Old Mac

ZeroCool17

Hi,

So my niece wanted a mac for Christmas that she saw on pigsback. It was €180. I told them it probably would be crap and that I know nothing about macs so she would be better off not to get it. I always get caught to set everything up or fix things. And here I am...

So I got it a few nights ago and It's very confusing! She wants netflix and youtube which i have sorted through safari. Also wants facetime and messaging. This is my problem. I cannot log into the app store. It is running old OS so no matter what i do i can't do it.

When i click on about my mac it says MAC OS X Version 10.7.5. As far as i can see that is lion and if i needed to get to mojave i would have to get El Capitan first but again no way can i get her connected to The App store. Is it just too old? Am i wasting my time here? I've tried logging in through her old icloud account. Tried to set up a new icloud account and keeps saying cannot connect to server. Kinda going a bit insane from it. I'm tempted to bring it down to the computer repair shop and just see could they upgrade it. I'd pay for it myself at this stage not to have to deal with it!

If anyone has any ideas it would be much appreciated!

crazyderk

ZeroCool17 wrote: »

Hi,

So my niece wanted a mac for Christmas that she saw on pigsback. It was €180. I told them it probably would be crap and that I know nothing about macs so she would be better off not to get it. I always get caught to set everything up or fix things. And here I am...

So I got it a few nights ago and It's very confusing! She wants netflix and youtube which i have sorted through safari. Also wants facetime and messaging. This is my problem. I cannot log into the app store. It is running old OS so no matter what i do i can't do it.

When i click on about my mac it says MAC OS X Version 10.7.5. As far as i can see that is lion and if i needed to get to mojave i would have to get El Capitan first but again no way can i get her connected to The App store. Is it just too old? Am i wasting my time here? I've tried logging in through her old icloud account. Tried to set up a new icloud account and keeps saying cannot connect to server. Kinda going a bit insane from it. I'm tempted to bring it down to the computer repair shop and just see could they upgrade it. I'd pay for it myself at this stage not to have to deal with it!

If anyone has any ideas it would be much appreciated!

Here’s an apple support article on how to upgrade from Lion to High High Sierra, it also includes a link to the App Store where you can download it.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT208969

ZENER

10.7 is quite old, in About This Mac what are the specs of it ? CPU, RAM etc. ? It might not be capable of running Mojave.

Ken

ZeroCool17

ZENER wrote: »

10.7 is quite old, in About This Mac what are the specs of it ? CPU, RAM etc. ? It might not be capable of running Mojave.

Ken

It says MacBook 13 inch Early 2008

Processor 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo
Memory 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics Intel GMA X3100 144 MB
Hard drive 160GB ----146GB Free

L1011

These were decade old units sold as refurbished. Can't be updated any further, fit for WEEE only

ZENER

Yeah I think you bought a lemon. Mojave’s min spec is a 2012 or newer system with minimum Intel HD4000 graphics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Mojave

Ken

ZeroCool17

Thanks a million for the replies. Saves me wasting my time trying to fix it. She can use it for Netflix and YouTube so hopefully she'll be happy with that.

Thanks again.

PropJoe10

You might be able to install El Cap on that with a hack but you'd get terrible performance from the GPU so it wouldn't be worth it. Unfortunately you've been sold a dud there! Could probably do better with Linux on it, honestly!

antodeco

Surely Facetime should still work? My 2009 MacBook could still run it on Snow Leopard (moved to El Capitan now).

ZeroCool17

I just can't seem to get anywhere with it. I gave it back to her and she will use it for Netflix and Youtube. I'll leave it at that. Maybe for next Christmas I'll try and find something reasonable for her. She just dreams of a mac but they struggle with money so refurbished is the only way really.

Thanks again.

melchior1951

Why don't you install Linux on it? That could give the MacBook another couple of years.

ZENER

While Linux is great for the clued in enthusiasts I doubt a youngster who wants FaceTime and Netflix is going to warm to it.

Ken

PropJoe10

ZENER wrote: »

While Linux is great for the clued in enthusiasts I doubt a youngster who wants FaceTime and Netflix is going to warm to it.

Ken

Facetime no, Netflix yes. You'd at least get up-to-date software, but obviously Linux has its challenges.

QuadaLumpins

The MBA I still use everyday had the following original specs:

MacBook Pro 13" mid-2009
Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB

... which is not a million miles away from your machine. It was slow and had some of the problems you describe. Then I did the following:

1. Install an SSD. these are getting cheaper, and there was a very good boards BA a few days ago for an SSD that would fit https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057956567 for 28euro. Takes the proper screwdrivers and 15 minutes.
2 - Memory: 8GB should be perfect for your machine.
3 - Battery: will probably be rubbish, but a newer one might not give huge improvement. I didn't bother, and get an hour or more depending on what I'm doing.
4 - Run High Sierra if possible.

I know its not your machine, but if you are willing to spend 30'ish euro and give this a morning of your time then you'll have a cracking machine.

Riesen_Meal

This video also may give you a few ideas if you are in anyway tech savvy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLVvP3WCCI0

PropJoe10

QuadaLumpins wrote: »

The MBA I still use everyday had the following original specs:

MacBook Pro 13" mid-2009
Processor 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB

... which is not a million miles away from your machine. It was slow and had some of the problems you describe. Then I did the following:

1. Install an SSD. these are getting cheaper, and there was a very good boards BA a few days ago for an SSD that would fit https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057956567 for 28euro. Takes the proper screwdrivers and 15 minutes.
2 - Memory: 8GB should be perfect for your machine.
3 - Battery: will probably be rubbish, but a newer one might not give huge improvement. I didn't bother, and get an hour or more depending on what I'm doing.
4 - Run High Sierra if possible.

I know its not your machine, but if you are willing to spend 30'ish euro and give this a morning of your time then you'll have a cracking machine.

It seems to me that the main issue facing the OP with that machine would be the graphics chip. You can mod the current MacOS releases to run on older hardware - but, the GPU that the OP has in that MacBook wouldn't provide any graphics acceleration with a modern MacOS, and would be pretty much unusable. That's why they're stuck on Lion, whereas you can upgrade yours a lot higher than that due to your Nvidia chip.

beauf

Low end Mac on face book is a great resource on Facebook.