Enthusiasts Detail RAM Upgrade Process for the 2018 Mac mini

[brendu]

Nah, you just have to pick the right parts. I built my sister a desktop PC recently for under $600 that is dead silent. The only thing not "stock" is the Coolermaster 212 Evo CPU heatsink/fan, but that was only $25.

Does it have a gpu used for gaming?

 

[oneMadRssn]

Not sure of your calculations, I calculated excluding the software 30 SKUs
5 SSD x 3 CPU x 2 Ethernet. Why did you exclude the SSD from the calculation?

Edit: just read your reply further, the SSD is soldered in the all macs now aren't they? https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/527568/SSD+Upgrade+possibilty+or+soldered+onto+board

Not all Macs, but most. The thread you linked has conflicting info - some say SSD is soldered and some say SSD is on a PCIe card. I’ll wait until we get a proper ifixit teardown, which should be any day now.

Edit: I see there is a tear down now

 

[dilbert99]

Not all Macs, but most. The thread you linked has conflicting info - some say SSD is soldered and some say SSD is on a PCIe card. I’ll wait until we get a proper ifixit teardown, which should be any day now.

Did a bit of searching.
Looks like the SSD is uprgadable in the iMac/Mac Pro/Mac Mini
laptops soldered in SSD since 2016 i believe.

I think I was getting a little confused with soldering in ram in the mini in the previous model.

 

[Dlessor1]

I saw your post on discussions.apple.com, have you tried an SMC reset. Thats pretty messed up. Mine has an issue with Bluetooth where it just can't see any Apple Keyboard or trackpad (Logitech k380). It seems that the T2 might be the culprit to a lot of the issues on these new machines. When I spoke to the Apple rep, she asked me what troubleshooting steps I took, and I told her I think it's an issue with the T2, she immediately setup a private appointment with an Apple Engineer at my nearest Apple store, so on Saturday I have an appointment to take my Mini in. Have you spoken to Apple yet?

I actually just dropped it off at fedex. It wouldn’t even post. The white light on the front would light up then the fan would spool once then it would restart. I just decided to return and get a different unit. 🙁

 

[SuperMatt]

You are so right, the g3 case had a latch you open it and you have full access to replace everything.

Jobs cared about the computing experience of the average consumers(what makes Apple different from Microsoft), Cook uses the Apple brand to make money for the investors. Thats the difference.

You clearly never had to upgrade anything inside Steve's beloved Bondi Blue iMac, or even the original Macintosh or Mac SE. Ahh, the beloved "Mac Cracker" pull-apart tool for the classic all-in-one Macs!

 

[salt5.13]

O

Why no I have not, sir. 🙂 I most often edit with proxy footage which as you probably know, doesn't tax the graphics card as much. In fact, my current mac mini (late 2012) has made it though all but the very newest version of Avid Media Composer, which is what I make a living on. If I ever get to cutting multi-camera layered uncompressed 5k, then yeah...I'll probably get whatever do-dad gets the job done.

ooh. Proxy footage, got it. Does your desktop itself ever feel odd or lags when multitasking? Not sure if the onboard gpu can handle that well.

 

[Greymacuser]

Well if its widespread, then we should see it in the news shortly, considering that would be a groundbreaking flaw. If not, then it will be a single, isolated case. I guess time will tell.

I guess all the mac minis in my office that do the same thing are all "isolated" to then.
I wonder, how many "isolated" cases does it take for an obvious flaw to become obvious for an Apple fanboy.

 

[lilrush]

I guess all the mac minis in my office that do the same thing are all "isolated" to then.
I wonder, how many "isolated" cases does it take for an obvious flaw to become obvious

I wrote my replies on an s7 edge and lenovo laptop. I am however a neuroscientist, and in my field we consider what you have said as anecdotal evidence. You have not proven a causal link, and your sample is not taken at random from the population. You have not measured air flow or temperature with any instrument, nor identified a mechanism. It is not evidence.

 

[SuperMatt]

I guess all the mac minis in my office that do the same thing are all "isolated" to then.
I wonder, how many "isolated" cases does it take for an obvious flaw to become obvious.

Your IT staff must've worked overtime to have so many brand new Mac minis up and running in a production environment 2 days after they were available for purchase.

 

[Boil]

Your IT staff must've worked overtime to have so many brand new Mac minis up and running in a production environment 2 days after they were available for purchase.

That just shows how easy & worry-free it is to admin Macs...!

 

[Googlyhead]

Thinking about this a little; what's the likelihood that only the base i3/128 and i5/256 have soldered SSDs?
If Apple was at all sensible about having a manageable number of variants (and minimising yield impact on the expensive larger capacities); the BTO configs would all use a socketed SSD.

Surely there's a point at which their disdain for customers is outweighed by logistics and profits?

 

[DeepIn2U]

If this was truly a 'Pro' machine, the RAM, SSD at minimum would all be *user* replaceable.

On the other hand Pro monicor can be used to identify SPEED and performance 😉 which is always been the end goal of any "professional" product from any competitor and from Apple.

 

[lec0rsaire]

of course. I dont expect my 70 year old mom to be swapping out ram on her computer she'll ask me to do it.
Im just saying if I was worried about the warranty I personally would do this but the majority of the public wouldnt want to mess with it.

