2.3 quad refurb arrived and I broke the IR cable.

[philipma1957]

Well A first after a few hundred 2010,2011,2012 teardowns I broke something. I was pulling the mobo out I had detached:
1) the fan
2) the 1tb hdd
3) the grill antenna
4) the power cable mobo- psu
5) the ir cable

I pulled the mobo and no go. All of a sudden it moved 2-3 inches instantly and even though the ir cable was not attached it snagged and pulled the plastic end off. well at least the mobo was not damaged.

I ordered a replacement cable at this site.


http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Mac-Mi...e-p-21818.html


the 2010 is in stock and works on the 2012. rest of the install is okay the 16gb ram works and I am copying the 1tb to a backup before I make the machine have a 1.5 tb diy fusion setup. I am using a 512gb samsung 830 and the oem 1tb hitachi.


I will post a photo of the broken ir cable in a few. here is the cable attaching screw plus some screen shots.

I may just keep the cable as a spare part. I will use this machine for about 10 months or the new 2013 mini. I may then put the cable in and sell it. I will post a bit on how this works.


I have been reading about a 960gb ssd for 600 from crucial and a slim 1.5tb hdd from toshiba.

That is a future project a 2.5tb fusion drive. Maybe in the 2013 haswell mini.

[OS-SEX]

Going to be replacing the HD in my 2011 mini with a Crucial M4 SSD on Monday. This will be my first tinkering on a mini and now you have me worried. Wish it was as quick and easy as replacing the hard drive in my MacBook Pro was.

[philipma1957]

Originally Posted by OS-SEX

Going to be replacing the HD in my 2011 mini with a Crucial M4 SSD on Monday. This will be my first tinkering on a mini and now you have me worried. Wish it was as quick and easy as replacing the hard drive in my MacBook Pro was.

if you are just doing a swap it is not too hard. this was a freak . I have done 100 or more of the 2010-2012

0 f ups. just remember to detach the cables properly you should be fine

[cocacolakid]

Originally Posted by OS-SEX

Going to be replacing the HD in my 2011 mini with a Crucial M4 SSD on Monday. This will be my first tinkering on a mini and now you have me worried. Wish it was as quick and easy as replacing the hard drive in my MacBook Pro was.

Use an Apple spudger, the actual tool Apple techs use. You can buy them on eBay and other sites for about $2 each. They work great.

Although I'm sure Philipma1957 was using an Apple spudger as well, he works on a million minis. I find the spudger invaluable and far better than any OWC's green spudger which is a much harder plastic and easy to break, also it's far too wide for getting into small places on a mini's logic board.

Just be very careful and don't force anything. If in doubt, stop, and look at the pictures on ifixit before proceeding. There are even videos on youtube showing how to do any mini upgrades.

[philipma1957]

Originally Posted by cocacolakid

Use an Apple spudger, the actual tool Apple techs use. You can buy them on eBay and other sites for about $2 each. They work great.

Although I'm sure Philipma1957 was using an Apple spudger as well, he works on a million minis. I find the spudger invaluable and far better than any OWC's green spudger which is a much harder plastic and easy to break, also it's far too wide for getting into small places on a mini's logic board.

Just be very careful and don't force anything. If in doubt, stop, and look at the pictures on ifixit before proceeding. There are even videos on youtube showing how to do any mini upgrades.

yes the spudger is the correct tool to lift cable plugs out of the mobo sockets correctly . Because I had done this first when the mobo moved so far so fast I did not tear the socket on the mobo. some how the little plug on the ir cable got hung up maybe on the power supply or on the underside of the actual case.

Well 24 bucks and 3 to ship is not the end of the world. I was lucky. back to the rest of the upgrade I copied the 1tb to an external and booted the external i then created a 1.5tb fusion hdd and I am copying the ml back to the fusion. easy peasy . Now I have 1.5tb fusion with 16gb ram and a 2.3 quad. yeah no ir or little power light but the cable is on its way.

okay I got the fusion working and migrated everything to it. I ran an xbench disk test scores are decent. geek bench scores for 64 bit are more then 12000. If this works well I am going to build a second one in a month. this is a very nice piece of gear.

[California]

Originally Posted by philipma1957

yes the spudger is the correct tool to lift cable plugs out of the mobo sockets correctly . Because I had done this first when the mobo moved so far so fast I did not tear the socket on the mobo. some how the little plug on the ir cable got hung up maybe on the power supply or on the underside of the actual case.

Well 24 bucks and 3 to ship is not the end of the world. I was lucky. back to the rest of the upgrade I copied the 1tb to an external and booted the external i then created a 1.5tb fusion hdd and I am copying the ml back to the fusion. easy peasy . Now I have 1.5tb fusion with 16gb ram and a 2.3 quad. yeah no ir or little power light but the cable is on its way.

okay I got the fusion working and migrated everything to it. I ran an xbench disk test scores are decent. geek bench scores for 64 bit are more then 12000. If this works well I am going to build a second one in a month. this is a very nice piece of gear.

I ripped the IR cable, too. Shoved the little ends back into their sockets, taped it over, working fine.

[philipma1957]

Originally Posted by California

I ripped the IR cable, too. Shoved the little ends back into their sockets, taped it over, working fine.

I tried that but the small plastic part was too damaged. the part came today and all is well. so my mid mini refurb cost me 679 plus 27 or 706 still lower then 799.

[paulrbeers]

Originally Posted by philipma1957

I tried that but the small plastic part was too damaged. the part came today and all is well. so my mid mini refurb cost me 679 plus 27 or 706 still lower then 799.

And really you could have just as easily damaged a new (not refurb) unit as well so the $27 is really a "learning opportunity".

I don't know about you but I'm more apt to break something on my 4th or 5th try than my first because I get careless since "I've done this before" mentality takes over...

[donlab]

Originally Posted by philipma1957

I pulled the mobo and no go. All of a sudden it moved 2-3 inches instantly and even though the ir cable was not attached it snagged and pulled the plastic end off. well at least the mobo was not damaged.

I didn't rip out the IR cable but the same thing happened to me. I was using that U-shaped piece of metal that came with OWC data doubler kit to pull out mobo. the clips around the I/O ports give way and the mobo jumps out while simultaneously scraping along the bottom of mini's case. Glad you only have to tear into these things once. I'm glad the 1TB hitachi drive is on top for easy replacement in the event it fails.