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I can only dream about being able to pick up a 2009 Mini for these kinds of prices...
It will run Leopard as well :)

It shipped with 10.6. How well does it cope with Leopard and do you have to feed it with SL kexts to run?
 
Yep, that's a sore spot... but also what an eGPU is for ;)

I was going to ask how you planned to do that, but then I remembered you did this. Wish I'd remembered that sooner, I just sold off my last Intel Mini, same model you bought but I had upgraded to 2.16 Ghz C2D and flashed it to a 2,1.

Was a really nice little machine, and I wanted to run Mountain Lion on it w/MacPostFactor. I did get it installed, and it would run, but doing anything with a browser caused artifacting and tearing. 10.8 is just a bridge too far for the GMA 950 it seems.

btw, if that's what you plan to do, I can't say enough about Mountain Lion. Lovely OS, smooth and fast even on the Mini, way better than Lion. And it retains enough of Tiger/Leopard functionality to make me feel right at home. Using it right now on my 17" MBP 👍
 
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I was going to ask how you planned to do that, but then I remembered you did this.

Yep, that's it. I'm interested in seeing whether my 2600 XT will initialise in Tiger on the Mini - on the MacBook, it won't. But I don't have high hopes for that.

btw, if that's what you plan to do, I can't say enough about Mountain Lion. Lovely OS, smooth and fast even on the Mini, way better than Lion. And it retains enough of Tiger/Leopard functionality to make me feel right at home. Using it right now on my 17" MBP 👍

I have Mountain Lion (as well as Snow Leopard, Mavericks and El Capitan) on my 2011 MBP. Lovely OS indeed. Also had it on my 2006 17" MBP prior to selling it.

The Mini will have to do with its original Core Duo (for now) as I want to try hacking Lion on it. Probably the most pointless thing ever, but...

edit: Found a 2 GHz Core Duo CPU in my parts bin. That's gonna be da most epic upgrade ever, LOL.
 
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There was a firmware update in between. I take it that doesn't make any difference in running Leo?

Honestly, I have no idea. However, if the fact that Leo boots on my 2010 MBA after nuking all GeForce-related kexts is anything to go by, it should not.
 
I also snagged a brand new g4 17inch battery! It was also labeled as untested, but it seemed like in perfect shape and coconut battery confirmed it's still on its first cycle!
 
QS Logic Board for 99p: the shipping costs are more expensive than the actual item! :D

Figured that this was worth having as a precautionary measure in case I encounter any problems over the coming years and it saves me looking around at a later date for replacement parts at a potential premium.

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There’s a local battery shop here in town that sells new PRAM batteries - where I get em. That and the manager there is a big computer geek & we burn some time Talking about 486s n the like.
There used to be a camera store in the town where I live and I used to stop by and browse the cameras and talk with the people working there (even though I had no money to buy cameras they would still let me try them out, probably because I was a frequent visitor for film development.) One clerk even showed me her personal Sony mirrorless with an adaptor so she could use her old Nikon lenses with it. Sadly the shop closed a few years ago, it was the last place in town that returned the negatives when you sent the film for processing. I hope all of the people who worked there are well.
 
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I have some bits coming in slowly - a sil3512 Sata controller & radeon7000 64mb pci for flashing & a usb2 pci card. With the pandemic, shipping (even domestic) has slowed tremendously, so who knows when these will come in.

On the bright side, my beige drive bay hard drive cooler came in (for a beige Beaty P||| build).
 
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Yanno I just realized I did not post about some real deals I got at my local thrift & CL right before non essential business was locked down.

HP 880 Envy
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05266971?jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001

Scored the above i5 box for $13 bucks USD stacked up with a bunch of junker PC boxes. Works like a champ and aside from the ultra wimpy PSU (preventing me dropping in a bombin' GPU), I like the design and front/back IO, SD reader, the 8gb DDR and 128gb SSD and fast USB has made it very difficult for me to flip it in CL or letgo for a quick buck.

Dell Optiplex 980

Got this one for free off craigslist. Its another nice i5 box albeit more modest specs. I've always been a fan of this case design. Something about it that Ive always liked - probably the masculine lines and abundant USB io. Im really tempted to build it into a linux box although it has a functioning win7 install and license with it so I probably should "pass it along" as they say and donate it to our local Catholic computer charity to get re-homed. I have some ram to take it up to 8gb and a 1gb gpu that will fit this box well so I will sup' it up a bit before donating it off. It should serve a family (ie: their KIDs :D ) in need far better (especially with schools shut down for the foreseeable future ie: virtual school rooms etc.) than collecting dust in my closet or on my guest bed.

Anyhow, you never know what you'll run into out in the wild. Not PPC or Mac, but whatevs. It was a fun story and Im sure you guys would enjoy running into such finds/deal out in the wild as well. :apple:
 
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So my recently purchased Mini finally arrived. Unpacking it was a little worrying as it had just been thrown into the box with very little packaging material and was happily bouncing around. On the brighter side of things, it has a 250 GB drive rather than the 60 GB listed in the auction (a moot point since I'll be installing an SSD anyway). So far it seems to run fine but I noticed the internal speaker only plays sound if I apply pressure to the top of the case. Next step is to take it apart for some cleaning, fresh thermal paste etc. Built in week 9 of 2007.

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My take on Tiger on Intel:

 
@TheShortTimer - Thanks! :)

Quick question (NOT MY AUCTION!!!) -


I can't fully decipher the serial (tried several variations, none of which come up with any info) but manufacture date looks to be week 40, 2005 (10/2 to 10/9). Is this guaranteed to be a DLSD? Many thanks in advance!
 
@TheShortTimer - Thanks! :)

Quick question (NOT MY AUCTION!!!) -


I can't fully decipher the serial (tried several variations, none of which come up with any info) but manufacture date looks to be week 40, 2005 (10/2 to 10/9). Is this guaranteed to be a DLSD? Many thanks in advance!
Yes, it's a DLSD, serial no. is W8540ESFSWZ.

Well done :)

Cheers :)

Hugh
 
There is one other issue I forgot to mention in case anyone else was thinking of getting a 1400. Apple in its wisdom used a fairly thin plastic lid in the display which is fairly weak at the display hinges. The hinges, on the other hand, are quite strong. It is quite common to see cracked or broken display lids as the plastic gets more brittle with age.

My 1400 had stiff hinges when it arrived, so I carefully squirted a little WD-40 in each hinge and now it opens/closes without any stress to the plastic, but I can see where it will likely crack eventually.

I’ve had the same results with several TiBooks with stiff hinges (especially the early Mercury models) - I have more broken hinges on my TiBooks than any other model and these hinges are expensive to replace!

Re: 2009 model macmini3,1 running Leopard. The early ‘09 model shipped with 10.5.6, whereas the late ‘09 model shipped with 10.6, but I believe it will restore OK from the same disc as the early ‘09 model (I don’t have this disc to test the theory though).

I have one of each of these models, they are capable little Macs. Both were purchased for very cheap (approx US$20 each) as parts only/ not working and required parts to resurrect, but fortunately included their power adapters.

To put Leopard on the late ‘09 model, I removed the HDD and dropped it into an early MacBook A1181 - I didn’t have a FireWire 800 adapter for TDM and Leopard 10.5 retail wasn’t supported. I then installed 10.5 retail using the MacBook, updated to 10.5.8 and reinstalled the HDD into the mini.

It runs great with Leopard - especially for older games like Halo: Combat Evolved, which my son showed interest in. Frame rates more than tripled in Halo under Leo when compared to running on SL.
 
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