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| Author | To preserve or to use? (Read 243 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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wove
1024 MB  Posts: 1363 
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on: January 04, 2026, 15:50
I have a 2011 17” MBP, which is generally considered one of the most problem prone Apple laptops ever released. Generally they all suffer from the failure of the discrete graphics card. Over heating caused by poor air flow, or maybe just defective AMD graphics. The one I have is fully functional and in excellent condition. The battery only has 115 cycles on it, so I assumed it is still working and in such good conditions because it was very rarely used. It has a quad core i7 with 16GB of RAM and would make an excellent daily machine. Capable on any task I would ever throw at it. So should I just go ahead and use the heck out of it until, like most of the rest of those vintage laptops just up and die, or should I just hang on to it as a shiny fragile bobble. Overall it is retro problem in general.. Should I open it up and risk breaking the plastics? Should the device be carefully maintained, or should I suck the last ounce of life out to it? |
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Johnny7
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64 MB Posts: 78 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #1 on: January 04, 2026, 17:48
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Hey Wove, Happy New Year! Well, again, it depends on what you’re going to use the Quad Core i7 for. I have two Mac mini QC i7 machines in use as daily drivers. One in the office and one in the lab. Best machines I’ve ever owned. However, like my PPC Macs, the longevity is coming down to Firefox support. I have one that’s running Mojave and one that’s running Catalina. You’ll find that the latest OS you can install is Catalina. Firefox is no longer supported on Mojave and I must run FF v.115.xx ESR. This is wreaking all kinds of havoc with mostly banking and financial institution websites (I did use Force Version in FF settings to continue using one of my backing sites which is working for now). The Catalina machine is still supported by FF but will also go ESR v115.xx in March 2026. To continue using Mac OS past my PPC machines, I had to buy the QC i7 machines years ago. Now, just as the PPC machines went delinquent on the WWW, I must upgrade again. A few weeks ago I finally broke down and ordered a Mac mini M4, a HDD dock and a Samsung 1TB NVMe. It’s due to arrive tomorrow. So, if you’re not concerned about browser capability, I say use it till it drops. What am I going to use my two QC i7 machines for? Well. The Catalina machine will still get used out in the lab daily because I don’t do any banking on it but the Mojave machine I’m not sure. Probably an iTunes machine as internet radio still natively works in Mojave. And my 3 old PPC machines will continue to be used for just plain old fun. I also have a MM Dual Core - it sits in the junk pile.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #2 on: January 04, 2026, 20:46
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Happy new year and if you don't use it then its of no use.
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #3 on: January 05, 2026, 13:43
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new year has really started off with a bang worldwide ay! DDR5 memory skyrocketing in price but not value?? Rust for Mac OSX PPC Stewart Cheifet dying along with Bridgette Bardot tin-pot dictators dissapearing in the middle of the night 3DS prices also are skyrocketing the BootROM keys for the PS5 have been leaked by apparently a disgruntled employee from what i understand?? the new year might be quite interesting....
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #4 on: January 05, 2026, 15:45
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@snes1423 - One guy's "tin-pot dictator" is another guy's national hero and freedom fighter. Last time I checked roughly half of the American electorate would luv to see the orange ogre jailed for crimes too numerous to list them all here. The rule of [international] law doesn't exist to protect the good guys from the bad ones. Every shotgun can do that. It exists to protect society from itself. Because "good" and "bad" are as subjective and changeable as the mood swings of the fashion industry. I've been on this earth long enough to remember that kind of victory dance many times over. Yet the headaches start the morning after - and too few care to remember those.
Last Edit: January 05, 2026, 15:47 by 68040
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #5 on: January 05, 2026, 16:17
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@snes and @68040 - Please DO NOT discuss politics in this forum. There are other places for doing that. @wove - Use it! Unless you plan on opening a museum, make it work and do some good. What good would come from having it sit on a shelf? Macs are tools ultimately, and I think you were the one saying that! ;-) Perhaps you're lucky and the thing will continue to work for a couple of years. Let us know, please 
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #6 on: January 07, 2026, 02:01
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Well I used it and it lasted for about 4 hours. I worked on Sunday evening getting software I wanted to use installed, making sure it was all up to date and such. Came back on Monday and imported photos in Aperture and started tidying up albums and such. Then the screen went all out of wack. The screen was still mostly readable and useable. I used a utility that allows me to switch between discrete and integrated gpu. Oddly it make very little difference in what was displayed. I also noticed that wifi was gone and clicking the icon gave me a "No wifi hardware found". I plugged in ethernet and it was missing as well. System Report showed both ethernet and wife devices as being present. I shut down and booted from an installer USB. The network utility on the installer also said no wifi and no internet and it could not do an install, because it also did not see the hard drive. Bluetooth was available both when booted from the hard drive and the installer. Wifi and Bluetooth are in the same module, so it seemed odd to have one working and the other not. Since all the problem/missing devices were all connected to the motherboard via cables, I thought perhaps I was suffering from connection problems. I took the whole thing apart. It was quite clean inside, but I did use Doxit on all the connectors. I also took the operturnity to install new thermal paste. I put it back together. Overall it is a fairly easy and straight forward device to work on. But the effort was for nought. It is still running just as it did. I am going to try it with an external monitor and see if the graphics issues are related to the screen. If so I could use it as a desktop, assuming I can sort out what is going on with the networking. I am at something of a loss, so if any one has suggestions I am interested.
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eelco
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32 MB Posts: 41 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #7 on: January 12, 2026, 21:19
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If the hardware is reported as being present but both are greyed out in the OS, that rather implies they are either disabled or down (by that I mean administratively down). Does the OS you are booting from the internal drive and the installer support the hardware in your MBP?
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