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Heat_Fan89

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Feb 23, 2016
2,977
3,911
I just received my base i5 today and I'm typing on it right now. So far so good. I have the 1st gen Apple BT keyboard with the removal batteries. In the initial setup it asked me to turn off the switch and back on. Mojave didn't know it was working with an older Apple keyboard. Pressing the power button multiple times did nothing until I removed the battery cap and then powered it on, that's when it connected.

I'm using an old Dell business monitor 5:4 (1280x1024) and I used the display dongle from my 2012 Mini. No issues with a black screen. When I got to connecting to my router is when I had a never-ending spinning beachball. Prior to that I paired my Touchpad 2 via the USB cable so I disconnected the touchpad moments later I got past the beachball. I can't say if it was a coincidence or if the USB cable was interfering with the Wireless radio, I don't know? I reconnected the Touchpad 2 with the USB cable just to see if my Wi-Fi connection would drop out and it hasn't.

It's quick but so is my 2012 Mini with an internal SSD. Programs and apps seem to open slightly quicker than my 2012 Mini but I'll see in a few days if the speed picks up. My 2012 Mini boots to desktop in 18.5 secs, I'll compare that to the i5 to see the difference.

I could've and should've gone with the i3 but for Amazon was selling the i5 for $929 so for $229 more I got double the SSD storage and a faster CPU. So far pleased with the new Mini and no BT gremlins as of yet so I'll try pairing my BT earphones to see if I get any static or dropouts.

It runs pretty cool, typing this message my CPU is sitting at a constant 38c with the fans set to AUTO. My 2012 Mini with just Safari open runs at around 47-55c with the fans set at a constant 3000 rpm but idles at 39c. So the new cooling system is much improved.

So I'm happy with the deal, I'll be keeping it like I said unless some weird hardware crap starts rearing its ugly head. And Space Grey next to my 2012 looks pretty cool. Although I still haven't gotten used to the NO Power On chime. I haven't detected any coil whine as others have mentioned.

Edit: I just rebooted from a complete shutdown and it booted to the password screen in around 7.5 secs. I forgot to mentioned that I turned on Filevault so maybe that could have a small impact on performance.
 
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