Yeah it’s really not hard for us. Opening my Xbox 360 to clean all the dust and repaste was a much more tedious chore. I ended doing a little damage to a couple of the plastic clips, but it was my first time working on that console.

Taking apart an old HP dv5 was even harder. To get the motherboard out, it was necessary to remove the keyboard from the front, completely take off the display and manage not to break the thin connector. Definitely a pita. In the end I was only able to fix the Radeon GPU for a couple of months. It ended up failing again. For this reason I stopped trying to run demanding games on notebooks. Even if they work, they really put a lot of stress on the chips especially with the sub-par thermal solutions.

Video editing yes but gaming no.

 

[Stella]

That just shows how easy & worry-free it is to admin Macs...!

Not in our company. There have been many issues with the 2017 MAcBook Pro’s...

It just *doesnt* work.

 

[salt5.13]

I bet Apple is glad you don't work for them (or maybe you do?). Instead of Apple driving people to other brands with their high prices why not lower prices so more people can afford to buy Apple products? Apple could easily lower their prices by quite a bit while continuing to make high quality products. Just means that Timmy and his cronies in the board room won't take home as big a pay check.

Yup. Years ago, when I first got into the mac, they were not so much more expensive than their pc counterparts. I DOUBT they weren't making enough money for that and I don't believe that now they so far ahead of the competition that their products have to cost even more.

 

[Boil]

On the other hand Pro monicor can be used to identify SPEED and performance 😉 which is always been the end goal of any "professional" product from any competitor and from Apple.

'moniker' is the correct spelling...

 

[SeattleMoose]

It's as simple as replacing the alternator in your car 😱

 

[MacBH928]

You clearly never had to upgrade anything inside Steve's beloved Bondi Blue iMac, or even the original Macintosh or Mac SE. Ahh, the beloved "Mac Cracker" pull-apart tool for the classic all-in-one Macs!

Thats special case in which only the all-in-one iMac will be difficult to repair. The rest of ibooks, powerbooks, and powermacs were serviceable. Plus remember...those older machines were built high grade and lasted a long time. Unlike the flimsy tech we have today.

 

[SuperMatt]

Thats special case in which only the all-in-one iMac will be difficult to repair. The rest of ibooks, powerbooks, and powermacs were serviceable. Plus remember...those older machines were built high grade and lasted a long time. Unlike the flimsy tech we have today.

An argument that Steve Jobs mostly made computers that were easy to repair is just false. He didn't seem to care much about it. He was so proud of the Macbook Air - non-replaceable battery, soldered RAM, and all.

From 1984-87, the only Macs WERE the all-in-one Macs. That's not what I would call a "special case" at all. The easily-expandable Mac II came out 3 years after the original Macintosh, when Jobs wasn't CEO anymore. In fact, I'd say Macs became lighter and thinner as a matter of course under Jobs after his 1997 return, which had the side effect of making them harder to repair. Cook has kept things moving in that direction since.

As for quality control and longevity, Apple didn't always produce perfect computers under Jobs, nor are the ones made under Cook generally flimsy. I'll take any current Mac laptop over the TiBook with its dreadful hinges and peeling paint job for example.

 

[e_whizz]

Nah it’s probably to simplify parts sku management.

If the RAM was soldered, there would be 12 different logic board skus to keep in stock (3 cpu options x 4 ram options). That’s unwieldy for a product that likely isn’t going to have a huge sales volume.

By making the RAM seperate from the logic board, the number of logic board skus is reduced to just 3 - much more manageable.

That’s true, however there are also four storage options and three CPU options and also two ethernet options to consider.

 

[DeepIn2U]

'moniker' is the correct spelling...

Thank you. I downgraded to the SE and the KB spell check is all over the place. I need to clear this out. Again thank you.

 

[TheG5Man]

Thank you for all the information. I successfully upgraded memory in my new Mac Mini last night without any issues. The key, for me anyway, was to go very slowly, organize all the screws and follow the directions. You need to apply a surprising amount of pressure to pop the motherboard out, but it will go. Have to say I won't be upgrading it further (I put 32 GB in). So far I am very pleased with the new Mini. It absolutely screams and makes working in Logic a dream. I bought the 512 GB i7 model. I paired an external Samsung T5 1GB drive to keep all my music assets on. Thunderbolt is such an amazing technology. Absolutely no waiting anymore.

I know a lot of people will complain about limitations with respect to upgrading, but I foresee this mini lasting me 5-6 years. Not exactly sure if the same can be said of other Wintel machines. I'm a Logic and Garageband guy, so for me the price of admission was absolutely worth it. I'm still using my Thunderbolt display which works just fine for my needs. Sure it would be nice to have 4k or 5k, but I'm not exactly sure what additional benefits I'd get for music production, recording my band, writing documents etc. I feel like the Mac Mini was built for my use case. Don't regret it one iota.

 

[jdiamond]

Anyone for maintaining a list of 3rd party RAM upgrade prices on a pair of matching DDR4-2666 SODIMMs?
I've found: 32GB for $240, while 64GB is still super expensive ($700+) due to the low availability of 32GB SODIMMs (which I believe were designed for laptops.)