Chosen Solution
Folks, I am helping a friend (former student). His Early 2008 Macbook has been running like a dog with 10.6.8 Here’s the specs:
I suggested some added memory and bought some from OWC and installed it. The machine boots up and recognizes the memory but once an app or two are open it bogs down and has to be crashed. The pinwheel of death… I PRAM’D it a few times – no joy. I took that memory out and got some from another company – just in case memory was the issue…. same problem. Old memory, it runs fine. I also booted it from a different hard drive – that runs into the same problem. I’ve tried a few things: cleaned up hard drive, done the SMC powerdown, PRAM’d again and again. I just can’t get it sorted for him. I don’t have a way to do a clean install of the operating system. Has anyone seen this phenomenon? I’d love to get him back on track so that his machine – which otherwise is in fine shape – can speed back up. I can only get brief access to it as he’s in grad school and using it to view Powerpoints and such. I have a few days before I return the memory chips to the two vendors. The memory is the RIGHT MEMORY (at least according to the vendors and a check w OWC technical support) Thanks for any help.
Let’s make sure your RAM is correct first: RAM Type: PC2-5300 DDR2 Min. RAM Speed: 667 MHz Details: Supports 667 MHz PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM. Also see: How do you upgrade the RAM in the MacBook? How much RAM of what type does it support? Standard RAM: 2 GB Maximum RAM: 6 GB* Details: 2 GB of RAM is installed as two 1 GB modules, no slots free. *Apple officially supports a maximum of 4 GB of RAM but third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 6 GB of RAM using one 2 GB and one 4 GB memory module. This other hard drive you booted from, did you install it internally or was it external? Was system was on it? Do you have an original system installation DVD to run the AHT from? Also try booting in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key and see how it runs. Personally I would drop in a 500 GB SSHD Seagate to double the perceived speed.
