CPU upgrade on a MBP 7,1 (unibody 1278) 13 inches mid-2010 - 2.4 GHz to 2.66 GHz

The MacBook Pro uses surface-mount components. You can not use an ordinary soldering iron.

The required surface-mount board-heater alone costs several thousand dollars.

You also risk turning a working computer into a pile of scrap. You would be far better off selling your working computer and buying one that better meets your needs.

Quebec_Laoshi wrote:

Specialized equipment? Soldering irons can be bought for less than twenty dollars and are fairly easy to handle. Do you have any experience in using them? I got this part covered. I was more wondering about the software.

I'll answer a question with a question: Have you experience with desoldering CPUs or GPUs with a hundred or more tiny contacts in an area the size of a matchbook, and are attached to a device that will be destroyed by the slightest excess heat?

Repair shops use specialized bench units that have a desoldering grid for specific processors' pin patterns and logic boards, and have sensors to prevent overheating of the chip.

And another factor. Back in the day when many Macs had socketed CPUs, I did processor upgrades on several computers. From a user experience standpoint, I found that the upgrade had to increase the clock speed 30-40 percent to be noticeable in use. Going form 2.4 to 2.66—a ~10 percent increase— is waste of time.

So if this is a "project" computer and not the only one you have, I say go for it. If not, think twice. Its's your computer and your budget.

As for the other questions, those are far beyond he scope of these forums. Modding questions are better asked in forums that you should be able to find by web-searching for "mac mods."

Have you upgraded the DRIVE on that computer to an SSD drive ≥500 GB? Users who do report, "Its like getting a whole new computer!" Consider replacing the drive cable at the same time for a trouble-free upgrade.

The SSD drives shipped in the 16-in MacBook Pro today are literally 100 times faster than the original drives in pre-2013 MacBook Pro models. And what we learned from that is that almost all Macs are nowhere near CPU-bound -- they are massively I/O bound.

Quebec_Laoshi wrote:

Specialized equipment? Soldering irons can be bought for less than twenty dollars and are fairly easy to handle. Do you have any experience in using them? I got this part covered. I was more wondering about the software.

Doesn't sound like it.

Personally I think a passing comment regarding unplugging the laptop is a curious one to make for someone contemplating such a task, suggesting a lack of experience. Tedious doesn't begin to describe it.

Besides,

... with that model in the socket

If the CPU were socketed, which it isn't, why are you drawing attention to using a soldering iron? Red flag #2 for me.

Also, id it possible to overclock the CPU on these macs?

No. There is no BIOS on a Mac. There are no parameters to adjust.

Anyway, let's forego those little details for now. The Core 2 Duo's performance was never that great to begin with. You're putting lipstick on a pig. Even if you are totally successful the best you can possibly hope for is better benchmark numbers. Any performance increase will not be perceptible.

On the other hand if you are primarily motivated by working on Macs for the sake of learning new things I'm not going to dissuade you from doing that. If nothing else you'll learn why others are telling you it's not worth the effort.

Finally, you can simply buy a faster logic board, and realize your ~ 10% increase, exclusively for CPU-limited tasks. Not worth the effort since you won't learn as much.

Bad idea. You need specialized equipment to unsolder and solder components to the logic board. I would bet that you will not be successful.

What part of Quebec are you in/from?