Converted a MacBook into a PC

Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by wtallis on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:25PM (#42111689)

It's closer to a RPi 4 than RPi 5 for CPU performance, and neither GPU has much in the way of video transcoding hardware. Something as simple as 1080p60 H.264 playback may be beyond the capabilities of that machine.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by userbinator on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:46PM (#42111820)

Something as simple as 1080p60 H.264 playback may be beyond the capabilities of that machine.

A 1st-gen i7 (2008) can decode 1080p60 H.264 in software in realtime. Been there, done that.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by wtallis on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:51PM (#42111844)

In 2008 the i7 branding had only been used on desktop chips. Were you running your desktop with a 35W limit?

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by PittleyDunkin on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:34PM (#42111750)

> Something as simple as 1080p60 H.264 playback

Where can you even find 60fps video of decent quality? That's framerate I associate more with gaming than video production. Surely 24fps is still the standard today? (I am very ignorant in this regard; please be kind.)

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by wtallis on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:43PM (#42111802)

I think most people would generally expect their laptop (especially a high-end model) to be capable of playing a video shot on their phone. But today's low-end phones have much more powerful processors than that old laptop.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by PittleyDunkin on Monday November 11, 2024 @08:09PM (#42111948)

I think most would likely watch the video on their phone itself.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by achierius on Monday November 11, 2024 @08:31PM (#42112044)

I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect to be able to tag their photos on their laptop, no? It's a very common workflow which is nevertheless kind of a pain to do on a mobile device.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by comex on Monday November 11, 2024 @09:22PM (#42112246)

Personally, I often use my laptop to watch game footage (with commentary) on YouTube or Twitch. That’s not a use case everyone will care about, but it’s quite a popular one.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by rowanG077 on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @03:49AM (#42113839)

YouTube has a ton of 60fps content

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by afavour on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:48PM (#42111827)

I recently dug out a 2013 MacBook and I’m surprised at how slow it feels. “Unusably” is of course a subjective measure but I think if I was using this day to day I’d get annoyed.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by Yossarrian22 on Monday November 11, 2024 @08:46PM (#42112102)

Replace the HDD with an SSD, max out the RAM, and repaste the CPU whilst hacking it to run the latest MacOs or Linux and you’ll find a a very usable experience.

Source: I just did this with a 2011 MacBook Pro

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by lunchmeat317 on Monday November 11, 2024 @10:11PM (#42112442)

That 2013 model (at least the late 2013 model that I have) añready has an SSD. RAM is soldered if I remember correctly.

Thr issue that mine has - aside from a broken hinge over time - is that one of the thermal sensors is fucked, so the machine puts the fans on full and heavily throttles the CPU. Before that happened (last year) it was a solid machine.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by kelnos on Monday November 11, 2024 @09:24PM (#42112253)

I did that with a 2012 Mac Mini a few years ago, and it was ok, but not great. A few months ago I replaced it with a little Intel N100 box, and I'm much happier now.

Consider that the utility of old hardware depends on what you want to do with it, as well.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by wink on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @04:04AM (#42113906)

I have an i7/32GB/SSD x230 from 2013 and it's perfectly usable for everything I've thrown at it so far, so ymmv.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by nopelynopington on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @05:10AM (#42114252)

I have an x220 and an x201 with SATA SSDs and they both run great, although repasting the cpus is on my list of things to do, as the fans do run more than I'd like.

I have Debian on both but recently I was testing old SSDs and one had windows 10 and even that was perfectly usable.

My main daily driver is a MacBook Pro 64GB M2 Max, so it's not like I live in a world of ancient tech and don't understand the difference.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by antifa on Wednesday November 13, 2024 @09:27AM (#42126349)

TBH no windows 8+ feels as fast and responsive as a Linux computer, nor as fast as the my first windows 7 computer on my first SSD.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by Koshkin on Monday November 11, 2024 @07:24PM (#42111674)

My “late 2014” Mac Mini had indeed become unusably slow (before I installed Debian on it, that is).

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by numpad0 on Monday November 11, 2024 @09:32PM (#42112291)

is macOS at Vista phase?

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by justsomehnguy on Monday November 11, 2024 @10:58PM (#42112680)

> "unusably slow". There are still many who are satisfied with less

Who exactly are satisfied with less than a 15 y/o notebook? Why are they on (more than) 15 y/o notebook and not on a smartphone?

> I suppose it depends on what they intend to use it for.

15 notebook is enough to be a glorified typewritter or tty, or to watch some movies (forget about HEVC, x265 and even x264 is troublesome)

              Intel Core i5-540M @ 2.53GHz vs AMD Ryzen 3 4300U
    Clockspeed                      2.5 GHz    2.7 GHz   
    Turbo Speed               Up to 3.1 GHz    Up to 3.7 GHz
    # of Physical Cores      2 (Threads: 4)    4 (Threads: 4)   
    Cache     L1: 128KB, L2: 0.5MB, L3: 3MB    L1: 256KB, L2: 2.0MB, L3: 4MB
    First Seen on Chart             Q1 2010    Q1 2020
    Single Thread Rating       1159(-49.8%)    2307(0.0%)   
    CPU Mark                   1808(-75.7%)    7431(0.0%)

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by nopelynopington on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @05:16AM (#42114281)

> 15 notebook is enough to be a glorified typewritter

Glorified typewriter is a perfectly acceptable use case. Plenty people out there who just want to write a novel or thesis or email or look up a recipe or Wikipedia. Not everyone is gaming and watching 4k video

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by justsomehnguy on Wednesday November 13, 2024 @04:53AM (#42124569)

> look up a recipe

Do you even internet?

Just try it yourself on some 2c/4t machine from 2010. Sure, you can do it, but it would be an exercise in patience.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by userbinator on Wednesday November 13, 2024 @09:56PM (#42132688)

I've done it on even older machines and it's perfectly fast.

Maybe it's because I don't use bloatware browsers and keep JS off by default.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by justsomehnguy on Thursday November 14, 2024 @01:22PM (#42139355)

Ah, that settles it. You forgot what you aren't everyone else.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by andai on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @05:31AM (#42114356)

I used a laptop from 2010 until recently (2022?). Only downside was some games and software wouldn't run due to minimum OpenGL level. I think I had to upgrade when I needed to use Blender.

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by yowzadave on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @06:50AM (#42114783)

Older Macs can’t run the latest macOS. My daughter uses a 2013 MacBook Air for school, and it is limited to macOS Sierra, which none of the evergreen web browsers support any more. I’ve also not been able to find a modern email client to install on it.

(I guess GP’s point that installing Linux would be the sensible course of action is probably true with this laptop).

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by rzzzt on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:15PM (#42118624)

Firefox 115 ESR still supports Sierra until next year: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-users-macos-101...

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Re:Converted a MacBook into a PC by rzzzt on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:26PM (#42118731)

Unusual slowness might be experienced if the battery is dead or missing, as the embedded controller / SMC will assert the CPUs bi-directional PROCHOT signal and with that, lock it to the lowest available clock speed (700 MHz-ish on a 2nd gen Core i7, sitting in a 2011 MBP).

If you coerce it to... not do that, the laptop might reset whenever power usage goes up quickly, because it was designed with the expectation that the battery will jump in and act as a reserve.

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