Macbook Pro memory

L

Luigiv

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I have a two year old 15in Macbook pro with 2gig memory that did absolutely fine until I installed Aperture 3. Now they tell me I need more memory. Whats the easiest way to do this, can I buy the memory over the internet and Diy or do I need to take the laptop in somewhere? I'm in the country about 90min. from Cape Town, I would prefer just to do it myself if possible, the machine is not under warranty anymore. I reckon i want to upgrade from 2 - 4gig, can I trade in my old memory for new ones?

thanks
L
 
It uses standard laptop memory, DDR2 So-dimms. You just buy 2 2gb modules and you can put them in yourself, it's very easy. There's a little panel that comes off at the bottom.
 
You can buy 800MHz but this link doesn't say anything about the brand. I'd be careful of buying just anything. I bought mine on-line from Curcial - in particular, this kit.
 
I bought 2x2GB Kingston for the Same laptop last year off of Ebay. Ebay is great if you can find a seller with a 99.9% positive feedback rating and over 1000 sales. Everything included (shipping, tax etc) i paid around R900 all together.
popped them in myself and they worked brilliantly.
I phoned zastore to enquire how much it would cost, they said R2900 AND they wanted to keep my 2x1GB sticks.

do some DIY man
 
And one day if you want the ultimate upgrade to your Macbook Pro, get an SSD. It's a replacement for your hard drive, with Flash memory technology. Right now they're pretty expensive, a 40gb Intel is like R1300, an 80gb is R2000-2500, and a 160gb is R4500 or so! But they're coming down in price rapidly. I expect them to halve in price at the end of the year.

Anyway what am I ranting about? Check out this video. Apps open like about 5-10 times faster at least. A tremendous speed increase.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySeVzJUyjNE
 
Here's another good video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_z8g1xfdO4
Macbook boots up and launches like 10 apps in 30 seconds, he continues to launch apps, they take like 1-3seconds each.

Booting Windows XP in Parallels Desktop - 20 seconds! I will get an SSD. But at the end of the year! Mwahahahaha
 
My problem with SSD is that I need one big enough to hold about 350GB (and growing), which means the 512GB models are my only option at the moment. And they're about as much as an entry level MacBook Pro... :eek:
 
Synaesthesia said:
You want 2 x 2gb DDR2 Laptop memory

Here I searched for in in Prophecy. http://www.prophecy.co.za/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=ddr2 sodimm 2gb&page=1&sort=3a

As you can see Kingston memory for R458.76, get two of those, they have a lifetime warranty.
Click to expand...

Syn, thanks for the info - like I said earlier, I replaced my 2 year old MBP with one of the new Core i7 15" MacBook Pro's. I would like to upgrade my 2 year old one and use it as a backup computer. I have just looked at it on system profiler, and see that it's memory is 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 SDRAM. The one you suggest I upgrade to is a 800 mhz chip - will there be any compatibility problem there ? or will it just access the RAM chips a bit quicker by going to 800 MHZ ? I see they do list the 667 mhz chips on that site, but are not in stock, and are around the same price as the 800 mhz chips ?

Oh, while I am about it, should I not use more than 4GB RAM ? is there enough space for more than 4GB in a 2 year old MBP ? or is 4 GB max ?

Thanks
 
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No the DDR 800mhz is just the rated maximum speed. So it will run at the correct speed in your Mac. (667Mhz) I believe 800Mhz are cheaper so just go for those.

4gb is the max for those models of Macbook Pros. Unless it's a Core Duo (oldest model, not Core 2 Duo), which supports less. But I think yours is Core 2 Duo since you say it's 2 years old.
 
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Synaesthesia said:
No the DDR 800mhz is just the rated maximum speed. So it will run at the correct speed in your Mac. (667Mhz) I believe 800Mhz are cheaper so just go for those.

4gb is the max for those models of Macbook Pros. Unless it's a Core Duo (oldest model, not Core 2 Duo), which supports less. But I think yours is Core 2 Duo since you say it's 2 years old.
Click to expand...

Thanks again - my older one that I would like to upgrade, is a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, it came with 2GB 667 RAM and 200 GB HDD. I think I bought it in July 2008 - but I might be mistaken with the purchase date

EDIT: I have just been into mail on that MBP and I see the oldest mail I have sitting there is April 2008, so that would be the purchase month
 
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Alright, then you're good for 4gb DDR2 ram. DDR2 667 or 800Mhz will work just fine.
 
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