First letter of serialnumber: MacBook: C1/C02 = 2011 and upwards Mac Mini: C02 = 2010 and upwards iMac: C02 = 2011 and upwards MacBook: W/Random number, usually 8 = 2010 or later Mac Mini: W/V = Late 2009 or later iMac: W/V = Mid 2010 or later
@@MrDaftJustice The 2010 Macbook Pro 13" units with the Nvidia Geforce 320M as well as the 2010 white plastic Macbook do not have GPU issues whatsoever. The 2010 15" and 17" units with Nvidia Geforce GT 330M do have GPU issues, but the GPU is very reliable and does not fail. It is actually a problem with a capacitor that is not fit for the job of regulating the current going to the dGPU that needs to be replaced with a bigger, better capacitor.
Nice video man, 3 months ago, I bought a MBP in same condition for 74€ on ebay(seller thought mid 2010), and it turned out to be a late 2011 2,2 i7 with 8GB 6750 512MB. Only the heatpipe was TOTALLY full of dust(I couldn´t believe it). Now it is performing so great with a 40€ SSD. Keep it going Luke, good luck and greetings from bavaria.
I bought $15 dead iphone 5s, so I replaced some parts and insert new battery total $8 now I have fully working 5s 64GB worth $80 or more. Marketplace is really mysterious.
Useful to setup new listing alerts for that reason. I jumped on a 10min old listing of a Late 2014 27" Thunderbolt Display in great condition and bought it for $100 dollarydoos (about $70USD). Pretty good deal, at least here in Australia where they normally go for $750 used.
Of course you can. I bought and sold something like 40 of them in 2019. But had 4 returns for dead GPU. Sold 4 with disable GPU for half price. An hold 6 of them for parts (dead GPU too). So near half of them had dead GPU... That is why I don't sell 15/17" 2011 anymore. I made good profit on 2 of them. Bought one for 50€, the only issue was the keyboard (liquid damage so the power button was not working) and a fully working one (2 keys missing) for 70€. I already bought a 2012 (the only one I had after more than 200 macbook) for 30€... Liquid damaged (but never turn on after that, so had just to clean it) a new battery and that's all he needed. Bought few late 2008 macbook for 25€ piece. Listed as "logic board failure" and they worked just fine 🤔. But it's my full time job, I look adverts in few places few time a day. When I see somethings interresting I take my phone, some cash and I go.
I have 2 tips for you if you'd like it. 1. Always unplug the battery before removing any component. 2. I see you are using an iFixit kit, you should mention it with an affiliate link in the description. Overall, I love watching your videos so keep up the good job.
Most of these are people who know it’s a 2011 and they have gpu issues so they put for parts to save themselves from refunds. Bought 3 of these, did the MuxHat mod, they work fine now.
Opty how did you fix yours? I’ve got one that’s went bad with the white screen. Took it apart ended up tearing the trackpad ribbon so have to order another one.
JL BREMER On ebay look for a MuxHat. It’s a little mod made by Dosdude01. All you do is put that on the motherboard, heat it up and it’ll solder itself to the board. You can do it with a harbor frieght heat gun. And you have to solder 2 wires. Overall the process takes about 20 minutes. I used a basic soldering iron on all 3 and had no issues. I will make a video soon on how to go about it but $20 and you’re good to go.
I think it's better to keep the 13" instead of the 15", yeah a GPU failure is possible at any moment. That's why I bought the 13" MacBook Pro 2011 in 2017
@Alton Kilbourne nice! i've heard a lot of stories like that before but i just don't find people throwing stuff like that out. Instead, i see people selling their 2006 macbook for $400 because they think "oh it's an apple product and it's worth tons of money"
If that's a high-res (1680x1050) screen you got a great deal. Even if not, it's still a great deal the palm rest and LCD are in great shape. Yes you could trim the edges of the LVDS connector and install a 2012 logic board, best way to obtain one is with a ugly 2012 15"
i really don't know how people get their laptops so destroyed like my mom bought a 2011 macbook rpo stock config in 2011 and still uses it in 2019 in Mac OS X Lion and it still looks new.
