your video is awesome. I will try to have my MacBook to be upgraded as such.
Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for watching!
which size screwdriver did you use im having trouble getting the screws out
great information. I have this mac and its still working for me. I havent gotten a new one because I have some software that I dont want to lose. But now some websites do not work when I go online so I go to my tablet to use those websites. Can I keep the same driver and just upgrade the ram and the battery?
These macs have a limit to the OS u can installl, without doing some trickery. The Facebook group Mac Pro upgrade and Mac book pro upgrade has a community of experts working together to ensure solutions exist. As I’ve found multiple times and as others will know too, this particular model has a defect with the GPU so that chip will fail after this, giving us grey screens or glitchy graphics. Rather than paying for the chip to be replaced or reballed, this community helped me find a solution to disable the graphics chip in the OS and so only used the CPU
Great tips! I’ve got some videos coming up soon showing how to install newer versions of macOS, after Apple stops officially supporting them. Thanks for watching!
I've done all the same upgrades to my 15" a few years back with great results. However, it's time to replace the battery again. Got one from Amazon but my MacBook Pro just refuses to recognize it. I've tried a few hardware resets to no avail. From your experience, is there one "Chinese" brand that's better than others? Thanks!! Btw, I also swapped out the optical drive and repurposed the original 500GB HDD as secondary storage by mounting it with an adapter bracket from OWC. Just a thought.. =)
Buying MacBook batteries is really like Russian roulette, lol. Sometimes you get lucky, other times not so much.
As for the data doubler idea, check my more recent videos :) Thanks for watching!
I did the OWC adapter years ago and installed 2 SSD's (2TB and 4TB) and have had no problems with the hardware. The funny thing is the Apple DVD player software won't acknowledge my external DVD drive, but who cares, I never use their player software anyway!
For battery replacements I have gotten them all at the Apple Store so the machine would see and monitor them correctly. It's more expensive but worth it.
What gen i7 would you recommend?
Does this upgrade allow the use of streaming music and video? I have this same computer, but can no longer access apps like Apple Music. It would be idea as a component in a stereo system, if the upgrade would facilitate this. Thanks for a useful video.
Have you ever repasted the CPU on the Macbook Pro? After a decade the paste has to be dried out & cracked.
Wowser. This has given me hope and maybe even the confidence to update my own computer hardware lol
You can do it! I’m here to help if you have any questions. And thanks for watching!
I have same one I bought it few months ago
Someone who sucks at computers needs to know, how do I save all my stuff before I do this and what external storage do you recommend? I’m totally doing this! Thanks.
الف شكرا 🙏
You’re welcome! Thanks for watching!
I also have a 13' 2011 MBP but with a core i5. Do you think it's worth getting a RAM upgrade on it?
Also, can I change the hard drive without taking out the battery?
Hi, ca i install the newest OS on that upgrade?
Not a fan of the BX500. It slows down once the buffer is full. So I bought an MX500. For a second laptop. I now own three of these 2012 Mac book Pro's.