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I have a 2.26 GHz Intel Core Duo processor with 3 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM. I would like to upgrade my laptop as it is painfully slow and shuts down when under strain. What should I replace in my laptop and what should its replacement be? I’m thinking about 8GB of RAM but I don’t know which model to get. Also, can I upgrade the processor?
While this sounds like a lot that is needed breaking it down to a couple of repair sessions can make this less daunting. Your system still has a long life ahead of it. Your battery is likely worn out given your systems age. Here’s the needed part MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2009-Mid 2012) Battery and here’s the needed steps MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Battery Replacement. Thats likely the reason your system shuts down even if the system is under AC power. Your systems drive is likely in bad shape. There is two directions you can go here. The easiest is just replace your drive or try to recover your hard drive Replacing your drive will require finding a drive which is compatible with your system as your systems SATA port I/O speed is only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) I would jump to a SSD which will make your system sing! Here’s the best drive here Samsung 860 EVO looking at the spec sheet here we can see the Interface the drive supported is SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) many SSD’s today are fixed speed SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) which won’t work reliably here. Here’s the needed guide MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Hard Drive Replacement I would take the time to replace the HD SATA cable as the older cables tend to have issues Your Hard Drive Cable Is A Ticking Time Bomb here’s the needed cable MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2009-Mid 2010) Hard Drive Cable At least place the electricians tape on the uppercase to help protect it and don’t handle the cable to much as they get brittle with age. You’ll want to re-install your OS and restore your apps and data from your old drive using this StarTech 2.5" SATA to USB adapter cable so you can setup your new drive (jump to the OS install as the end) The last issue is dust and thermal paste, again because of your systems age your system is likely hitting thermal issues which is why under stress the system shuts down this is most notable when you hear the fans racing. Get a small soft paint-brush to carefully scrub the surfaces to loosen the dust (it doesn’t take much pressure) using a can of can’ed air to blow the dust and other junk away. Follow this guide to remove the logic board MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Logic Board Replacement and here’s the guide to clean the old paste off How to Apply Thermal Paste. You don’t need fancy thermal paste Arctic Silver Thermal Paste is just fine here. Also don’t over do the paste!
All you need is enough to fully cover the chip die its self. The last issue is re-installing the OS. Here we do have a slight problem as the OS-X El Capitan (10.11.x) is the highest this system can support. Before you take out your drive or remove the logic board you’ll want to alter the systems data back dating it to the OS’s certificate window as the certificate won’t allow you to install the OS with todays year! Set your systems year to 2016 that way your OS installer still works.
Here’s a bit more If you’ve got an old macOS install image, it will probably stop working today which deals with the newer versions of macOS which Apple forgot to update Sierra, High Sierra & Mojave certificates as they mis-set the expire date.
I have the same machine but with a 2.53 GHz processor. It was also slow so I change ram with 8GB (2x4GB) 1066 DDR3 PC3 8500 and also with an SSD hard drive (Kingston SSDnow v300 250GB). All this cost about $200 and the machine now runs perfect!!