When I bought my MacBook Pro in 2017, it was in a mint condition. But one day i droped it when I was riding a bike to go at university. It had a big dent in the left bottom. It drove me crazy for so long. If you keep your Mac in one place, it is sure that you will risk nothing
Have 2011 mbp still works fast. I dont game but use video editing and logic with upgraded ram and an ssd and cheap chinese battery. If your tech needs dont change dramatically year to year, you could hold a macbook for a decade without issue .
@@yg78t76t7 lolol... I use a 2010 macbook pro. the original battery inflated and burnt. Apple being Apple, I had to replace it myself. I live in China, Beijing, where taobao can find you anything for cheap. I bought a 17€ generic battery... in 2013... today is 2019, March 23rd... I work for a videogame company, use my macbook everyday, let it plugged at the office, work on battery when I'm away from the office, and my logic board is fine, thanks for asking. I many times had the thought to change my laptop for a more modern version, to buy a Razor, a XPS15, or even a Xiaomi Pro... but in fine, always postponed the decision as my macbook works perfectly till now. Never repasted it, maybe should I. I only stuffed 8gig ram and replace the HDD for a 256SSD. And that's it. 9 years later, not only does it work, but it's my daily driver, my tool, and my bread-winner. So... keep talking about "those batteries are cheap and will damage your boards"... lolol
Same, my mum has a very old 2011 15 inch. Battery is well dead and puffy, but otherwise it's in great condition. I have a 2012 15 inch that one day, will eventually die... Would want to see a logic board swap out in the 15 inch unibody chassis! 2012 15 inch Macbook Pros are the everlasting pinnacle of Apple Laptops; anyone can fix them.
I went into best buy to buy a new mouse. I noticed someone had tossed their mac book pro into the trash. So I grabbed it and was curious about what it was. You've helped me a lot in deciding what I will do with it.
I got my late 2011 for $70. It had no hard drive or battery. I’m sure the battery would be gone and I put a 240gb SSD in it. That was almost a year ago.
I recently picked up a 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch for $60 on Facebook Marketplace. Guy originally wanted $200, then dropped it to $100 and since I drove to him he knocked it to $60. Something was wrong with it and it would freeze up while starting up. It only needed a fresh install of MacOS and It was running fine again. After upgrading the HDD to a SSD, new battery and upgraded the RAM to 8GB it was running fast/like new again.
I recently bought a early 2009 MacBook white with charger for only 30€ That was because the seller thought it was a 2007 macbook. Those two MacBooks look identical. I first thought It was one from 2007 to, that was because on the bottom of the case it says: TM and 2007 Apple Inc.
Hey Luke, what do you think about these macs, are those good deals : MacBook Pro Mid 2010 : I5-540 M @ 2.53 GHz 8 GB ram 500 HDD ( will upgrade to a 70 $ 1 TB SSD) Battery has only 234 cycles, seems to hold very well Very good condition, but the hinge is a little bit loose Price : 120 USD VS iMac 27 inch 2011 I5-2400 8 GB ram 1 TB HDD 1 GB graphics Price 190 USD In generally good condition but the display was replaced by university tech and the HDD temperature sensor seems to not work ( need an adapter)
I give the seller credit for making the packaging waterproof. I like that considering no delivery person has ever left a package out in the rain, when cover was 5 feet way. Nope--never happened.
Love this video! I actually just experienced graphics failing on my 2011 15" MBP 2.0 i7 - happened once before and apple fixed it because it was within a time period but now it's outside of it. Any suggestions what I should salvage with it? Mint condition too. Keep up the content!
Luke Miani holding the Macbook up with 1 hand: -"This thing is in amazing condition, especially for the $200 price tag!" *DROPS ON GROUND* "NOOO MY RU-vid CONTENT!"
I got a 2011 MacBook Pro 15 inch for $50 dollars that wouldn’t turn on, I added a new battery and power cord for $60 so after $110 all in I sold it for $500! Great profit of $390
Thats how mine died. I tried calling around 3rd party shops after Apple turned me away and they all said "I can replace it but you'll be back here in a couple months with the same problem"
I'm watching this from my early 2011 A1278 that I bought for $180 from Craigslist. Same condition, even has MS Office installed for work. Upgraded to 16GB of RAM (from my stock) and a new battery...Really happy with it.
