1st Mac got a lot of questions

Y

yang88she

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I bought a feb 2011 15" Mbp I want upgrade the ram from 4gb to 8gb

Any rexommendations?

I have a intel x25 80gb g2 but it is the bare own drive, can I use this as my boot drive? Do I need an adapter plate? I may just spend the extra coin on a 256gb crucial m4 and sell the g2

I don't want to use a duel link adapter so I'm selling my 3007 wfp hc and possibly getting a 3011, will I have any issues using it w the display port at 2560x1600?

Recommendations for a sleeve or case?

Thanks!
 
You can use the x25 as your boot drive. Don't know about the external monitor but I would say that res should be fine thru displayport. Look at incase sleeves for soft cases and Speck shells for hard cases.
 
You can also leave your hard drive where it is and replace your optical drive with the SSD (adapter required).

That way you can boot off the SSD but still have a media storage drive.

I've done this with my 2011 MBP (15"), and it's great. Who needs an optical drive anyway?
 
so I don't need to switch it around? I can boot off the optical side? I know it sounds like stupid question haha, but it is my first mac and I haven't had a laptop in over 5 years
 
Welcome to the Mac side of the force, Yang!

You won't have any trouble running your 30" at 2560x1600. Just use the mini-DisplayPort adapter that should have been included with your MBP. That's how I connect my 2011 MBP to my 3008WFP via its DP.

As for an SSD mod, I got one from OWC. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

I installed it as Ampsonic described. Works great. You can get an optical drive adapter from OWC, too.

You'll need an external DVD/CD in order to install Windows or any other software on disc.

Very important: since the battery is not removable, make sure you disconnect the battery cable before doing any work on your MBP. I learned the hard way, but thanks to the Apple store at Perimeter Mall, they just swapped my dead MBP for a new one. :D
 
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Yeah it's a serial ATA connection in the optical drive bay just like your hard drive. It's better to put the SSD in the optical bay because they're silent and don't vibrate. The hard drive bay has little rubber supports to keep mechanical drives from vibrating or being noisy.
 
Thanks Wolf! and great point Zinn!

I was thinking of selling my 3007 and jumping to an updated 3011 so I can skip the adapter and run a dp cable
 
yang88she said:
Thanks Wolf! and great point Zinn!

I was thinking of selling my 3007 and jumping to an updated 3011 so I can skip the adapter and run a dp cable
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You're welcome! You'll still need the adapter to connect the DP cable to your MBP's mini-DP port.
 
oh! one thing i heard was that the optical bay has flaky support for sata 6gb/s drives. so if you get one of the new-gen screaming fast SSDs, it actually makes sense to use the main hard drive bay for it, which definitely supports 6gb/s speed on 2011 mbp. just something to keep in mind. i have the "official" (slow) apple SSD in my mac and it works fine in the optical bay.
 
As far as sleeve cases go, I prefer the STM sleeve cases to the Incase ones. I find the fit of the incase sleeves too lose, whereas the STM sleeves are very snug and there is no extra material slack.

I got the STM sleeves at radtech.us but you can probably find them elsewhere too.

BTW I do recommend the Radtech Screensaverz as well. I used one for 5 years on my old Powerbook G4 and then got another with my new 13" MBP. My screens were/are always perfect and it's a handy cloth for cleaning and also keeping dust/foreign objects out of your system via keyboard entry if you leave it open a lot. It won't protect against a massive liquid spill but will stop small drops and drips.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
Welcome to the Mac side of the force, Yang!


Very important: since the battery is not removable, make sure you disconnect the battery cable before doing any work on your MBP. I learned the hard way, but thanks to the Apple store at Perimeter Mall, they just swapped my dead MBP for a new one. :D
Click to expand...

You've got me curious, how did you kill the laptop just because the battery was plugged in?
 
shoota said:
You've got me curious, how did you kill the laptop just because the battery was plugged in?
Click to expand...
As I was replacing one of the RAM chips, I noticed a small spark and smoke off of one of the main board's chips. After that, the laptop was dead, wouldn't power on at all. I didn't know how to disconnect the battery cable at the time. Had I done so, there wouldn't have been any power to cause that little flame out.
 
yang88she said:
Wow wolf glad they took care of u
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Yeah, that's one thing about Apple, they take care of their customers. I just took it to the Apple store and they swapped it for a brand new MBP. No hassle, no nothing. :)
 
Ruahrc said:
As far as sleeve cases go, I prefer the STM sleeve cases to the Incase ones. I find the fit of the incase sleeves too lose, whereas the STM sleeves are very snug and there is no extra material slack.
Click to expand...
That's weird, maybe it's different depending on the size. My 13" sleeve is perfectly tight against the Macbook Pro.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
As I was replacing one of the RAM chips, I noticed a small spark and smoke off of one of the main board's chips. After that, the laptop was dead, wouldn't power on at all. I didn't know how to disconnect the battery cable at the time. Had I done so, there wouldn't have been any power to cause that little flame out.
Click to expand...

I might be playing devil's advocate here but I've changed out ram so many times on so many different laptops and never even heard of such a thing. Are you sure something else wasn't going on?
 
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