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Specs
Apple Coverage confirms it was purchased on July 31st 2007, and interestingly, has a Mojave wallpaper inside the icon. RAM and HDD were added post-disassembly for some new Arctic MX-4.
- Model: MA985LL/A
. - CPU: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Merom
. - RAM: 2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667 MHz DDR2
. - Boot Drive: 750 GB HGST SATA HDD
. - GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT 128 MB
. - Display: 15-Inch LED-backlit 1440 x 900 LCD
. - OS 1: Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard +
. - OS 2: OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
. - Key Points: First Apple notebook to ship with an LED-backlit screen
.- First Apple notebook to ship with a 64-Bit EFI
. - Notorious for having a GPU with a high rate of failure – a GPU design flaw. A permanent fix is to solder the revised 8600 GT in place of the original.
. - One of the last Macs to ship with Mac OS X Tiger.
- First Apple notebook to ship with a 64-Bit EFI
Unboxing the Mac
Majority of visible scuffing was on the 3rd party battery. While the top of the MacBook Pro looks nearly flawless, it does have some imperfections, but nothing too visible. Mainly there are 0 dents, 0 medium or deep scratches, any visible dirt or deformation could be easily wiped off and/or remedied.
First Boot
Since this particular graphics card is notorious for running hot, I went with Snow Leopard as a lighter OS to gauge where the GPU is at. Fortunately after dusting out the insides, cleaning off the old thermal paste and giving it some new Arctic MX-4, everything seems to be running a-ok. The ATI Radeon 8600 GT is a warmer component than mostly anything else within the computer.
Purchase “receipt” and Apple Coverage
While this isn’t technically a receipt it’s very close to one, and Apple’s coverage website corroborates the date of purchase to the date listed on this included printout. The person I spoke to at VCF told me they received this MacBook Pro from the original owner along with this page.
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New thermal paste
Replacing the thermal paste on this 19 year-old MacBook Pro is long overdue. Early Intel Macs used different kinds of thermal paste from what we have in Apple Silicon Macs in 2026, and unlike AS Macs, these early Intels need theirs replaced every so often. I’d recommend every 3-5 years for this hotter-running GPU.
Story time
Nostalgia got the best of me, and there’s also hope for usability especially considering how smooth many of the latest community-developed browsers are on Core 2 Duos, such as Momiji and PowerFox. That and I’ve never seen an A1226 in such nice shape before, not in person.
Well before I could personally afford an Intel Mac back in High School, I was daily-driving a 400 MHz Power Mac G4 Sawtooth (AGP Graphics) on Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard, entertaining a 1st-Gen iMac G5 as a daily driver, and fixed computers for others from time to time. Luckily someone lent me their MacBook Pro to use for a time, and that was my first Intel Mac.
Web browsing on a 400 MHz G4 felt sluggish at that point, but Leopard retained software compatibility, plus, I dropped a 1.6 GHz Sonnet ST/G4 in there in December ’10 anyway.
(Pictured: A Sanyo ~27″ CRT hooked to an iMac G5 – this was my “TV” setup ~2010.)
In Late 2010, web browsing and mostly anything I needed to do felt indistinguishable from an iMac G5 with 10.5.8, versus a MacBook Pro with 10.6.3. It wasn’t until Late 2011/Early 2012 where compatibility started becoming more spotty, and by Mid-2014 a Dual G5 felt like molasses on the web.
Considering the shape my VCF find is in, it’s all-too-tempting to keep it cozied up on the shelf in the box, knowing it won’t be scratched, but I remember how usable these were with an SSD and a RAM upgrade on El Capitan in 2015. Until I get a plastic hard shell case or something to better protect it, I’d rather not take a chance. In the meantime, I’m thrilled to see it works!