As it so happens, I ended up getting a MacBook dropped in my lap last evening
The owner had taken it to the nearest Apple Store (about an hour one way) where they were told "So sorry. Snow Leopard is no longer supported and these will not run El Capitan. So..." [They're trying to keep a farm afloat. 2 x $1500 to replace hardware that is still perfectly suitable to their needs is not in the cards.]
Turns it was allergic to IP6 packets and their ISP had turned on IP6 on the inside without warning. The fix was to simply turn IP6 off in OSX but no chance in hell they were ever going to figure that out on their own. Apple also never backported any comprehensive fix to the network stack.
And Safari has gone lame. It doesn't crash but simply goes nowhere. That one remained a headscratcher. (Updating was a no go as Apple follows MS on this and locks Safari to the OS version?)
All said, the hardware is revision 6,1, which according to Apple will run El Cap. They may toss some extra RAM at it and give El Cap a shot.
Turns it was allergic to IP6 packets and their ISP had turned on IP6 on the inside without warning. The fix was to simply turn IP6 off in OSX but no chance in hell they were ever going to figure that out on their own. Apple also never backported any comprehensive fix to the network stack.
And Safari has gone lame. It doesn't crash but simply goes nowhere. That one remained a headscratcher. (Updating was a no go as Apple follows MS on this and locks Safari to the OS version?)
All said, the hardware is revision 6,1, which according to Apple will run El Cap. They may toss some extra RAM at it and give El Cap a shot.