I would go for 870, most people here have used this and works well. I’d google the performance increases from i5 to i7 though, it may not make that much difference…

That’s odd. My CPU temps hardly ever go above 50-60 even at maximal loads. Have you tried reinserting the old chip? If that returns normal temperatures, then I’d get a new chip. Otherwise I’d wonder if your heatsink is screwed on correctly. Unlikely to be the paste itself - you need very little. I recently exchanged my logic board. When I looked at the i7 It only really had good amount of paste left on the sides but it was enough for it to work perfectly for 2 years.

Good Luck. I don’t see any reason that Snow Leopard should not work - the i7 was on sale from the start when Snow Leopard was available. I didn’t run it tho.

Hi, sorry I think I missed your message.

In brief, yes I did enable TRIM at the time. There is some debate about Samsung 850s as far as I remember, and they are on the Linux TRIM blacklist. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/e.... However I think this is not the case for the newer models anymore, and mine works absolutely fine 2 years in.

Regarding removing parts, placing the SSD is not much more involved than the processor. If you've successfully done one, the other is easy.

Also worked for me. iPhone 5C, 2 years old, ear speaker stopped working.

Like GH Sales all that was required was pulling on the two gold springs on the back of the earpiece speaker. This fixed the speaker problem for me.

Another successful upgrade.

Upgraded i3 550, 8GB RAM, 1 TB to:

- i7 870 (used)

- 3TB Green WD

- 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD

- 20GB RAM

Works perfectly now, incredible increase in speed.

Notes from my upgrade that may be useful:

- No problems with fan issues, as long as you replace HDD with same brand for Mid2010 model (no longer true for 2011) See: http://blog.macsales.com/19617-diagnosin...

- There is a little gap between the SSD guides and this fixit guide I found: to remove the Logic board it may be helpful to also remove the Optical drive (but not the HDD if you're not changing that)

- I had an issue with the OWC install kit: after upgrade my Mac wouldn't start up, the only thing I could hear was the noise from the power supply unit (a ticking). Nothing on the screen. Turned out this was a faulty SATA power cable supplied by OWC.