Tag: laptops

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Speed Up Your Mac

Apparently, I’ve been using the MacBook with crippled fan for over a year. I have noticed a kernel_task using up all processing time. I found out that it was the operating system throttling performance to stop overheating. It does this by running a non-processor intensive task. This task has higher priority than user tasks including the processor-intensive tasks that are heating up the processor. The effect is that the processor temperature is lowered. But also poor system responsiveness and overall performance.

When I found out about this, I concluded that the fan was faulty and opening  up the Mac confirmed it. I ordered a replacement fan and today it finallly arrived. I immediately installed it and the Mac promptly sped up. It felt like the same huge speed improvement when I upgraded to 8GB RAM and SSD. A fan is officially the third best upgrade for speeding up your Mac.

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MacBook Pro Battery Replacement

My MacBook Pro’s trackpad hasn’t been clicking properly for a while. It requires considerable effort to push and doesn’t provide much tactile feedback. I didn’t really mind it too much since I just use taps and gestures. I thought it was just my Mac getting old.

But I eventually learned that it is a common issue with MacBooks. It turned out that the battery is swelling and impinges on the trackpad pushing it upward and preventing the full range of motion. Now it’s either an accident or a clever design feature of MacBooks, but when the trackpad act erratically, people would then go to the shop and have it serviced thus averting a possible battery disaster. Of course, that didn’t work in my case :P

One solution offered by people on the net (always taken with a grain of salt, or more) is pricking the battery cells to release the trapped gases that caused the swelling. Intentionally creating a mini ecological disaster in your workspace at best or obliterating it with a mini explosion. Uh huh. Not for me.

The best solution is replacing the battery. But I’m not about to blow away several thousands to replace the battery of a 4-year old laptop. So the next best thing is to find a cheaper non-OEM replacement part. I found one from PCPartPH. They deliver via courier but I wanted mine right away so I did a “meet up”. Transaction was quick and easy and as soon as I got back home, I installed the new battery.

So far so good though I noticed capacity is not per specification (3980mAh vs 5200mAh). I’ll observe for a few days and see how it goes.

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MacBook Pro Memory Upgrade

Last week, I decided to upgrade the memory of my MacBook Pro from 4GB to 8GB. I did my research and then went to Villman which is my usual go to place for hardware components. Ever since their humble beginnings with Boyet at the People’s Park, I’ve almost always gone for Villman. Lucky for me, they got the modules that I asked for.

When I got home, I excitedly swapped the old memory modules with the new ones. It won’t boot! I  rechecked my research and it turned out that I was wrong. I got PC3-12800 (DDR3 1600 MHz) modules when I should have gotten PC3-8500 (DDR3 1066 MHz). Bummer.

So I went back to Villman and returned the memory modules. They didn’t have PC3-8500 modules but they told me they can order replacements which should be available in 5-15 days. It was quick and painless. And that is why I always come back to Villman.

So today, eight days after ordering, Villman called me that my memory has been delivered to the store. I had no plans of going out but I just had to go and pick them up. Michelle and Jeanne went with me to get snacks. As soon as we got home, I (still) excitedly swapped the old memory modules with the news ones. And this time, it booted up perfectly. And performed whoa so much faster. Memory is definitely the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade!