MacBook – Switching two MacBook motherboards

hardwaremacbook promotherboard

I have two similar MacBooks that are off by one revision:

  1. Black: Model 2,1 — 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

  2. White: Model 3,1 — 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

I want to upgrade my Black macbook (my primary laptop) with 4GB of RAM but model 2,1 can only make use of around 3GB (3,1 can take 4GB).

So what I want to do is swap the motherboards of each laptop. That way they both get an upgrade — the Black Macbook moves up to 4GB and the white moves up to 2GB.

Is doing a motherboard swap on my own feasible? I've built my own desktops in the past and I'm not worried about what is what and what goes where. I'm just wondering about the difficulty of the job and/or if there's something I don't know about that would prevent this from working at all.

Oh yeah and also, from an aesthetic perspective I like the black one much more and don't want to just make the white one my primary laptop. It looks pretty worn and the girlfriend put some stickers on it, etc.

Best Answer

You can check out the directions on iFixit here.
There are a lot of steps, but none of it is really rocket science. They explain it in detail.

My bigger question would be whether the two boards are compatible.
Based on the specs for each one (2,1 / 3,1), the main differences are (respectively):

  • Processor: TS7400 / TS7500
  • Video Card (integrated): Intel GMA 950 / IntelGMA X3100
  • VRAM: 64MB / 144MB

I'm not sure how these effect logic board compatibility, but I'd be careful.

Also worth noting that the white 3,1 actually supports 6GB of memory (unofficially). Get it here.

Hope this helps.

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