Mac laptops forum: What upgrades will void a macbook warranty?

You said "aluminum MacBook", so I take it you have one of the new unibody ones. If not, you'll have a grand old time trying to get to the hard drive in one of the older MacBook Pros or PowerBooks. Back to the aluminum Macs: from what I've seen, you can take part of the bottom off, and you'll find the hard drive and battery right under it, both in the MacBook and the Pro. You should be able to unscrew it and disconnect it very easily. RAM upgrades should not void the warranty as well, but it looks like the whole bottom shell must be removed before you can get to the slots. I don't recommend changing the memory sticks that it came with; many users have been complaining about severe instability and system problems when they changed their RAM to a 3rd-party set of DDR3 chips. Any set of generic RAM supposedly wrecks havoc with the notebooks when the modules are coming in with 4GB or more. The hardware recognizes up to 8, but you probably won't be able to use any of that if you installed that much. Of course anyone looking to use that much memory is better off with a Mac Pro or some other top-notch tower. Just thought I'd put that out there.

So no, any regular upgrade path you choose to pursue should not void the warranty. Good luck with the new MacBook.

-BMF

but for the Pros, you have to take the whole thing apart. On the other hand, the white (and black) MacBooks are very easy to upgrade like you say. I believe Apple allowed users to swap the HD on those. You have to take the top off of the Pros to get inside, which involves removing several screws all around. Tricky.

-BMF

I think a forum and a blog are two different things, wouldn't you agree? And some of us have had a few experiences dealing with this sort of thing, so why shouldn't you trust us? This is a Mac Hardware Forum after all. We're here to help and ask questions ourselves as well.

For regular MacBooks, you can (easily) upgrade the HD and/or the RAM. You won't void the machine's warranty; the warranty just won't cover the new components that you installed, if they are from third-party vendors. That's why I prefer to keep all of my original stock memory modules shelved away should I need them.

Calling Apple can help if needed, so I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

-BMF