Original MacBook Pro gets a Core 2 Duo Upgrade

[@cashorst6828]

Never thought i‘d hear Core2Duo und upgrade in the same sentence ever again.

[@raven4k998]

well you have seen it again now🤣🤣

[@natarem]

How about downgrading my m4 max to a core 2 duo

[@raven4k998]

@@natarem not possible🤣🤣

[@saiavinash555]

Don't care about if its worth doing in 2024. You explained all the process step by step with great detail. This will be a great resource for people who do such upgrades/fixes to newer laptops.

[@raven4k998]

now put a core 2 quad into it muhahahahahahahahaha

[@OtherTheDave]

Given the timing of when the Core 2 Duos came out, I really wish Apple had just waited for them before switching to Intel. It would've delayed the launch by 6 months (maybe less if Intel could've supplied Apple with lower quantities before that had enough stockpiled for general availability). The result would be that every x86 Mac would've been able to run 64-bit code, which would've simplified things.

[@FoxMccloud42]

The problem is that when they switched to core2duo, they still used a 32-bit EFI.

[@DangerousPictures]

@@FoxMccloud42 which could have been fixed with a "simple" software update

[@OtherTheDave]

@@FoxMccloud42 That's true (and I don't know if @DangerousPictures is correct about that being fixable), but there's not a lot of code that cares whether the EFI is 32 or 64 bit, whereas a _ton_ of code cares about the CPU's capabilities.

[@benNdaKen]

⁠@@DangerousPicturesnot really none of thw 32Bit Efi macs hat the FW Updates to 64Bit Efi

[@christiangomez2496]

@@FoxMccloud42 I heard the late 2008 or early 2009 models FINALLY went to 64-bit EFI firmware

[@BollingHolt]

Dehydrator and popcorning... I learned something new today.

[@virescenticious]

Yeah I don't do BGA work, but I've popcorned many boards when doing SMD repairs. Never seemed to be a pattern and just assumed it was poor quality PCBs, age, or just bad luck. In hindsight it's kind of obvious that might help. Of course I don't have the time for that, so I think I'll just continue to play hot air roulette lol.

[@Josh.Davidson]

@BollingHolt Correct, it is critical to bake moisture out of parts before rework especially if the part has not been powered up and exposed to running temperatures. Popcorning can also be caused by poor thermal control during rework.

[@mndlessdrwer]

I also wanted to mention that it's very refreshing to see you discard the fully saturated solder wick instead of continuing to try to use it despite the dramatically reduced efficacy. I've seen so many videos of people trying to do rework and just scrubbing at the solder pads with spent solder wick and they're just getting closer and closer to rubbing through the solder mask and it's just painful to watch. Your professionalism is a benchmark for the industry. Good soldering practices all around. It's very refreshing to watch.

[@grey5626]

I took a first gen Core Solo Mac Mini refurbish and swapped in a top of the line Core 2 Duo way back when, but that was in a socket. This is a much more involved upgrade, impressive!

[@WayneMueller-ie7wu]

Absolutely awesome video! I love it when you do projects like this. The now 18 year old MBP looked in pretty good shape as well. They must have taken care of their computer.

[@andrasszabo7386]

Nice work, Colin :) That BGA stencil has seen better days, btw :)

[@sanjijito185]

I love watching BGA soldering videos, its such an art. Congrats my man.

[@CRILIKk]

I love the older stuff & seeing this kind of upgrades even tho they are not worth doing but the challenge & excitement is worth it all .

[@smallmoneysalvia]

Oh man I HATED replacing those logic boards in that series of MBPs. I repaired Macs during the NVIDIA GPU fiasco and those logic board replacements were almost all I did for nearly 2 straight years

[@coolm98]

Why did you do it then? Sounds kinda sad, especially if it still causes regret after such long time. I HATE Windows Users and anything supporting their kind. So I just avoid it and do better.

[@MarcABrown-tt1fp]

@@coolm98 Hate is a rather harsh word don't you think? Did windows kill your mother? Don't get me wrong windows sucks now but still...

