macbook early 2008 mountain lion?

Question

macbook early 2008 mountain lion?

hello, i was wondering if i can upgrade my macbook to moutain lion when it comes out. i have a black one with 4 gb ram, 2.4ghz duel core cpu and 250 gb hard drive (the best specs you could have on this model). i have 20 gb left on my hard drive and i was reading the tech specs for it and it says that you need to have 2 gb of ram and 8 gbs free on your hard drive, as you can see i have all that but since my macbook is from 2008 does that mean i cant upgrade? because i been holding off getting lion since moutain lion will be out some time this month and it was cheaper. is there any way i can upgrade it even though my model is not listed but have the specs i need?

MacBook

Posted on Jul 13, 2012 2:14 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 13, 2012 2:18 PM in response to planeflyer1997

Yes, you should be OK. See:

Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.

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Answer 2

Jul 13, 2012 2:25 PM in response to Kappy

well i read it and it say only 2008 aluminum macbooks and 2009 macbooks or newer are supported, but my macbook says its a macbook pro and they go as back as 2007 on the thing you showed me.

is that also weird that my macbook is a macbook and not a macbook pro but osx thinks it is?

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 13, 2012 2:28 PM in response to planeflyer1997

Open System Information in Utilities folder. What is the model ID displayed?

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Answer 4

Jul 13, 2012 2:33 PM in response to Kappy

it says the model name is macbook but then it say my name then owners macbook pro.... its like bipoler 🙂

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jul 13, 2012 2:39 PM in response to planeflyer1997

That model is a Late 2008 MacBook. It is eligible to run Mountain Lion.

"Owner's MacBook Pro" is a name someone gave it. You can change that in the Sharing preferences panel. It isn't a name provided by the system.

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Answer 6

Jul 13, 2012 2:45 PM in response to Kappy

AWESOME! thank you i changed the name and i am looking forward to moutain lion 🙂

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Answer 7

Jul 13, 2012 3:33 PM in response to planeflyer1997

No, the model 4,1 is an Early 2008 MacBook. It will not be able to run Mountain Lion.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-core-2-duo-2.4-black -13-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

Your Mac must be one of the following models:

MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)

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Answer 8

Jul 13, 2012 6:17 PM in response to frederic1943

see that is what i thought but since my macbook has better specs then some of the macs that get te update, why cant i have the update?

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Answer 9

Jul 13, 2012 7:09 PM in response to planeflyer1997

It's the video card. Yours has the 144mb Intel GMA X3100. The model 5,1 Late 2008 and newer have at least the 256mb NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. That seems to be the cutoff point for Mountain Lion. No Intel video cards.

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Answer 10

Jul 23, 2012 5:07 AM in response to frederic1943

It's not the card but the whole HW.

Type "uname -a" and you will see this:

Darwin MacBook.local 11.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0: Mon Apr 9 19:32:15 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.26.8~1/RELEASE_I386 i386

and you need to see:

Darwin PDiMac.local 11.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0: Mon Apr 9 19:32:15 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.26.8~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

See the last charecters ... see you have i386 system and you need to have x64. Mountain Lion boot only x64 and your MacBook only x86 (i386)

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Answer 11

Feahnor

Level 1

0 points

Jul 26, 2012 10:14 AM in response to Alfista_SK

You DO realize that a macbook early 2008 is 64 bit capable, don't you?

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Answer 12

Jul 26, 2012 10:18 AM in response to Feahnor

Read this cnet article

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57470261-263/older-64-bit-macs-out-of-the-p icture-for-mountain-lion/?tag=mncol;txt

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Answer 13

Jul 27, 2012 12:45 AM in response to Feahnor

The os core can boot only x86 so it isn't.

I have the same white MacBook so I know what i talk.

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Answer 14

Feahnor

Level 1

0 points

Jul 27, 2012 1:05 AM in response to Alfista_SK

No, you don't. The CPU inside the white macbook 2.4 is a intel T8300, which is 64 bit capable. If we go to intel reference website:

Essentials
Status	Launched
Launch Date	Q1'08
Processor Number	T8300
# of Cores	2
# of Threads	2
Clock Speed	2.4 GHz
L2 Cache	3 MB
Bus/Core Ratio	12
FSB Speed	800 MHz
FSB Parity	No
Instruction Set	64-bit

So there it is. 64 bit capable, and i know because i have one and i have windows 7 x64 installed. And you can boot lion in 64 bits mode with a program that will switch it for you.

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Answer 15

Jul 27, 2012 1:10 AM in response to Feahnor

All Intel CPU's are x64 capable (thay have 128 bit or more) but the chipset can't ditribute the capability to the OS. So the OS can't boot in x64 mode.

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