I feel like you should use it as your daily for a week or so as is, then upgrade it to the 2012 logic board and sell it. You can probably get 3 or 4 videos out of that. Also if you want, i have a dead GPU 2011 MBP 15 with the hi res antiglare display. You can FrankenBook this into a series.
well... I work for a video game company, and use my laptop at work. I work like 70+ hours per week on it. My laptop is a 2010 macbook pro 13, bought in the EU. I had an issue with a shitty original battery which inflated and warped my frame, in 2013. I bought a cheap generic battery on taobao, as I live in Beijing, for about 17€. Thi machine is just working every single day since I bought it, even doing video editing (via proxies, of course). I never had a single failure. I only had to bump up the ram and replaec my HDD for un SSD. And voilà, that's it. I'm regularly thinking to replace it my a more modern machine, but always give up because... why? Why would I replace such a reliable tool. My gpu (geforce 320M) is weak asf but works fine. If you don't need a gaming machine, this one is perfectly fine. 9 year old laptop. I'm laughing now, when I see all the crappy issues new mac have. Price bumped and quality went down. Plus, my laptop has a DVD-CD burner combo drive. Real nice. 9 years later, only the battery and one of the four rubber feet failed me. Acceptable I would say... for 1200€ in 2010.
Luke, get rid of that 2011 MBP now and don’t buy them! lol. they ALL have graphics card issues. if it’s running now, it won’t be running soon. This is why you can find so many of them online. I used to be a lead apple tech (IT now) and I do the same thing you except I haven’t add youtube videos yet 😂. it’s interesting to see someone else do the same thing.
if it's running now, means it has been running for 8 years... lol... I'd say it's a pretty nice evidence that they aren't that shitty. I'd bet the gpu will be real fine for years. Mine is from 2010, and is very very fine
cyril dieudonné If it’s running now, that doesn’t mean it has been running for 8 years. A lot of these things have been reflowed to work (temporary) just enough to sell on ebay and the seller get away with it before it dies. 2010 had GPU failures also but not at the same rate as quad core i7 cpus paired with nvidia g chips. they ran SO HOT it killed the GPUs. the 2011s failed so bad that apple was forced to release a repair program all the way till December 2016 to repair them. That’s how serious that was. Know your information.
Lol I have a laptop older than this one and it still works like it's new and no faulty graphics. Ive been using it since 2010.. Maybe people ought to break their macbook pros on purpose
to get really bobblehead on this, you can tell it's at least 2011 because the photos show a thunderbolt icon by the display port, and the launchpad key means it's at least late 2011, as early 2011 still had the dashboard key
you know theres a lot you failed to mention here as well. 1. for instant do you know why most people tell you not to purchase a MacBook Pro without a power supply. 1. its stolen 2. its locked to someone else iCloud account and can be deactivated from there its called uefi deactivation its a nice feature on your mac's iCloud services that password locks the firmware on the machine and blocks the user from using the device because its stolen. 2. no hard drive that is very sketch as well most stolen or broken machines don't come with a hard drive true but that would still make me question a lot of things. so overall not a bad video but some important information watch yourself online.
I got myself a sad early 2011 15" MacBook Pro logic board with a dead GPU and I'm doing to do a mod called the gMux Bypass to permanently disable the dGPU regardless of NVRAM settings - then I'm going to grab a display assembly, topcase, and everything else I need to build a fully working MacBook. I'd love to see you do this! Great video as always! :)
Pro Tip: if you are buying a laptop "For Parts Only", they will never put forth effort in shipping as it is "already broken". That said, I actually learned several things in this video on how to ID different Mac models that I did not know already, thanks!
The multiple padded bags is better than the packing I usually see: The computer tossed into a too-large box that's barely sealed with cello tape and is going to rattle around during its entire journey. You'd have to roll over that thing with a car to damage it packed with the padded bags and it's much less expensive to ship than in an oversized box, too.
I'd just flip it... take the profit and buy something else... keep flipping laptops ONLY using the same pot of cash and see if you can 'flip up' to say a 16 MBP. A journey of refurbs/flips. "How I turned $150 into a 16 MBP" would be a cool video.