[@catliker68]

@@coolm98 people generally need jobs to live

[@GadgetUK164]

Great job =D Always fun to upgrade what appeared to be un-upgradeable!

[@ActionRetro]

omg this was amazing

[@SXZ-dev]

this is taking laptop ownership to another level

[@josemedeiros007]

That's awesome Collin!

[@dosgos]

A SSD was a great upgrade on our 1226. Apple throttled the FSB so the marketing specs were not attainable on Apple laptops (but were on other brand laptops using the same hardware).

[@mndlessdrwer]

OH! I've used one of those before! It was a nice enough computer, but it definitely made you understand why Apple decided to move on to their unibody chassis design for later Macbooks. While they could get away with an internal stamped metal chassis for the 13" Macbooks, once you went larger than that, the entire chassis just felt a little bit floppy, which is disconcerting. Regardless, it's lovely to see that someone cares enough about these old machines to not only keep this one in the condition that it's in, but to also want to upgrade it despite the usefulness of the laptop being, realistically, close to zero.

[@newQns]

I love your videos so much. Thank you man!

[@TheAkard]

I love the first generation MBPs - although it cannot be used as a daily driver, it’s still a good word processor and a good music player. Thank you for the great video!

[@alectrona6400]

I'm actually working towards installing FreeBSD 13.4/i386 on my 2006 MBP. That's probably going to help it become a more capable system once a desktop is installed and everything else to make it work nicely.

[@adem335i8]

I love the design of these. And the keyboard. Wish i had mine still

[@atptourfan]

Congratulations!

[@idgamingfederation202]

you're doing Steve's work my friend. it doesn't matter if it's kind of pointless or odd, keeping this hardware out of the e-waste bin is priority.

[@lynseyglen]

wow love the mac stuff you do keep them coming buddy

[@xbinxpurp6118]

Great video dosdude! Never forget you helping me with the bios flasher for Linux for my fire gl for my x800xt reduce rom for my alpha xenon Xbox build!

[@CaptainDarren82]

Love this, surprised to see a Core 2 Duo!

[@i1k2s4]

underrated content

[@cdnron75]

Wow, I haven't seen one of those MacBook Pros in a long time. Nice work replacing the CPU! Is there a reason for upgrading or is it just a proof of concept?

[@georgwalt7978]

proof of concept thanks now i got a bandname

[@dosdude1]

Practically this upgrade is not worth doing at all these days, I just did it in this instance because someone wanted me to perform the upgrade on their machine.

[@GoJot]

Awesome project! Thanks for sharing it with us

[@andrasszabo7386]

I had an A1260 MBP a few years ago that was upgraded to Core 2 Extreme quad. It rocks, but it produces a ton of heat. So it eventually got fried, the chips needed another reballing, which I could not do at that time, so I ended up buying an A1342, then an A1278 with an i7 CPU. I still have that old "heat radiator" somewhere in my collection.

[@dosgos]

We had Windows 10 running on bootcamp on the next year's model 1226. It was quite snappy and fine for daily use. We ran a fan controller and Throttlestop to better manage the CPU under Windows. There were a few hoops to get W10 installed but we found online kludges. The GPU hardware won't support modern encoding so that is inefficient software patches. Your GPU will be much better than the nVidia junk 8600m.

[@gregfleury1705]

What a great vid! I thing its super important to be able to fix and upgrade these old dinos - even today. Actually dosdude, if there is a vid that I'd love to see, that I know you can pull off, is to see how to extract and reuse an old iMac logic board (model 2012+) with an external display. The LCD replacements are so expensive that they make it not worthwhile to replace. If we can reuse the logic board with an external display, w/o the crazy fanspin and throttling that happens when you unhook the LCD panel, that would be a huge win for the community. (I am aware that you can achieve this using OpenCore or linux with a thunderbolt monitor, but I'd love to see a proper technical solution that lets me install the native OS without mods).

[@Technocrat.]

Looks like some solder balls are bridged together.😮 Side view. But booted so your good. Nice work.

