How to Optimize/Clean-up Apple Laptops

I have two MacBook laptops, both bought new in 2007. I don't recall their exact specs, but one was top of the line (black), and the other was a grade lower (white), but with no additional hardware upgrades on either (e.g., RAM, etc.). Now granted, they're both getting on in age and have been through a lot, but I would really appreciate some advice on ways that I might clean up the hard drives, system and overall just optimize their performance to get the most out of them, before I have to suck it up and look at buying new ones. Any suggestions would be fantastic.

Cheers

 

re-format the Hard drives, reinstall the latest OS, and max out the ram.

You may want to purchase and install larger & faster hard drives as well. 7200RPM is nice.

Very easy process, just youtube
"upgrade hard drive macbook" & "upgrade RAM macbook"

 

You can always check out OnyX

It let's you:

- do some standard system-cleanup (verify disk permissions, clean cache, run OS X cleanup scripts whenever you want)
- change certain UI settings, i.e. disable Dashboard if you don't use it (let's you save up some RAM)

Great to have standard OS X cleanup-stuff all in one application, and good to change some settings when you're not familiar with Unix commands.

Off course, upgrading RAM and putting in a faster hdd (maybe an SSD) will help you out more but it depends on whether you want to spend more money and whether you really need these types of upgrades.

 

upgrade ram to 2-3gb if you didnt.
I would try to sell it now and buy smth better since they wont sell that good in lets say a year.

 

Upgrade the RAM and put a 7200rpm drive in it. I've got 4gigs in my late 2007 BlackBook along with a 500GB Western Digital drive. Runs amazing and its by far my favorite machine.