TechCast Reviews – part of the TechCast Network

6th February 2009

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It wasn’t long before I was taking the screws out of my brand new unibody MacBook Pro (MBP). Within a week of getting a hold of my MBP, I had upgraded it to 4GB of RAM, allowing for a much more useable system when running Vista under Parallels virtualisation.

If you’re looking to upgrade your Mac, then follow these tips to avoid ‘bricking’ your shiny new MBP.

Choosing the right memory

The first step is to choose the right memory to go in to your Mac. I recommend going for Crucial memory. Every system I’ve ever built or upgraded myself has always had some form of Crucial memory inside of it. Prices are reasonable if not better than most and you can have peace of mind that it’s the genuine stuff that will carry on working long after your system is dead. They also have an idiot-proof memory selector on their website which makes it very easy to find and order the right memory.

It’s always best to order memory in pairs for maximum performance and compatibility. Inside the entry-level MBP, you’ll find two sticks of 1GB memory from Micron. Micron is the parent company to Crucial and are one of the largest manufacturers of flash memory. Yet another reason why you can be certain that the memory you order from Crucial will work in your Mac.

The new memory sticks you’re after should have the following specifications:

DDR3
PC3 8500
204-pin
CL7
Unbuffered
Non ECC
1066MHz
1.5v

At the time of writing this article, Crucial sells this spec memory in a 4GB kit for £66.69 with free delivery with a limited lifetime warranty.

Click the banner below to place your order for Crucial memory:

Backup, backup and backup!

My tip before you begin doing anything to your MBP is to backup your data if there’s anything on there that you don’t want to risk losing. It’s highly unlikely to happen, but on the rare occasion it does, it’s best to have a backup of your important data before you pop the bonnet open.

My recommendation is to backup your data to an external drive. Here’s a few ways you should go about doing this:

• If you’re running OS X Leopard, then use Time Machine to back your entire system up to an external storage device
• Manually backup the files you want to keep to another drive
• Use an imaging tool to create a backup image of your drive for restoring later

Have the right tools for the job
The next step is to make sure you have the right tools for the job. Do not try and get by with the tools you’ve got. If you try to force it with the incorrect sized screwdriver, you could end up threading the screws, or worse, making a mess of the aluminium chassis. You have to remember that this is Apple’s most finely tuned laptop, and they’ve used the finest precision tools to put the unit together.

Here’s what you ideally should have:

• Philips #00 screwdriver
• Microfibre or other scratch-free cloth to protect the chassis
• Tray or cup for storing the screws when you’ve taken them out

If you’ve done a memory upgrade before on a MBP, the first thing you probably realised is that Apple have made it a more difficult process on the new model. The good thing is that they’ve now made it very easy to switch out the hard drive as it’s right next to the battery. Unfortunately, the compromise was to put the RAM underneath the rest of the bottom casing.

The genius that is with Apple, they have designed it to be as simple as it can be though. The number of screws you need to remove to get to the internals is considerably less than the previous model.

Place your MBP upside down with the Apple logo facing down. On the left edge you’ll see a small switch that you flick open to release the lid covering the battery and hard drive. Take the lid off and store in a safe place. Then pull the tab that is sticking out of the battery to release and remove it.

Along the top width (the side furthest away from your battery) you’ll find a set of four screws. Unscrew these using the Philips screwdriver. You’ll notice that the screw that comes out of the furthest left is smaller than the other three. I thought this was a bit unusual, but this is completely normal. As far as I know, Apple haven’t put the wrong screws in as I thought at first before finding other people with pictures discovering the same thing in their MBP.

Once you got those top screws out, locate the screws at the opposite side. You should find another set of four screws for removing with your Philips screwdriver. Take these out and make sure you put them somewhere safe as they’re the ultra-tiny ones that will be impossible to find if it ever rolled off the table.

Once those screws are out, you’re now ready to pop open the bottom casing. From doing it a couple of times, the best way to do this is to pop up the left end closest to you (the end closest to where the battery normally goes) and then the right side. You should then be able to lift up the rest of the bottom casing to reveal the internals of the MBP.

You’ll find the memory sticks in the middle towards the edge closest to you (green rectangular shape). Take a closer look and you’ll see that there are plastic tabs to each side of the memory. Simply push them outwards and the top memory stick will slant upwards for you to pull out. If there’s resistance when pulling out, try pushing the plastic tabs apart again to ensure you’ve fully released the memory stick. The lower memory stick should be partially released, so just pull the tabs apart again and the lower memory stick will also pop up at an angle for you to pull out. Then to put your new memory sticks in, do the opposite.

Insert your new memory sticks at a 45-degree angle starting with the lower slot and push in and then down. The stick should lock in to place. If you don’t think it’s gone in correctly, remove it by pushing the left and right tabs to release it. Follow the same steps for the top memory slot.

And that’s all there is to it. Put together the bottom casing, the battery and the lower cover by reversing the steps you took to remove them. Make sure your Mac boots up and load up the ‘About This Mac’ dialogue box to make sure OS X is recognising both memory slots.