Ableton Forum

I bought a broken unibody MacBook pro off craigslist, it had liquid damage and was completely dead.
I took it apart and cleaned the logic board thoroughly with rubbing alcohol, and now it works perfect except the battery is dead.
I only paid $200, so needless to say I'm pretty damn happy

I put an extra 250gb drive I had lying around in it, and did a fresh install of snow leopard, and updated with the 10.6.3 combo update. I downloaded the Live 8.1.3 demo so I could see how this computer handles Live compared to my 2.4ghz Santa Rosa MBP. Their specs are similar, both have 4gb of ram, the older one has a 500gb drive in it, with about 200gb of space left. It's also a pretty new drive, only a few months old.

The new unibody should by all accounts be faster than the old one.
However, when running the Live 8 performance test, it is much worse, using identical settings and hardware.
The Santa Rosa fluctuates between 46-51%
the unibody gets 77%!!

Could this be the result of speed stepping on the unibody?
Or, does the demo tax the CPU more like some of the betas do?

It seems I must be overlooking something here, as I would expect the performance to be similar or a bit better with the unibody.

That's definitely too high for the 2.53 unibody.

My 2.8 does the performance test at about 48% though so it seems your old 2.4 is doing pretty well.

Do you have your audio buffer set really low on the new one? Sounds like your old might be around 512 and your new one maybe down around 64.

you should do apples hardware tests..

I have everything that I can think of set exactly the same on both machines.
I had the buffer set at 512, tried both built in and GIO soundcard and had everything else in preferences set the same on both machines (at least I'm pretty damn sure). The performance is similar on the unibody regardless of what interface I use, only a few percent CPU difference, still WAY too high.
Anybody using Coolbook with success on Unibodys, or know a safe way to disable speed-stepping?

Or can abes confirm if the demo is somehow more taxing?

I don't have the original disk for the unibody, not sure if I can still do the hardware test without it?

Sorry to ask so many questions, I just don't have time to search for it until I get home from work.
I figured someone here may know what's up.

Thanks either way!

you defently should do a ramcheck..especially after what has happened to the machine

I'll look into testing the ram when I get home. System profiler shows 4gb, as well as activity monitor. Both say the ram status is ok, though I know that's not an end all answer as ram problems are usually intermittent.

I am wondering if the speed stepping is the culprit, as I did install Coolbook on my Santa Rosa awhile back, though I have not updated it since moving to snow leopard.

you have ported your old system? big mistake.. new laptop = clean install .. whenever i dont follow that rule ive problems...

and regarding the upgrade to 10.63 .. you at least have to remove all this system enhancers like coolbook before upgrading. apple updates dont care about such tweaks..your little frankenstein probably thinks that its still a santa rosa

Oh,no. Didn't port anything over yet. I said in the first post, I left the Santa Rosa exactly as is, didn't touch it as I had no idea when I bought the broken unibody if I would even be able to fix it or not.

I put a hard drive into the unibody and did a clean install of snow leopard, then updated that to 10.6.3 using the combo updater. Haven't installed anything else besides the GIO driver from Apogee and the live 8.1.3 demo.

The Landwhale wrote:Oh,no. Didn't port anything over yet. I said in the first post, I left the Santa Rosa exactly as is, didn't touch it as I had no idea when I bought the broken unibody if I would even be able to fix it or not.

I put a hard drive into the unibody and did a clean install of snow leopard, then updated that to 10.6.3 using the combo updater. Haven't installed anything else besides the GIO driver from Apogee and the live 8.1.3 demo.

ok.. are ther cpu test programs that show if it runs propperly on booth cores? maybe install the actual version of coolbook..it at least shows you if the speed goes to max..

the battery is fucked you say? is it removed durimg your test? maybe it interfears somehow with the power manager?

ah..you should reset nv ram and p-ram and the power manager of cause.. i amnot sure if a new system install is performing this tasks.. your hardisk might be new..the mainboard and its on board ram isnt...



shit..200 eur..i envy you even when you dont get it up to full speed

3phase wrote:

The Landwhale wrote:Oh,no. Didn't port anything over yet. I said in the first post, I left the Santa Rosa exactly as is, didn't touch it as I had no idea when I bought the broken unibody if I would even be able to fix it or not.

I put a hard drive into the unibody and did a clean install of snow leopard, then updated that to 10.6.3 using the combo updater. Haven't installed anything else besides the GIO driver from Apogee and the live 8.1.3 demo.

ok.. are ther cpu test programs that show if it runs propperly on booth cores? maybe install the actual version of coolbook..it at least shows you if the speed goes to max..

the battery is fucked you say? is it removed durimg your test? maybe it interfears somehow with the power manager?

ah..you should reset nv ram and p-ram and the power manager of cause.. i amnot sure if a new system install is performing this tasks.. your hardisk might be new..the mainboard and its on board ram isnt...



shit..200 eur..i envy you even when you dont get it up to full speed

Believe me, I'm fucking thrilled regardless!
I've bought quite a few "dead" matchbooks that had been dropped, or just had the hard drive die (usually the case) and have fixed them for friends and family, but this is by far my best find! And this one i'm keeping for myself dammit!

Anyways, the battery is dead, which is typical of water spills, and I took it out of the computer.
Already tried resetting pram and nvram and smc with no luck so far.
You might be onto something with the power management problem due to no battery being the computer.
I'm going to pick up a new battery in the next few days, so well see.

Thanks for the help!
I'll keep trying shit and post back when I figure it out.
Still welcome to any suggestions/ideas.

3phase, you were right! I went out and bought a battery, and with the battery and power adapter both connected, I got 45-47% on the same test.
What sucks though, at least for now, is that this computer does not recognize and charge the battery for long. Somethings definitely screwy still, might open it back up and give it another cleaning.

I had the battery in the computer, and it looks like it's charging but doesn't actually progress at all. I had Live running with the battery in and the CPU was hovering around 45%, then the battery icon switched to an "X" and the cpu meter immediately spiked up to 77-80%.
So it's definitely the power manager, I'll have to see if I can fix this through more cleaning.

Thanks for your help! I'll consider this solved.

The Landwhale wrote:3phase, you were right! I went out and bought a battery, and with the battery and power adapter both connected, I got 45-47% on the same test.
What sucks though, at least for now, is that this computer does not recognize and charge the battery for long. Somethings definitely screwy still, might open it back up and give it another cleaning.

I had the battery in the computer, and it looks like it's charging but doesn't actually progress at all. I had Live running with the battery in and the CPU was hovering around 45%, then the battery icon switched to an "X" and the cpu meter immediately spiked up to 77-80%.
So it's definitely the power manager, I'll have to see if I can fix this through more cleaning.

Thanks for your help! I'll consider this solved.

hope that the akku dont burnt his loading chip.. have you done the powermanager reset? in case the unibodys still have one...

but better cleaning is a good idea aswell.. the akku contacts are not very good accesible for cleaning sometimes..

I've reset the SMC (power management) to no avail. I'll try it again though after another cleaning.
Thanks again.

macbook pros run throttled when not having a battery installed.
i don't have the link at hand, but i think there is a apple support document on that.