[@laminatesnow4651]

those are SMD caps blocking the view of the balls.

[@MrPnew1]

Collin, I am always amazed at the CPU, NAND and RAM work that you can do with relatively rudimentary hot air tools and equipment. A true mark of your exceptionally high skill level

[@cashwood]

I'm quite nostalgic to this model of MacBook as it was my first one

[@appleinfl]

I used to buy old school surplus Mac’s. Certain schools had incredibly lazy staff that preferred to just drill a laptop rather than take 5mins to erase the drive. Luckily the clamshell iBooks I bought had an entirely blank space on the board under the drive. I’d always replace the palm rest, bottom case and hard drive and it worked perfectly. If you bought one of my iBooks 15yrs ago on eBay, there’s about a 5% chance your motherboard has a hole in it under the hard drive lol.

[@zizlog_sound]

Everything is worth upgrading, when it keeps the device away from landfill and makes it more useful than before.

[@Samcrafts_SC]

11:23 how do you ensure that the solder would not stick to the template while heating the solder balls ?

[@dosdude1]

It's a steel stencil, and solder will not stick to steel.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@dosdude1 is there a reason why you use solder balls over applying solder paste?

[@wince333]

just for precision , Diameter and weight solder 😉 all is standard and equal ​@@amirpourghoureiyan1637

[@joshhhab]

Now you have to upgrade first gen 2012-2013 retina MacBook pro to 32 GB of RAM ​@@dosdude1

[@DrSeaLionMD]

I like to think that this is what Tim Cook kicks back and watches in his spare time

[@laurencejohnson4106]

A very enjoyable video!👍👍 I was surprised that a computer from that era did not have a socketed CPU.. That computer's performance will be greatly improved if 4 GB., of ram., and an ssd., are installed and a Linux OS., such as Linux Mint Mate.

[@JamesOversteer]

Memories. This era is so nostalgic.

[@technicallyme]

That north bridge is gigantic 😂

[@davidhildreth]

I had one of these and its 32-bit CPU cured me of ever buying the 1st-gen of any Apple product again.

[@ebisuminoru]

Now I wonder if you can put a T9900 in the A1261 enclosure

[@AbdAlgani1999]

Good job!

[@eduardocarrasco8830]

This is awesome!! The only issue with these laptops is that I think the EFI is still 32 bit. So the laptop only works with 4gb of Ram DDR2 667 mhz in 2x2 config for dual channel. It can detect up to 6 gb of ram using 4+2 gb stick config but loses the dual channel ability. I believe there was a way using linux to use 8 gb of ram, but I'm not entirely sure. Would be great to be able to edit that EFI limitation, which is the same one present in the Core 2 Duo white iMacs. Another issue with these MBPs is that they bent really easy and they get really hot while using them. I still have my MBP 17 with the Hi-Res display, is it still one of the most beautiful laptops ever created. I wish I could put in there an M1 board and use it. Nice video as usual !!

[@wince333]

hello from Switzerland ,make this good project ... go go go 👍🏻😉

[@dosgos]

These have nice sculpted keys which Apple downgraded in 2008 to the cheap, fashionable chiclet keys. And nice screens (which where just before the change to LED backlighting IIRC). Just before the horrific nVidia 8600M GPU, which might have a recall rate over 50%.

[@dosdude1]

nVidia actually released a revised version of the 8600M GT chipsets, which fully resolved those issues. Replacing the chipset on one that has the original chipset with a revised chipset will permanently repair it, and it will never have a GPU issue again. I have another video on my channel about performing this replacement.

[@dosgos]

@@dosdude1 Apple replaced my 8600 3 times. The last time, Apple underclocoked it; it runs hot and slow but still works. I'll check out your video!

[@BuddyTheWolfYT]

I remember upgrading a core 2 duo on a old dell laptop there was some kind of pin mod to make a newer chip work and set the front side bus

[@dragoncracker]

I would love to see you try to upgrade an ouya (more storage or ram)

[@JoaquinVacas]

Mac OS X was post-Tiger was goddamn beautiful.

[@games2replay]

Good job, what dehydrator machine do you use? 👍

[@dosdude1]

@@games2replay Just an “Excalibur” food dehydrator. Works very well.

[@GreyRockOne]

Nice work! But I see a slow day in Canada huh (you use celsius) most of us do not own even half the equipment needed for this procedure and even more of us would not attempt this on such an antiquated machine, but nice work anyway.

[@benNdaKen]

The Size of the chipset Chip Is crazy. Nowadays PCHs are small compared to that

[@jozsefizsak]

Very nice!

[@dosgos]

I don't think the "newer" CPU can be used with the "newest" MacOS. But maybe something a few years old can be force loaded via on-line guides.

[@smartperson1]

It's tricky. If it's like my 2006 Mac Pro, the 64-bit CPUs run on a system with 32-bit EFI. Apple didn't support that architecture for very long all.

[@dosgos]

@@smartperson1 I forgot about that. The move to 64 bit ROM was around 2007 but I don't know exactly when. The "first" rounds of MacBook Pros were quickly depreciated, unfortunately. It is incredible how long the 2008 basic frame design and keyboard has endured.

[@haziqsofian]

Nice work,but 1 question though,why does the board need to be preheated?

[@jpedrothejo]

his reaction on the testing looks like a tech destroyer ones lmao

[@margingalaxy9826]

Reverse engineering at its best dude

[@LozzTheDev]

interesting video, personally I would rather use leaded solder paste than mess about with solder balls, but it is a lot more expensive than solder balls I guess!

[@matheusmoreirainamine]

I have a question. I have a dead 2008 Imac with a Core 2 quad 7600, and i have a functional Dell B120 with a Celeron M 360. If i remove the processor and chipset of the imac board and solder to dell b120 board, just for fun, it will work? I have all tools to make that, but i have fear of make that and didn't work

[@andrewvideotips2ndchannel]

I have the exact same laptop with the exact same cpu (Dell inspiron b120 1.4 ghz celeron m 360). It won't work because the cpu on the laptop is s479PGA and the imac is s478pga, look up what cpus support socket m479. The whole thing is very confusing

[@matheusmoreirainamine]

​@@andrewvideotips2ndchannel Ok, thanks for the help

[@djxcel23]

I mean this was more of a check this off my list type of thing.

[@reidster87]

This was a fun watch! The MacBookPro2,x and your modded 1,x can still be a performant and useful system for Linux use as well as for legacy Mac OS X. Do you have any experience/insight with ATI X1600 GPU issues on the MacBookPro1,x and 2,x? Do you think it's more likely to be a failing GPU die or solder joints failing? I've owned a late-2006 15" (MacBookPro2,2) from new and was pretty careful with thermals over the years. I didn't start having GPU issues until about 2017, but it rapidly devolved from a few artifacts to large portions of the screen being artifacted, then the system becoming unstable. Eventually, I had to disable the AMD/ATI drivers in Mac OS X and Linux just to be able to navigate the GUIs.

[@alectrona6400]

Do you have the firmware update script available? I have a 17" MacBook Pro, same early 06 model and I'm looking to get some extra RAM in there, like 3GB instead of 2GB. Also, what is the equipment you use? I really want to do BGA soldering myself, I tried in the past but never exactly got it right .-.

[@dimlylitcorners]

23:26 "the easy route"

[@Wintersky136]

So your clients name is Carl Miller 🤪😂

[@CapApollo]

great job indicating every step.. including temps i wont mind if you put your preferred brands of flux. maybe amtech 559

[@oggilein1]

I wonder if someone has ever put a T7600G in a mac, they only ever came in PGA so you'd need an interposer to make it work but it could be a fun project

[@TLang-el6sk]

Nice upgrade. I just tried to upgrade a late 2006 Mac Mini with a T7400 Merom (SL9SE). After changing the CPU the machine doesn't start up anymore. When changing back the machine starts again. I'm confused when I found an extensive compatibility list on macrumors where the author stated that the macmini1,1 firmware is locked to Yonah CPUs and the macmini2,1 firmware is locked to Merom CPUs. This would mean I would have to upgrade the firmware first which contradicts your documentation. So is just my CPU broken or are there more dependencies not described in detail?

