Mini-PCIe, Express34, MXM eGPU compatibility index: Part 3

Certain older Macs are able to take advantage of adding an external graphics card through modification. This is article is broken up into 3 parts, as it contains a lot of information and pictures. Please refer to part 1 of the article for hardware/parts prerequisites. Sections 1 through 5 are contained in part 1, Sections […]

Ultimate “Hybrid” 2011/2012 17″ MacBook Pro

An introduction and some history A bit over a decade ago, Apple released the 2011 MacBook Pro with the now infamous Radeon 6000 series discrete Graphics Card. Both the Early and Late 2011 models were prone to spontaneous failure which has been well documented online starting with initial complaints in the Apple Support community. Eventually […]

Mini-PCIe, Express34, MXM eGPU compatibility index: Part 2

Certain older Macs are able to take advantage of adding an external graphics card through modification. This is article is broken up into 3 parts, as it contains a lot of information and pictures. Please refer to part 1 of the article for hardware/parts prerequisites. Sections 1 through 5 are contained in part 1, Sections […]

Mini-PCIe, Express34, MXM eGPU compatibility index: Part 1

Certain older Macs are able to take advantage of adding an external graphics card through modification. This usually requires external power, the corresponding adapters, can be done via the mini-PCIe slot or MXM slot, and come with case-by-case caveats as most of this was never intended to be a thing. Once installed and properly connected, […]

Low End Mac Mailbag: Add Wifi 4-Draft and Bluetooth 2.1 to your PowerPC Mac

While this has been covered elsewhere online, it will be posted here for our LEM readers! A few years back, a LEM Facebook group user found a neat trick on getting a cost-effective, more modernized Bluetooth/Wifi solution for his Power Mac G5. Though his was a PCIe model, there is an easy way to get […]

Keepin’ the Power Mac G5 running cool: What worked for me

The following is an article about a story of what happened to a LEM group member’s peculiar Power Mac G5, as well as the experiences I had troubleshooting my own. I was browsing our Low End Mac FaceBook group a few nights ago, when someone posted about having issues with their Power Mac G5 potentially […]

Adding PCIe (Yes, PCI-Express) to your AGP/PCI-Based PowerPC Mac

The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, aka PCIe, is a longstanding serial computer expansion bus standard created in 2003. The Late 2005 Power Mac G5 was the only PowerPC Mac which took advantage of this technology, which had a production run of October 2005 – August 2006. As a result, AGP/PCI-based Macs received 1-2 years lesser […]