Mac mini to 1.5 or 1.58?!?

[wilmor42]

hello. im currently awaiting my mac mini (since jan 27th-bastards!) and i need to open it up to stick my 1gb ram stick in and i was wondering just what would be involved in overcocking the unit.. now i've seen the page with the guy thats overclocked a 1.25 to 1.5 but i was wondering how hard and what exactly has to be done, i dont particularly wanna end up frying the machine but if i had an idea i might just have a go..
any help?

 

[Sutekidane]

I don't know anything about it really, but I'm almost positive it requires soldering extremely small and delicate capacitors. My advice: don't bother.

 

[dotdotdot]

The guy that overclocked the 1.25 to 1.5 is running it currently at 1.42 GHz as anything above didnt work too well

 

[topgunn]

The resistors are surface mounted and each one is about the size of two grains of beach sand. I have minimal to adequate soldering skills and I was able to overclock my 2G eMac without any problems but it only involved removing resistors. To overclock your mini, you will need to bridge the gap with solder which is a bit more difficult. There are other ways to bridge the pads including pencil lead and solder pens but they have their downsides.

As long as you are careful, you will not fry your mini. If you mess it up to bad, you should still be able to take it to someone with better skills to fix it. Solder is somewhat forgiving. Better yet, if you are not comfortable with your skills, take it to someone who has more experience. The whole process shouldnt take more than 30 minutes.

 

[watchmainspring]

mini

if you mess up, apple may know when you try to repair it. (especially if your putty knife makes slight marks like mine did). You would have wasted all of your money trying to make your machine unnoticably faster.

 

[topgunn]

if you mess up, apple may know when you try to repair it. (especially if your putty knife makes slight marks like mine did). You would have wasted all of your money trying to make your machine unnoticably faster.

Opening your mini does not void the warranty as far as I know. Now, desoldering and soldering on the logic board most certainly will.

And yes, it will most likely not be a noticable difference in real world applications but only in benchmarks like Xbench and the like. And contrary to popular belief, faster benchmarks do not increase the size of any parts of your anatomy.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Its really easy to do if so inclined, but the risks outweigh the benefits while under warranty. If you really dont care about such things i would go the 1.5 route which is easier to perform and correct vs the 1.58 resistor settings. From these bumps you get a slight gain and will most likely will be the mini they are selling 9 months from now. Only place you may notice a difference would be in gaming and Mini isnt a gaming machine by virtue of its ati 9200 so whats the point?

 

[wilmor42]

thanks everyone. i will probably leave it, i mean i record,mix and produce all my music on my powerbook running Digital Performer 4.5 and i have no quirks, runs a million times better than garageband! 1.42 will suffice, i just remember doing it on my gay pc years back and all i had to do was flick some jumper switches..
hope the mini gets here soon, i must congratulate apple on their speedy delivery-even if i do live on a tiny island, they shouldnt mess people about like they do.. honestly, i sometimes wonder just what exactly that little bit out of the apple stands for..