I like when youtubers take apart Apple devices without technical knowledge :) As You have said, it flashed 5 times and it actually means the battery is low but not dead. I like when You clean those devices and replace the heatpaste, or at least mention it. It can make a huge difference in performance and a lot of people dont know why are their Macs are getting slower by time.
This thing I don't understand about MacBooks why do they use glass glossy screens if it's not touch screen I'd much rather have a matte display unless they make it touch screen then I can understand the glass
I swear, RU-vid premium has me spoiled. I had no idea this video had commercials, but I used to refuse to watch ones with them stuck in the middle. Videos that have that many commercials are only meant to clickbait for views, and the content is usually garbage.
You should ditch the old OSX and run a current Linux distro - this machine would be good for another 5 years or more and would have up to date browser support. The only issue these days is having to manually source and install the broadcom drivers for the WiFi, but everything else should work out of the box.
My old boss had a 2011 MacBook Pro and damn.. still never felt a better laptop. It was heavy and solid and luxury to the max. Screen was terrible though, that surprised me. It was 2011 though.. Pixelated but had good off-axis angles.
Keep these coming .. to be totally honest, I enjoy one of your discovery episodes often at my kitchen dining bar .. having a late dinner, watching on my 2011 Mac-pro. ............ Cheers
This is the exact reason I like buying used most of the time. I recently purchased a Xbox one elite controller that retails for $140 for only $20. How can you argue with $120 savings. Just be careful when buying used. It can be easy to accidentally buy crap
Ozzman422 im from holland and there is a site called: www.marktplaats.nl I found somebody who didnt know mutch about a mac and let apple give it a price. Of course apple’s price was way too low, but she believed it. So now i have my 230$ macbook pro😂
Hi Luke. how are you? I have been using my 2011 21.5" iMac for my video editing. Recently the GPU died on me, and I sent it to my local computer shop to change the GPU. I planned to change it myself but I can't find it anywhere in my country selling the GPU for the iMac. The problem is, After installing the GPU, my iMac randomly shuts down when I perform some GPU-hard-used work such as video rendering. is the new GPU installed is faulty?
Just found myself a 2011 15inch mac book pro at a local pawn shop for $250. No issues so far, hopefully I don't run into the failing graphics card issue. planning to upgrade soon!
I just won a $56 “2010” 13” MBP. Only issue is a missing key and sticky trackpad. But I also noticed it has the late 2011 f4 launchpad key not the older. I think I scored a deal thanks for the tip on the key!!
If serial number is available, look up spec at everymac. This computer's processor is i7 2.0 gHz which is slow. 256GB VRAM is not enough especially when 512GB and 1TB VRAM versions are available. 256GB VRAM is a bottleneck and slows down the system. It will play full screen HD video but will not play 60 fps. 8GB RAM is a must and gives much needed overhead to the processor. $170 before SSD is not a great deal for this spec. I think the play here would be to install a Mid 2012 logic board but those are not cheap.
You were lucky with that battery that it hadn't puffed up and destroyed the trackpad. Another thing with these is stay away from cheap knockoff batteries. If it doesn't properly mimic an original Apple battery the computer will set the CPU to its slowest speed. Buy from a reputable Mac specialty company like Other World Computing. OWC even includes the screwdrivers to take the MacBook apart.
here but it's 120gb www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-SA400S37-120G/dp/B01N6JQS8C/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_lp_t_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AHB7M22MSZM5F6WHBA8Y
hi Luke, I enjoy how you show us how to restore old machines with new ram, SSD, and batteries which all sounds doable by anyone with a little experience, but a new SSD doesn't have a Mac operating system installed on it, does it? Could you possibly show us how to complete the restoration with a OS El Capitan etc. install to the computer? that's the hard part for us newbies. Thank you and I enjoy your show very much. I bought MBP 2009 mid for $130 in pretty good shape and hoping to restore it.
I think you should just use it as it is till and if the GPU fails to keep it original. Then if the failure occurs replace the board with the 2012 one and make it really good. Have you got brand new mid 2012 logic boards? Cheers.
