MacBook 4,1 Worth Upgrading to Lion (2024)

I have a MacBook 4,1 2.4ghz 4GB of RAM, I'm wondering if its worth it to upgrade to lion for me? It seem that most of the cool news you need a multi touch trackpad. Anyone else upgrade using a 4,1?

Thanks Guys & Gals

Bluisnblklungs, I have just wrote to blog posts on this subject, Lion Features & is it worth upgrading to Lion you might want to check them out

I've just updated my MBP 3,1 (spec in my sig) so a generation older than yours.

Yes, I don't get all the multi-touch functionality as my trackpad only supports 2-finger gestures p) - and not all of those (no pinch-zoom or rotate) - but I still think it's a worthwhile upgrade. There's no noticeable drop in performance over SL - if anything, it feels a bit snappier

Go ahead and u/g; you know you want to

Bluisnblklungs said:

I have a MacBook 4,1 2.4ghz 4GB of RAM, I'm wondering if its worth it to upgrade to lion for me? It seem that most of the cool news you need a multi touch trackpad. Anyone else upgrade using a 4,1?

Thanks Guys & Gals

Click to expand...

Works great on my MacBookPro4,1 mate, all the multi-touch gestures are supported on our model. What doesn't work though it AirDrop; Apple don't support the Broadcom chipset the 4,1 has for this function.

Gestures will not work on the 4,1 model MacBook. The trackpad isn't built to support them. I updated my 4,1 black MacBook and have no problems, just no gestures.

One other thing, 64bit is not supported on this machine either.

hexonxonx said:

See Also

Mac OS X Lion: What you need to knowMac OS X 10.7 Lion: The complete Macworld reviewTop 10 Lion-Ready AppsMac OsX Lion compatibility

Gestures will not work on the 4,1 model MacBook. The trackpad isn't built to support them. I updated my 4,1 black MacBook and have no problems, just no gestures.

One other thing, 64bit is not supported on this machine either.

Click to expand...

Not sure what kind of crack you're on mate, but you can't install Lion on anything less than a Core 2 Duo, which both of our machines have (look it up), and C2D is 64bit.

Also, your machine doesn't support multi-gesture, but mine (Early 2008 17" MBP C2D) does. Please don't post incorrect information like this, it confuses people.

Draeconis said:

Not sure what kind of crack you're on mate, but you can't install Lion on anything less than a Core 2 Duo, which both of our machines have (look it up).

Also, your machine doesn't support multi-gesture, but mine (Early 2008 17" MBP C2D) does. Please don't post incorrect information like this, it confuses people.

Click to expand...

Did you read my post carefully? There was nothing incorrect about it. 64 bit does not run on the core 2 duo 4,1 MacBook. I've checked.
Also, when I installed Windows 7 on my MB, I could not get 64bit to install, had to go 32bit.

You sir better lay off the pipe.

Draeconis said:

Yes, yes, very quick editing, well done.

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Huh? The poster was asking about his 4,1 MacBook. which is why I left out the MacBook part of the 4,1 in my post above, which I corrected to include the MacBook part to avoid confusion.

So, on your machine, under System Information>Software, it says:

64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No

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Even though the machine is 64bit? I know the EFI on those models is all 32bit, but I've had Lion running on iMac 5,1 models which also have EFI32, and they run in 64bit kernel mode?

And even though it might not run the 64bit kernel, the hardware is entirely 64bit capable..?

Draeconis said:

So, on your machine, under System Information>Software, it says:

Even though the machine is 64bit? I know the EFI on those models is all 32bit, but I've had Lion running on iMac 5,1 models which also have EFI32, and they run in 64bit kernel mode?

Click to expand...

Correct:

Draeconis said:

That's really weird.

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Yes, that's what I thought as well but as I found out long ago when I installed Windows 7, only the 32bit would install. Installing 64bit gave me the message that my machine was not able to use that version. It is a 4,1 2.4GHZ black MacBook, core 2 duo.

hexonxonx said:

Yes, that's what I thought as well but as I found out long ago when I installed Windows 7, only the 32bit would install. Installing 64bit gave me the message that my machine was not able to use that version. It is a 4,1 2.4GHZ black MacBook, core 2 duo.

Click to expand...

But even the 2,1 has a C2D... so even that should run the 64bit kernel and extensions...?

What do your processes say in Activity Monitor?

Draeconis said:

But even the 2,1 has a C2D... so even that should run the 64bit kernel and extensions...?

What do your processes say in Activity Monitor?

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I'll post a screen cap if you tell me what to look for.

hexonxonx said:

I'll post a screen cap if you tell me what to look for.

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Under Activity Monitor, under the 'Kind' Column, do your processes say 'Intel' or 'Intel (64 bit)'?

Draeconis said:

Under Activity Monitor, under the 'Kind' Column, do your processes say 'Intel' or 'Intel (64 bit)'?

Click to expand...

I have a MBP 5,4 that shows 64bit all the way.

Activity monitor for my black MB:

Ahhh, just remembered I never could get the 5,1 iMacs to boot the 64bit kernel because it's got EFI32. That's what's preventing your machine from booting the 64bit kernel (which is now the default on all machines with EFI64), but your machine can run 64bit apps under the 32bit OS X kernel because that's how OS X is written, and EFI32 can't prevent that.

So it seems EFI32 can also prevent you from installing x86_64 versions of Windows? Didn't know that!

Sorry I got a little bit heated with you mate, your original post said something like 'dunno what this guy is on about' and I didn't take too kindly to that lol

I did some checking on this EFI32 or 64 bit thing.

I ran this command in terminal, which tells you which version you have:
ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

Mine came back and said it has EFI64.

What?!

Have you tried booting with '6' and '4' held down? That forces the 64bit kernel on machines with EFI64.

I have the same MacBook 4,1 (2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM) and I would definitely recommend upgrading. Of course, it does not support multitouch on the internal trackpad, but 90% of the time I keep it hooked to an external display and bought a Magic Trackpad, and it is wonderful.

However, due to the horrible X3100, graphics are not always 100% smooth, but it's more than tolerable. For example, the graphic effect of going from full screen and back can be a bit choppy, but that could possibly improve with dot releases (I doubt though, considering the GPU is weak and 3+ years old).

Regarding 64 bit operation, all of my applications run in 64 bit mode. Not sure why anyone would be having issues with that...

Overall, I would say this is quite an improvement over Snow Leopard and have thoroughly enjoyed Lion since the GM came out. It will be great once we get an update or two to iron out some very minor bugs here and there.

edit: I ran the same command in terminal that was mentioned earlier, and it says EFI64 on my machine as well.

Draeconis said:

What?!

Have you tried booting with '6' and '4' held down? That forces the 64bit kernel on machines with EFI64.

Click to expand...

I tried two times rebooting the computer this way and both times it booted up with 64bit kernel showing as no.

get yourself a track pad and it should run without issues

I am using the older 2,1 MAcBook and dont notice any issues

paulsalter said:

get yourself a track pad and it should run without issues

I am using the older 2,1 MAcBook and dont notice any issues

Click to expand...

All the gestures in Lion work with the MB using the Magic Trackpad?