alainarielbendijo

[alainarielbendijo]

Upgrading my MacBook Pro

They say do something that scares the living s*&! out of you every now and then.  Couple of weeks ago I did just that. Nothing life threatening but potentially something that could get expensive if I screwed up.  

I have been complaining about my macbook pro being laggy for a while now. I am seeing the multi-colored beach ball more often than I would have preferred. (The multiple colored beach ball is the Mac’s version of letting you know that your system is busy or is hanging.)  To be fair, my machine is a bit dated. It is a mid 2012 MBP and there have been several newer models so it is a little long in the teeth.  

So after whining and ranting, I decided to do something about it. While I was greatly tempted to splurge and fork over for a new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar (salivating as I think of it), the miser in me found it difficult to part with my hard earned cash since my current MBP is still in very good condition.  I thought, that if I could do away with the latency and system hang issues, I’d still be able to make do with my current machine. Wasn’t doing any hardcore video editing, just the occasional photo editing in Lightroom, and it has been awhile since I’ve done extensive photo manipulation in Photoshop, if I could upgrade my system to make it faster and increase its current capacity, that’d be my best alternative.  As usual, I did my online research to see what options are available to me. I found that it is indeed possible to increase the RAM as well as upgrade my hard drive to a much faster and bigger capacity solid state drive or SSD. However, being a non-techie, (atleast from a hardware manipulation context), I felt a bit intimidated with what could potentially be a daunting task. I asked around and found a technician who was doing upgrade services for Macs.  I asked for a quotation to upgrade as well as the service for cloning my current hard drive. The total quotation was in excess of P40K (which included 16GB RAM upgrades and a 1 TB SSD) which I found to be on the borderline of being reasonable and unreasonably expensive.  

I therefore decided to take a leap of faith and trust in the virtue of online resources as well as my natural interest to take things apart to guide me. I buy all of the parts separately. Bought a solid state drive and a hard drive enclosure which was needed to clone my current drive. This will allow me to back up my current computer into the solid state drive. I downloaded a trial version of carbon cloner to do just that. This process was very straightforward and only required me to install the SSD into the cheap hard drive enclosure I got from CD-R King and followed the instructions to do the cloning.

The RAM was a bit more challenging to find. I tried several shops and they were no longer carrying the DDR2 RAM version which was what I needed for my Mac. Tried ordering it via Amazon but that’s a totally lengthy and separate blog entry that I will tackle some other time.  I eventually ended up buying the RAM from a shop in Glorietta, and it was the only shop that carried it. Apparently the supply is starting to diminish given that most laptops are now using the DDR3 version.

So I have all of the parts prepped for installation and it was now time for the rubber to hit the road. Started by ensuring that my laptop’s power was disconnected, turned it over on it’s back and started to undo the screws. The screws are really tiny and you’d need a really small Philips type. If you have a precision screw driver set, you should have one that would fit. Be very careful though not to strip the screws. In my case, I was able to remove all without any problems except for one, which required a little bit of pressure to ensure the screw head turned the screw.  Being the OC that I am, I took note of the size of the screws via post its. I suppose you can do it by memory but my OC persona took over. After all the screws were off, the aluminum back cover was quite easy to pop open and remove to reveal the inner workings of my Mac.  

The first thing I installed were the memory chips. Based on the Youtube videos, iFixit guides, and Apple’s online resource, it involved releasing the installed memory by pushing apart the retaining clips on the side. By pulling them to the outside, the RAM modules would pop up and a little prodding to get them out of the memory banks was all that was needed. There are two RAM stacked over one another so you replicated the process. Installing the new RAM modules just followed the reverse of the process. Had to ensure that they were angled correctly into the memory slot before pushing them down flat. The retaining clips would click in place and this meant that the RAM modules were seated correctly. Looking good so far and was able to successfully install the modules. (would find out later if I was truly successful upon powering up.)

Next to be installed was the solid state drive. When I first lifted the drive, I found it unusually light in comparison to a mechanical hard drive. First thing to do was unscrew the retaining bracket on the current hard drive. When that was done, I pulled the drive out carefully being mindful of the SATA cable still installed. The SATA cable required some prodding but I was able to pull it off  the hard drive.  All the guides stressed to be really careful with this part of the process as the SATA cable could snap if one was unusually vigorous removing it. 

 The Youtube guide also prescribed removing the attached tape attached to the drive to facilitate easier removal. While I don’t foresee any upgrades moving forward, I followed it to the letter just the same and removed the tape and attached it to the new SSD which I’m about to install.  Installing the solid state also meant removing the Torque screws on the sides of the mechanical hard drive to the sides of the new SSD. These screws would serve as the mounting points for the drive to the body of the Macbook. Still uneventful but you would need a special Torque screw driver (a number 6 if my recall is right) to attach and reattach the said screws.  After this step, I reattached the SATA cable, seated the new drive and reattached the retaining bracket. I then proceeded to replace the back cover and reattach the screws being mindful of the size and which holes they went to.

And then….the moment of truth. Would I be victorious in my quest for upgrade independence (atleast for this machine) or will I have a really expensive paper weight? Powered it up…and the initial pause gave me a little bit of a cardiac panic, but soon as I hear the chime and the Apple logo with the status bar appear I felt a rush of relief. Took a few seconds for the status bar to complete and my old desktop pops up. The cloning was successful. “Send in the clones!” That’s an Austin Power reference when Frau Frabisina was prompting Minime into the room to meet Dr. Evil. Went off tangent there.

To see if the RAM modules were being recognized, I clicked on the Apple Logo and About This Mac option to see if the RAM upgrades were functioning. It looks good as well,  the machine recognizes a total of 16GB RAM installed.  Achievement. :) 

Since it booted, the SSD was being read. But just to check, I clicked on the Storage tab to see. 

All in all it was a good experience. I was able to make basic upgrades and installation on my own albeit with a lot of research and over-preparation. Then again, this is an expensive machine and I would prefer to avoid screwing it  up.   The speed difference is really noticeable. I’m not seeing the beach ball anymore and opening applications is definitely faster. I bought this Mac in 2013 and I think with this upgrade, this machine should still be good for another 5 years. I have an older Mac, circa 2007 that is actually still working albeit without any battery and it definitely has shown down significantly. I’m now tempted to tinker around with that.