• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

MacMini1,1 with Core Solo

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
For a low, low price of 30$. Usually you see people hawking G4s for 100$ or more. Good deal.

Specs: 1.5 GHz Core Solo, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HD, and the latest version of Snow Leopard. The previous owner seemingly installed Flash, Chrome, and ran updates, and nothing else. This will probably get turned into a Windows box.

 

Elfen

Well-known member
LOL! Second PM Sent! I thought this was a sale, not a conquest!  LOL!!!

From what I hear, you can upgrade it with a 1.6 to 1.8 DuoCore with the same socket and then upgrade that to the Duo2Core up to 2.0 or 2.1 with the same socket. Plenty of Youtube vids on how to do it.

I'll admit, it's a great find!

 
Last edited by a moderator:

CC_333

Well-known member
And, it's notable for being the only Intel Mac ever to use a single core processor.

c

 

max1zzz

Well-known member
Oh, that was a steal :) I Paid about £80 for mine (Which was pretty much the same spec, 1.5Ghz CS, 2GB ram, 250Gb HDD)

I have since upgraded it with a 120GB SSD, A 1.83Ghz C2D and a broadcom crystal HD card, It now makes a pretty nice little media center box

 

johnklos

Well-known member
Those can be upgraded to a Core 2 Duo with newer firmware, 3 gigs of memory and Lion can be installed.

 

Byrd

Well-known member
A T7400 or T7600 CPU can be had for next to nothing these days, even cannibalise it from a generic laptop.

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
Hmmm, so the things wrong with it:

  • Sound doesn't want to work. No output devices after turning it off and moving it somewhere else. Zapped PRAM (at least I'm sure I did, can't hear the chime) as well as repaired permissions and removed BezelServices.plist
  • Edit: Scratch that, sound works, but ONLY over HDMI. What?
  • The CD drive does not want to read discs, at least the Ubuntu ones I've put it. It slurps them and spits them back after a bit of grinding.
Worst case, it'll make a cute server.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

CC_333

Well-known member
Mine has some similar problems. The optical drive is dead, and the interconnect board is slightly damaged (it happened the first time I opened it up to upgrade it), causing there to be no sound from the internal speaker (the headphone/line out jack works fine).

So, maybe all it needs is a new optical drive and interconnect board?

c

 

Elfen

Well-known member
Need or want to upgrade. That depends on the person... :D

I think this YouTube Vid will explain which CPU Socket is involved in the Mac Mini Upgrade.

 

johnklos

Well-known member
Does the headphone jack work?

The CPU is socketed. I've done many swaps - it's not hard, plus it gives you an opportunity to replace the old thermal grease.

 

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
Does the headphone jack work?

The CPU is socketed. I've done many swaps - it's not hard, plus it gives you an opportunity to replace the old thermal grease.
Without HDMI, no outputs at all.

So far OS X is surprisingly tolerable on a single-core, but VNC sluggishness over WiFi might be masking it. (Speaking of WiFi, it's struggling to remember to connect as well.)

 

Elfen

Well-known member
Look over the upgrade video, especially at disassembly at the beginning and reassembly part at the end - and check out here the wifi antenna is put into. It may have been that the previous owner tried to upgrade it before (more RAM) and then just stuffed the antenna back willy-nilly so that the signal gets blocked by the metal casing and results in a weak signal that the Mini will ignore or forget. Putting back the antenna where it belongs should fix it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

johnklos

Well-known member
Without HDMI, no outputs at all.
Well, yes, it doesn't have HDMI. Sometimes the contacts in the headphone port can get messed up. Try inserting and removing a headphone jack a bunch of times and see if the Sound control panel shows Internal or Digital.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

IPalindromeI

Well-known member
re: WiFi, it connects fine, but it can't remember to re-connect when waking up or rebooting, despite the fact my network is already known.

re: Sound, I'm pretty sure it's using HDMI audio as it only works when hooked up via HDMI, not VGA. It appears as the internal speaker though, so I'm not really sure. I've already done quick inserts a bunch of times. OS X will state no outputs, at all. Worst case, I can look at the interconnect if I ever do upgrade it, or get a USB DAC.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

twocargar

Well-known member
I have one of these too and have thought about doing the CPU upgrade on it.  Right now it's my backup drive server on my network.  I love all of the USB ports and FireWire port, it makes for a great way to serve up data.  My only complaint is I can't run a recent version of iTunes on it. :-/

For years I ran it and the fans would just whine on it.  Come for find out I forgot to plug in the heat sensor (?) for the drive and the fan was running full throttle.  Much better now. :)

 

olePigeon

Well-known member
Look inside the audio jack and see if there's a red light.  If there is, it's stuck in Optical Audio mode.  You might be able to unstick it by wiggling a paperclip inside it.  Or use optical audio speakers.

 
Top