What upgrades could I do for my 2010 MacBook Pro?

[Meowster]

So I have a MacBook Pro that used to belong to a friend that moved back to Australia. He gave it to me in 2015 and since then, I have never used it. I finally powered it up today and it appears to be the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo model with the GeForce 320M GPU. The battery has 441 cycles and I'm told its still the original one. What upgrades could I do to it so that it can be useful in 2021?

[Video Beagle]

I have a 2007 MBP that I'm typing on right now.

The main upgrades are RAM and Storage. I've topped off ram and swapped out the HDD for SDD. I have a conversion tray to swap out the DVD drive for another SDD at somepoint when I get around it to it.

Something that's also helped my machine a lot in the past year has been one of those cheap aluminum laptop stands that rises it off the table some and gives it a lot more airflow for cooling (I'm honestly amazed at the performance increase this thing has given me)

[Meowster]

8 hours ago, Video Beagle said:

I have a 2007 MBP that I'm typing on right now.

The main upgrades are RAM and Storage. I've topped off ram and swapped out the HDD for SDD. I have a conversion tray to swap out the DVD drive for another SDD at somepoint when I get around it to it.

Something that's also helped my machine a lot in the past year has been one of those cheap aluminum laptop stands that rises it off the table some and gives it a lot more airflow for cooling (I'm honestly amazed at the performance increase this thing has given me)

Do you know any good laptop stands? I have had many over the years but all of them simply broke down

[Guest]

From what I remember, with those models you can:

- Upgrade the RAM, they can take up to 16Gb 1066Mhz

- Upgrade to SSD

- Replace superdrive with SSD (kits on Aliexpress), can then put them both in RAID 0.

- Overclock the GPU in Windows. 

 

Make sure to replace the thermal paste if haven't done so. 

[Meowster]

14 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

From what I remember, with those models you can:

- Upgrade the RAM, they can take up to 16Gb 1066Mhz

- Upgrade to SSD

- Replace superdrive with SSD (kits on Aliexpress), can then put them both in RAID 0.

- Overclock the GPU in Windows. 

 

Make sure to replace the thermal paste if haven't done so. 

Yikes! That thermal paste was really crusty! It flaked away as soon as I touched it. 

[Video Beagle]

14 hours ago, Meowster said:

Yikes! That thermal paste was really crusty! It flaked away as soon as I touched it. 

I've never looked at replacing the thermal paste on mine...should I look at that?  (I've never done cpu stuff, but watch the channel so understand about it )

 

16 hours ago, Meowster said:

Do you know any good laptop stands? I have had many over the years but all of them simply broke down

 

This is what I have.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VD5F83T/

I can't speak to what else is out there or designs, but I was impressed with the heft of it and it's stayed in the position I set it at for over a year now without collasping or lowering itself. for my needs (which is this pretty much sits on my nightstand for browsing before bed or videos some wrighting, it's been good.

[Spindel]

15 hours ago, Meowster said:

Yikes! That thermal paste was really crusty! It flaked away as soon as I touched it. 

That in it self isn't really a problem if you don't remove the heat sink. Thermal paste dries out with time but if correctly applied still works, until you break it by moving or removing the heat sink. 

[Meowster]

10 hours ago, Video Beagle said:

I've never looked at replacing the thermal paste on mine...should I look at that?  (I've never done cpu stuff, but watch the channel so understand about it )

 

 

This is what I have.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VD5F83T/

I can't speak to what else is out there or designs, but I was impressed with the heft of it and it's stayed in the position I set it at for over a year now without collasping or lowering itself. for my needs (which is this pretty much sits on my nightstand for browsing before bed or videos some wrighting, it's been good.

I think you should consider doing the paste. Since the machine you have is coming close to 14 years old

[Code.Name_HeaLer]

On 3/25/2021 at 2:03 AM, Meowster said:

So I have a MacBook Pro that used to belong to a friend that moved back to Australia. He gave it to me in 2015 and since then, I have never used it. I finally powered it up today and it appears to be the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo model with the GeForce 320M GPU. The battery has 441 cycles and I'm told its still the original one. What upgrades could I do to it so that it can be useful in 2021?

@Meowster do replace the thermal paste and then upgrade the  ram and upgrade to an ssd and please see that you at least use 8gb or more ram as its the industry standard in 2021