[@k.m4061]

In a similar fashion, is it possible to upgrade the later core 2 duo macbooks to a core 2 quad?

[@cameramaker]

But to fully utilize 64bit, you need to reinstall the OSX to a 64bit version? Or the version you had already had those fat binaries with both 32 and 64 bit support?

[@bob0507]

Would it support a T7800 or is the FSB speed difference an incompatibility?

[@2001pulsar]

Will this or Mac mini work with core 2 quad?

[@user_data_missing]

is it also possible to upgrade the gpu?

[@TheMadricks]

I think it would be helpful to cover the middle of the stencil with some capton tape.❔

[@Billyhime]

The fans on the OG MBP are like little sticks they’re so thin

It might go up to 6G (4+2), I think I’ve done that in one of these a few years ago!

[@davide.saliba1302]

Do you sell custom made 17 inch MacBook Pro 2012?

[@Noname_2014]

so you upgrade from 32bit to 64?

[@ifrit05]

I wish Coreboot had support for the first two pro models

[@dosdude1]

It actually would be very easy to port Coreboot to them, since it already has support for first gen MacBooks which mostly have the same hardware.

[@ifrit05]

@@dosdude1 would make for awesome retro windows pcs

[@MRooodddvvv]

thumbs up for words of wisdom about not using solder wick on pcb. its soooo much easier do avoid bad solder joints if just let pads on pcb tinned, but everyone just keep acting as NPCs and removing as much solder from pcb as possible because "look how smooth and clean it is now!" who cares !? it not need to look smooth it need to be soldered successfully on first try. just simple experiment : try remove all solder with wick and then as experiment just tin all pads with soldering iron - notice how difficult it would be, and for solder balls it would be as difficult. now pretty much everyone accepted the fact about having to tap chip slightly while it hot to make sure it seated well, but that require very stead hands and only reason it need to be done in first place that person completely dry cleaned pads with stupid solder wick before procedure. if you not do that no need for tapink or any other nonsense. chip seated well and all bolls connected perfectly at firs try.

[@enriqueentiquez3202]

Genio 👍🏻

[@theruisu21]

amazing! I want to do something similar with a toshiba machine that has a celeron processor.

[@Josh.Davidson]

Nice. I did this a year ago or so (video on my channel). Was fun. But I didn't have the firmware 2,1.

[@Josh.Davidson]

Btw @dosdude1, make sure you change the heatsink to C2D one as the die shape is different.

[@moeedurrehman4194]

Please try to upgrade the mac pro 1,1/2,1 32 bit efi to 64.

[@Matt-pj9dg]

Is it still 32bit efi?

[@s.kammerer1206]

hmmmm Could you put a core 2 quad in it place?

[@MthaMenMon]

I mean, if you went through all this trouble, why not going for the top tier chip out there? A core 2 Quad Q9000. If the bios aint ready for that, you can always hack it a little bit with a bios programmer. TDP is obviusly way ahead, but can always be solved with a bigger 12v brick power supply. Dont get me wrong tho, you are a wizard with all this magic soldering and fumes.

[@hulkhogan2273]

@dosdude1 can you not Modify the 21,5 inch iMac from 2013 with the geforce gt 750 to 4 or 8 or even 16 gb of video memory? I mean I use it still to run LLM's with 16 gb of ram but I think the gt 750m can do more than the cpu with its 768 cuda cores and even with modified video memory...

[@astroidexadam5976]

If you can find above 1GB GDDR5 memory chips you could Frankenstein them to have 8GB or more but under normal circimstances the 750M has a 128bit bus and GDDR5 chips are limited to 1GB chips so limited to 4GB at a 128bit bus

[@hulkhogan2273]

@@astroidexadam5976 hmm ok... did you think it is for LLM's useable when I connect a gpu via old thunderbolt? I have open core on my iMac...

