Here is my first post about the latest teardown and “tune up” for my MacBook Pro. I had erased and reinstalling the entire OS every 90 days since I got this Mac. But disassembling and assembling it back, I do it every year in order to get the best performance from my Mac. This machine is a MacBook Pro Mid 2012, 2.6 GHz i7 Quad Core “Ivy Bridge” (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 6MB L3 cache, model MacBookPro9,1, with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory, as dedicated graphics processor and the Intel HD Graphics 4000, as integrated graphics processor. A college instructor and now friend recommended me to upgraded the 8 GB (Default) memory to 16 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM, Crucial memory RAM, like 2 and half years ago. Also, he strongly urged me to swap the, by then current, 750 GB hard drive for an SSD. So I got a Crucial M500 with 960 GB of Storage. This SSD upgrade supercharged my Mac with super-boosted I/O speeds. So, as for today, my Mac stand aside with newer Mac environments and still have the power to move a few more development cycles.
Now, let go to business. Since a few days ago I was having problems with the Airport card (WIFI and Bluetooth module) and connecting to internet and bluetooth devices. So I decided to perform the yearly restoration and “Tune Up” to my Mac before its due date. Now, I never had disassembled a Mac this deep, and part by part till last one. So, it was a new experience for me. Sadly, I did this entirely by myself, due to most of my friends don’t like to do this kind of stuff, they prefer to go to the Genius Bar. So, because I think I’m a Genius myself, I prefer to do it. I wish I had someone with me while doing this, it could be way more fun. I took apart all the components except the CD/DVD Super Drive and Screen, it wasn’t actually necessary for my purposes. I notice that Airport Car’s connector cable were a bit misplaced and loosed, and tried to put it back with a bit of glue to make it stay in place. Then cleaned the fan vents and fans blades with Air Duster and toothbrush, they were full of dust and 🐶 hair. I took the logic board and gave it a bath of alcohol with a toothbrush and a few Q-Tips, 😂. After drying everything with a hairdryer, I assembled back and booted in recovery mode, erased the entire SSD with Disk Utility and reinstalled a copy of the latest version of macOS. While booting the new fresh OS, I notice the magic. It ran like new. Super fast, no glitches, just awesome again. Wow, the experience was unique. The funny part is about to come yet, I really didn’t knew what I was doing. I’ve never went so deep taking my Mac apart into pieces. The only goal I had was try to make it work like new again, which was achieved.
Every time I do a similar kind of treatment to each of my computers, I feel very close to it. I feel like I care about it. Like it forms a part of me and who I am. Sounds crazy right? Don’t worry, I’m just that kind of unique and attached person. 😂
I’ll get back in 90 days with a new post reviewing how this old Mac performed...
Until next time,
@gchriswill 😉