Is it possible to upgrade an older Macbook Pro?

Outlier_81

Distinguished
Mar 23, 2010
4
0
18,510
Hey guys,

I have an older Macbook Pro 17''.

My hard drive just failed on it. And I've looked at upgrading to one of the newer macbooks, but I REALLY like having a 17'' anti-glare screen. Which they don't make anymore.

I don't want to just replace the hard drive, because the processor and ram cap of 6gb is pretty out dated.

Is it possible to upgrade the mobo/processor/graphics card? If so, could someone point me in the right direction or somewhere to start looking into it?

Every time I try to google this, I get countless articles about upgrading the ram or hard drive. So I'm not sure if it's just not possible, feasible, or I just can't find any good content about it.
 

luna74

Estimable
Sep 4, 2015
13
0
4,570
Hey Outlier,

So, the deal with upgrading older Macbook Pro's is that the processor and graphics card are going to be soldered directly onto the motherboard which is why you are seeing so many links for upgrading exclusively via a new hard drive or upping the ram. Anyway, if you're looking to up the processor/GPU in your MBP what you're going to need to do is figure out which MBP you have and whether or not it is a unibody, and then just google "*whichever macbook you have* logic board for sale" and select a logic board with a higher cpu clock frequency than your current logic board (most years there is an i3, i5, and i7 version of the same logic board). I hope this helps!

P.S. Just in-case you've never moved from an HDD to an SSD it will work wonders on your system especially on older macbooks