This is essentially the Macbook, minus the portability and the crappy screen, but plus firewire 800.
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Opened my new Mac Mini - some info
- Thread starter tobyg
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This is essentially the Macbook, minus the portability and the crappy screen, but plus firewire 800.
This is my first mac mini and I've never taken it apart until now.... I've taken apart a macbook pro last gen 15" and 17", a sony vaio tz.. and thus.. this mac mini was a pain in the ASSSSSS especially swapping out the hdd!!!
Anyway, I've done it without fudging up anything and still good as brand spanking new!! I'm very very impressed. For some reason it seems to run a bit faster than my 15" 2.53ghz macbook pro under the 9400m gt connected to the 24" LED ACD.
It doesnt seem to stutter as much.. duno why.
Anyways, now I know how to take this shiet apart.. and I did it with no guide except the putty one.. took me 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Anyway, I've done it without fudging up anything and still good as brand spanking new!! I'm very very impressed. For some reason it seems to run a bit faster than my 15" 2.53ghz macbook pro under the 9400m gt connected to the 24" LED ACD.
It doesnt seem to stutter as much.. duno why.
Anyways, now I know how to take this shiet apart.. and I did it with no guide except the putty one.. took me 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Almost makes the higher end model look more worth it huh? Then again, that's only 2GB and we all need 4GB right?
Which HD did you put in?
I know. That's why it's tempting.
Well, it's a difficult decision since if I return the MacBook, I will most definitely incur the $125 restocking fee. I have til tomorrow to decide anyways.
its not the size of the thing, its how you use it
it seems pretty darn good, i guess the latest CPU helps that...(as opposed to the old C2D crap they had in it!)
Yeah, the Mini would definitely be the best choice here. Getting an iMac would be overkill (not to mention more money) than what you need. Get the Mini.
GSkill 2GB PC-10666 (1333MHz) 200-pin SO-DIMM DDR3
would that be compatible with the new Mac Mini's? its only 200-pin so i guess not.
im finding it hard to find some compatible RAM in australia :-S stupid country.
would that be compatible with the new Mac Mini's? its only 200-pin so i guess not.
im finding it hard to find some compatible RAM in australia :-S stupid country.
Done. The button has been pressed, credit card charged and order "preparing for shipment".
Cheers,
If you mean PC-1066 and 204 pin, then yes. But 200 pin usually will be DDR2 and that wouldn't work.
nope i mean what i said, thats exactly what the webpage read. i copied and pasted.
it HAS to be 204 pin then doesnt it??? damn ill keep looking.
As I was ranting in my other post, I'm debating on what to pull the trigger on as well. I really want a Mac Mini for a HTPC, but can't decide if the extra RAM is really worth it.
My concern is that I know NOTHING about Macs. I'm a pretty big Windows guy. I couldn't troubleshoot this thing if my life depended on it...thus the idea of replacing the HDD and the RAM scares me, since well, I just threw out two of the "most likely to fail" components from having warranty coverage. I could just buy the Mac with 4GB of memory, but it costs so much from Apple I wouldn't be able to order it without at least a slight queezy feeling that I was throwing money away. I'm just too afraid of putty knifing the Mini open, doing most of the work and then going "oh ****" and breaking something....which means I REALLY threw money away.
I'm a fan of having peace of mind, but eventually rationality kicks in and blah
It's either spend $550 for the base model, +53 for the memory for a total of 603, or spend 680ish from Apple to have the "peace of mind" that it has 4GB in it and is fully covered...
The ironic part being also, more than likely 1GB will be PLENTY for my use. I'm only using it to hook up to my receiver to watch movies and maybe listen to music.
Grrr I have no idea what to do
My concern is that I know NOTHING about Macs. I'm a pretty big Windows guy. I couldn't troubleshoot this thing if my life depended on it...thus the idea of replacing the HDD and the RAM scares me, since well, I just threw out two of the "most likely to fail" components from having warranty coverage. I could just buy the Mac with 4GB of memory, but it costs so much from Apple I wouldn't be able to order it without at least a slight queezy feeling that I was throwing money away. I'm just too afraid of putty knifing the Mini open, doing most of the work and then going "oh ****" and breaking something....which means I REALLY threw money away.
I'm a fan of having peace of mind, but eventually rationality kicks in and blah
It's either spend $550 for the base model, +53 for the memory for a total of 603, or spend 680ish from Apple to have the "peace of mind" that it has 4GB in it and is fully covered...
