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installed 10.6.8 on a 2011 Mini - Thunderbolt and speed fixes?

patent10021

patent10021

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 23, 2004
3,505
794
Installed Snow on a partition of the main HD in my 2011 Mini in Target Disk Mode from a 2007 MacBook via flash drive. Lion machines don't support this but it's widely known that it works. It was simple and quick. Everything works but there are a couple of quirks.

The Thunderbolt display needs to be disconnected from the Mini until the OS has loaded otherwise it doesn't turn on or it glitch flickers. Also Snow seems to be stuck in display mirroring mode even though I don't have another display. I'm getting two display preference windows lol. There are occasional anomalies like broken cursors etc but nothing major. There are obviously Snow/TB display incompatibilities. Lastly performance is a bit suspect. One app used 200%. I think someone on the Apple forums found a kind of clock fix that many people have been using with success and it actually made Snow faster than Lion. I can't find the thread again.

Does anyone here know about these issues on Snow/2011 Mini?

Forced mirroring issue.
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CPU issue / machine

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M

monokitty

macrumors regular
Sep 16, 2011
192
8
patent10021 said:
Installed Snow on a partition of the main HD in my 2011 Mini in Target Disk Mode from a 2007 MacBook via flash drive. Lion machines don't support this but it's widely known that it works. It was simple and quick. Everything works but there are a couple of quirks.

The Thunderbolt display needs to be disconnected from the Mini until the OS has loaded otherwise it doesn't turn on or it glitch flickers. Also Snow seems to be stuck in display mirroring mode even though I don't have another display. I'm getting two display preference windows lol. There are occasional anomalies like broken cursors etc but nothing major. There are obviously Snow/TB display incompatibilities. Lastly performance is a bit suspect. One app used 200%. I think someone on the Apple forums found a kind of clock fix that many people have been using with success and it actually made Snow faster than Lion. I can't find the thread again.

Does anyone here know about these issues on Snow/2011 Mini?

Forced mirroring issue.
Image

Image


CPU issue / machine

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Image

Image
Click to expand...

The 2011 Mac mini does not support Snow Leopard, even if you can get it installed through another Mac that does - that is why you are seeing problems. Just because it boots up in Snow Leopard after your unsupported install doesn't mean it will run problem-free. If you absolutely must run Snow Leopard, consider an older Mac mini that actually supports 10.6.+.
 
patent10021

patent10021

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 23, 2004
3,505
794
It's not just merely loaded. Like many other people, I have it running pretty smoothly with only a couple of quirks here and there. For people who need Snow on their 2011 machines for specific software it's fantastic. Took me only an hour to make the USB and install it via TDM.



Yea you are hijacking the thread because I have it loaded fully operating. I'm trying to iron out the wrinkles. You don't even have an iron.
 
philipma1957

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,365
251
Howell, New Jersey
patent10021 said:
It's not just merely loaded. Like many other people, I have it running pretty smoothly with only a couple of quirks here and there. For people who need Snow on their 2011 machines for specific software it's fantastic. Took me only an hour to make the USB and install it via TDM.



Yea you are hijacking the thread because I have it loaded fully operating. I'm trying to iron out the wrinkles. You don't even have an iron.
Click to expand...

I gave up on trying what you are trying, but apple support has a huge thread about it. Let me look for a link.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/22127499?ac_cid=tw123456#22127499
 
Last edited:
patent10021

patent10021

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 23, 2004
3,505
794
Really? All you do is connect the two machines via Firewire and install via host.

Boot the host into the flash drive like a normal install. Then instead of choosing the host's HD you select the target's HD (Mini's HD).

Done
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
It isn't unusual to see a Mac OS X process use more than 100% of a CPU. If each virtual core is 100% and there are 8 cores, then there is 800% available CPU. A process using 200% means that it is using two full cores. Snow Leopard will always be glitchy and buggy on that machine. It just doesn't have the needed stuff to do otherwise. Those that say it works well or without a problem, have a differing view well or problem-less.
 
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