hi I'm MJ with iFixit and it is
back-to-school season for you students
out there and I don't know about you but
back when I was in school this was kind
of my favorite time of the year
I loved school and I'm not afraid to
admit it but being on a budget sometimes
made back-to-school shopping a little
difficult so we thought we would share
with you our top three tips for
breathing new life into an aging
computer that way you don't have to go
shelling up a thousand or so dollars on
buying a new one and make sure you stick
around through the end because I'll have
a coupon code for you later to save you
a little bit more money so our first tip
is probably the easiest and that is
upgrading your RAM if you haven't maxed
out your ram you are missing out and
simply adding more ram will improve your
computer's performance in general it is
a small investment to make an
installation takes very little effort
it's interesting to note that there are
some models of Apple laptops that are
able to take more RAM than Apple
initially said that they could for
example the late 2008 15-inch MacBook
Pro Apple says it maxes out at 4 gigs
when in reality it maxes out at 8 so
even if you think you know that you've
maxed out the RAM in your computer it
doesn't hurt to look it up on our site
and see if you're one of the folks who's
been missing out on some extra gigs if
you're interested in upgrading your ram
head to the ID your Mac page on our site
which we will link to down in the
description to see which kind of Ram you
need to order and locate the repair
guide for your machine
our second easy-peasy computer upgrade
is the one that will give you the
biggest performance boost and that's
upgrading the hard drive to an SSD or
just to a faster rpm drive let's take a
look at the SSD option first this is our
SSD upgrade kit and it is compatible
with all Mac books and MacBook Pros but
not MacBook Airs or MacBook Pro Retina
it comes with a 120 gig SSD and if
you've never experienced the quickness
of an SSD it is pretty darn amazing
it'll make you forget your computer is a
few years old it also comes with all the
tools you'll need to install the SSD and
a hard drive enclosure for cloning your
data onto your new drive
if upgrading to an SSD is a bit much for
you you could also just upgrade to a
faster rpm hard drive or one with a
larger capacity
most Apple laptops ship with a 5400 rpm
drive
so upgrading to a 7200 rpm drive will
give you a nice speed boost and we offer
them in capacities up to 750 gigs which
is way more storage the most laptop ship
with whether you opt for an SSD upgrade
or a standard hard drive upgrade both of
them will extend the usable life of your
aging computer which in the long run
will save you lots of money our last tip
is probably the quickest but also the
most useful if you're actually looking
to take your laptop places we all know
that the first thing to go when most
gadgets is the battery so if you're only
getting 20 minutes on a full charge
maybe it's time you installed a new
battery like I said earlier you can head
to the ID or Mac page on our site to
locate your computer purchase the right
battery and check out the repair guide
there are many other ways to extend the
lifespan of an aging computer but these
three are the easiest and most cost
effective which for most students is a
high priority we have done lots and lots
of repair videos on our YouTube channel
including many hard drive and battery
upgrades so check those videos out if
you want an overview of what the repairs
are going to look like and as a friendly
reminder whenever you're doing your
repairs make sure you're following the
step-by-step instructions and the repair
guide on our site to help you out with
your back to school shopping use coupon
code back to school to save five dollars
on your orders through the end of
september of 2012 that's all for now
but until next time make sure you are
subscribed to our youtube channel follow
us on Twitter at I fix it and like us on
Facebook thanks for watching and happy
repairing