The ironic part being also, more than likely 1GB will be PLENTY for my use. I'm only using it to hook up to my receiver to watch movies and maybe listen to music.
Grrr I have no idea what to do
hhhmmm if thats all your doing then 1GB will be only enough. 2GB will most certainly be enough. even i run "ok" with 2GB, running VM's, editing HD videos and whatnot, thats with an older CD MBP.
if you are ONLY watching movies/playing audio or even using the iLife suite/office suite then 1GB should be plenty. just dont try TOO much multitasking, thats when things start to bogg down.
That's definately all I'll be doing on it. I have a Windows machine with more power than I know what to do with. Even as I write this, I have 4 instances of World of Warcraft open for running multiple accounts and I'm still getting 0 lag in any fashion.
The Mac Mini is just going to be sitting on a shelf wired in for home theater usage. Apple's pricing sceme on upgrades is so borked up though...it costs $45 just to bump the machine from 1GB to 2GB. I'd feel more comfortable with this amount, sure, but for another $8 I could have 4GB instead. Yet, if I buy the $750 version, I'm paying $70 more than if I do the upgrades to the memory and HDD myself (not even counting the fact it'd be 4GB over 2GB).
If the pricing scheme wasn't so wacked out, this would be an easy decision.
The Mac Mini is just going to be sitting on a shelf wired in for home theater usage. Apple's pricing sceme on upgrades is so borked up though...it costs $45 just to bump the machine from 1GB to 2GB. I'd feel more comfortable with this amount, sure, but for another $8 I could have 4GB instead. Yet, if I buy the $750 version, I'm paying $70 more than if I do the upgrades to the memory and HDD myself (not even counting the fact it'd be 4GB over 2GB).
If the pricing scheme wasn't so wacked out, this would be an easy decision.
I bought a 20" imac and was able to exchange it for a 24" without a restocking fee - ask nicely, and point out that you're getting a store credit and will be buying more apple merchandise.
well then 2GB will be plently plently. it will even be able to play your BluRay rips if you if you have any of them!! just go the stock now, in 6 months if you want to upgrade there will be user guides and RAM will be half the price.
I put in the 320gb hitachi travelstar 7200rpm 16mb cache version and 4gb of RAM.
Took me 1 hour and 30 minutes but this is my first time ever owning a mac mini and taking it apart. I had to look at how to use the putty knife to take it apart but everything else I had to eye ball it and took it apart myself with no instructions.
Anyway it isnt so bad if you already have done it with a previous gen mac mini. If I wanted to I can probably upgrade the HDD and the RAM under 20 minutes now.
Oh and I bought the lowest end mac mini $599 model and I can 100% confirm that when you put in more than 1gb of RAM it unlocks the 256vram usage for the 9400m gt! One strange thing is that wow this mac mini seems to run more snappy than my 2.53ghz unibody mbp connected to my 24" LED ACD in clam shell mode via the 9400m gt (feels a bit laggier).
Also to everyone here if you plan on getting the $799 model dont!! Its a rip off. Just buy the lower end $599 and buy the hitachi travelstar 320gb 7200rpm hdd (cost around $60 bucks and another $54 bucks for the 4GB of RAM from Crucial.com). So its way cheaper than the $200 more just for the crappier hdd + only 2gb of RAM. Both has 2.0ghz too.
Thank God for FW800!!
Now to put my 15" 2.53ghz mbp on eBay and pocket the $$$. =D
Does opening the new Mac Mini void the warranty? (I still wasn't sure from the previous generation) I want to do my ram & hdd upgrade but hell I dont want to screw myself over in the process if something goes wrong for some reason (not upgrade related issues).
Thanks for the useful information. I'm now sold on one of these for a media centre. The HD and RAM upgradability at least mean there's some room for expanding things a bit in the future should I need more than the base model.
Coupling this with a cheap 22inch LCD will do nicely.
Coupling this with a cheap 22inch LCD will do nicely.
You can use dual monitors with theminis now, right?
Yes.
But you can't run 2 of the new Apple 24" monitors.
They don't go deep enough, also they don't show things like the hard drive detached from everything. I wanna see the mainboard and it's heat sinks removed. I wanna see this baby NEEKID!
hahaha yes i know. maybe ifixit.com will get something very soon!!! they have very indepth nakey photos for you to
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