Mac mini 2009?

[ivnj]

I also fixed the cd drvie. Thought it was dead. It would just spit out my cds/dvds. I took a can of compressed air while it was on. And I blew the nozzle directly in the the drive up and down for 30 seconds. Now it reads cds/dvds and they on the desktop instead of just spitting them out.

The whole thng was 40 dollars with shippingfor the mini and power cord. And I had the rest of the supplies at home. So not bad for 40 bucks. Except I went to bestbuy and for 13 dollars got a mini display to hdmi cable. I had no other video cable. But the rest I had. So still not bad 53 dollars total. Not bad. She runs great now. And I found all the installers even mountain lion. So I partitioned in 3 and will try it out. 10.6.8 for installing vector works 2008 if I can find the cd. 10.8 for vectorworks 2008 so I can direct print from there because no printers supprt 10.6.8. Only 10.7 and above the ones I have. And I have no lion installer. Only mountain lion. And el capitan on the last partition if I can find my old installer so I use some modern apps and try them out like black magic to test the disk speed. All the apps in the store say 10.10.0 required or later.

But 240gb is plenty for all 3 so I am good.

 

[Boyd01]

And el capitan on the last partition if I can find my old installer so I use some modern apps and try them out like black magic to test the disk speed. All the apps in the store say 10.10.0 required or later.

There are older versions of the BlackMagic Disk Test, I remember using it under Lion. That program is actually a part of the BlackMagic Desktop Video suite that was distributed with their video interfaces. You can probably find old versions on the BlackMagic Design website, it's a free download.

 

[ivnj]

Yes but 2009 mini supports 10.11.0. So much easier than trying to find old versions. Plus there are others I would like to try.

 

[ivnj]

So I installed all the oses. I accidentally installed mountain lion on top of snow leopard. But I clean installed snow on a separate partition incase I find the original cds. Cuz the program is universal both intel and ppc. But the installer is only ppc. And I did a clean of ell capitan on a third partition. Installed black magic and ran the speed test. Its about 200 read and 285 write. Not bad for a 2009 mini. Also vector works fired right up. And printers installed. Now I can print directly from there. The g5 imac had no way. No printers supported 10.5. There was one program but for gimp only. And soon new ones will be 10 or 11 only. No 7,8, or 9. In the mean time I got this printer for 19 bucks from walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Canon-PIXMA-MG2522-All-in-One-Inkjet-Printer/108208974

It supports 7 lion so it will work on mountain lion.

Now all I need is a white or silver monitor so it kinda looks like an imac. Not exactly but close enough. But only white monitor I see is at costco and is samsung. But there are some cheap silver ones like an hp for 134 at bestbuy 22 inches.

 

[ivnj]

If the computer is on, if you select "About This Mac" (press on the Apple logo in the very to left corner), it should say what Mac it is. If the computer is off, turn it upside-down and toward the ports (at least on my late 2009 Mini), in small writing (I can't read it without a magnifying glass but that may be age), it will have an "EMC No." - for early 2009, it will be 2264, for late 2009, it will be 2336.

I don't think any new drivers were required for the late 2009 vs. early 2009 Mini. So the OS should work but usually Apple will put a restriction on what OS's will work with a specific model so I would guess you have an early 2009 but let us know if it is a late 2009 - that would be interesting to know.

Yes, the 2009 Mini's have internal SATA ports - it is SATA2 (3gb/sec vs. 6gb/sec for SATA3). The 2009 Mini's use the NVidia MCP79 SATA chipset and will have issues with certain SSD's - it depends on the SSD model. You can do a search on the web for your SSD model and "nvidia MCP79" and see if the results show people having problems. If you have questions on a specific SSD model, post it. Usually if it has the problem the SSD will only run at SATA1 speed, but some SSD's (mainly older ones not much used any more) will not work reliably.

I checked and I have the mcp79. I went to apple and about this mac. Clicked on system report and the sata/express tab. Both link speed and negotiated link speed are 3gbps not 1.5. So it s working correctly and I lucked out. This is turning out to be an awesome deal.

 

[Rizvi1]

This was a fun thread to read after I just finished setting up my old late 2009 2.53 Ghz Core 2 Duo at my parents house. I bought this 10 years ago to serve as a secondary computer, my main one always being a 15" MacBook Pro. But really never used it much and later in the years, this just sat in storage. But they're a good use for it here and it's still working great, just can't run anything past El Capitan. I'm also going to try to import my CD collection and to start using it to burn DVD back ups of my Mini DV tapes that are aging.

These were nice warnings to read:

I also fixed the cd drvie. Thought it was dead. It would just spit out my cds/dvds. I took a can of compressed air while it was on. And I blew the nozzle directly in the the drive up and down for 30 seconds. Now it reads cds/dvds and they on the desktop instead of just spitting them out.
...

When you get the software straightened out consider replacing the fan. That is the only hardware problem I ever had with my '09 mini (besides the DVD drive failing). iFixit has one and instructions on how to replace. My '09 mini is still in use as a WIN7 internet/email machine.

I'm thinking of going in to max out the RAM and the replace the SATA HD with an SSD one. Are you suggesting just pre-emptively changing the cooling fan because it's likely to go first? (hence, avoiding having to go back in there again).