GPLaudio
Joined: 11/07/05
Posts: 189
Loc: Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,...
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April 2006 MB Pro - Worth refurbishing?
#1019230 - 19/11/12 02:25 AM
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I recently acquired a donated Macbook Pro, 17", circa April 2006. It has 2.16 GHz Intel
Core Duo, 1GB RAM (capable of 2GB). It needs a new battery, more RAM and power cord. I
think the 100 GB HD is bad. My plan would be to use to it in a fixed location live sound
setting mostly as a track library and Internet access. Would likely use SoundCue or
SoundByte software. It would not be used for recording or video.
QUESTION - Is
this 2006 MBP worth spending a few hundred dollars for the above intended use?
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New HD (possibly solid state)
- Two GB memory
- New battery and power cord.
I have several other Apple computers but all are much newer than this 2006
laptop.
Thanks for any guidance.
Dave
--------------------
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
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Kaw-Liga
member
Joined: 15/10/03
Posts: 382
Loc: Norway, Oslo
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Re: April 2006 MB Pro - Worth refurbishing?
[Re: GPLaudio]
#1019239 - 19/11/12 07:46 AM
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I don't know what you mean by track library, but I've used my late 2006 macbook (not pro!)
for everything since I bought it. I've used it on logic, pro tools, and for all other
tasks. It runs the demo-sessions included in logic 9, which are the largest sessions i've
opened. It can't handle very many large cpu-hungry soft-synths at the same time,
especially in pro tools, but for the way you intend to use it, it should perform
effortlessly. I'd upgrade.
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oktafish
Joined: 13/06/06
Posts: 88
Loc: London / Andalucia
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Re: April 2006 MB Pro - Worth refurbishing?
[Re: GPLaudio]
#1019261 - 19/11/12 11:22 AM
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I recently replaced the internal HD with an SSD in a 2006 MBP (3GB RAM) and have found
myself with a very capable machine, Logic etc. Definitely worth investing a couple of
hundred bucks...
-------------------- http://soundcloud.com/violentchimp
www.myspace.com/vylon
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Magic Matt
Joined: 17/09/10
Posts: 141
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Re: April 2006 MB Pro - Worth refurbishing?
[Re: GPLaudio]
#1019279 - 19/11/12 01:16 PM
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Adding an SSD to any old machine gives it a lot more power. I've brought an old Windows XP
machine that has a single core Pentium 4 3GHz CPU back into service by putting an SSD in
there - it can now handle 48 channel 24bit 96kHz audio mixing. Very impressive for such an
old machine. I'd expect your MBP to probably do better than that. Sample based soft synths
are also unbeatable running from SSD.
Don't bother getting the high spec SSD
drives though - the drives will outperform the max speed of the interface, which is likely
to be SATA 3Gb/s - even the budget SSD drives will be like lightening compared to a HDD,
and will be close to maximum performance the system can provide.
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GPLaudio
Joined: 11/07/05
Posts: 189
Loc: Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,...
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Re: April 2006 MB Pro - Worth refurbishing?
[Re: Magic Matt]
#1019374 - 20/11/12 02:01 AM
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Thanks for your replies. Very helpful. Tonight, I had some additional time to work on this
laptop. Turns out the HD is good but the odd-brand 1GB add-on RAM that someone else
installed was bad. After removing it and using only the original 1GB Mac OEM RAM,
everything works fine and I was able to reinstall Mac OS X without issue. I agree on the
solid state drive and will contact OWC and/or Crucial tomorrow to order the new HD, more
RAM and other missing parts.
Thanks again - Dave
--------------------
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
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