[@myriadtechrepair1191]

Sweet

[@JoshNotJohn0]

"Why would you do this?" I mean, I'd consider getting some experience with a hot air station and component replacement on older technology a good thing, and besides poking and frankensteining technology is fun!

[@kulafaurrosidin]

next project install powerfull GPU on macbook bro. good job haha

[@Emerald_Coast_Bonsai]

hmmmm, what other MacBooks can we upgrade now? #wehavethepower or rather #wehavethetools

[@Technocrat.]

What is like to do is take my Dell Inspiron Ryzen 7 rx580 all in one 27" desktop and take all guts out and put in a Apple Mac Book Pro Max board in and utilize the 27" 4k display and make it a ex dell iMac with built in speakers and new ports. It's the Dell 7775 AIO Crashes a lot now.

[@memediatek]

Get a mac mini board, theyre much better suited for jamming in aios, a lot of displays you can adapt to displayport or hdmi, then use the macs video output

[@DiegoAlly]

Hello! I don’t know if anyone will read this message but I had a MacBook White 2009 with 8gb and it ran well with macOS Monterrey, but I decided to change the motherboard for the White 2010 that is physically the same and I felt that it took a big leap in improvements and speed, but now I’m thinking of changing the CPU, I’ve seen videos where they do it, I just have to see the model and make it compatible, I’m thinking of removing the Intel core 2 Duo CPU of 2.26ghz model P8400 and changing it for an Intel core 2 Duo of 3.06ghz model T9900 what do you think?, I know that DosDude did it but not exactly the same model I have but I think it would be an interesting project, I would love to contact him and see how we could do it together

[@dosdude1]

The T9900 works on the 2010 model, just did that upgrade on one recently.

[@DiegoAlly]

@@dosdude1 I’m moving with my wife to the USA at the end of the year, do you think we could do it? And How much do you charge me? ... I sent you an email 2 weeks ago on your website, I think it would be a great project, I love that MacBook for how retro and cute it is, it would really be great

[@Technocrat.]

Why are there so.many chips on this board. CPU, GPU plus 2 more.

[@dosdude1]

Because it's old... LOL

[@Technocrat.]

@@dosdude1 lol I know but what are they for?

[@dosdude1]

@@Technocrat. CPU, GPU, Northbridge, Southbridge, SMC are the main ones.

[@_XTA]

@@Technocrat. Back when this MacBook was made CPU's where not as advance as they are today, So CPU's would have 2 other chipsets, the northbridge and southbridge, the northbridge would handle things like PCI-E and RAM and the southbridge would handle things like PCI, USB, IDE, BIOS, SPI Serial etc and they connected to the CPU via the front side bus but as CPU's got more advance and they were able to fit more transistors in CPU's the northbridge became a part of the CPU (This happened around Sandy Bridge on Intel CPU's) and the southbridge is now redundant because it was replaced with the Platform Controller Hub

[@tocaamerillo431]

Pretty cool, thanks youtube.

[@iCamJailbreaker]

Someone can make a motherboard so i can use newer processor and run windows or hackintosh

[@werehyenataur]

6gb would work Then punch in sequoia and win 11

[@ToTheGAMES]

Why ruin a good machine with Windows 11

[@EyesOfByes]

Changing soldered CPU, how hard can it be....sorry what?! From 32-bit to 64-bit? But how does the logic board handle that? Memory?

[@ctrlaltrees]

👀

[@TrainLoverYT394]

Dosdude are you the same person as This does not compute?

[@dosdude1]

I'm not.

[@TrainLoverYT394]

@dosdude1 ok just checking and can you fix my A1286?

[@dosdude1]

@@TrainLoverYT394 What's wrong with it?

[@TrainLoverYT394]

@ it refuses to turn on, even with only 2 gigs in ram slot 2 and it needs a new logic board a new logic board and the bottom housing

[@TrainLoverYT394]

@@dosdude1its a Mid 2010 one so pre T2