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2009 Mac Mini DEAD!@!

M

mullet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2003
107
6
B'klyn
Hey Gang!

I've had the mini since it came out in March. I decided to upgrade the drive and memory to 500GB and 4GB. Everything worked fine until I came home after a long weekend last evening. I realized the power was off and thought maybe we had a power outage. I tried to turn it on and it was dead, dead, deadinski, kaput. The mini won't even turn on. I plan on bringing it into Apple. However, I've heard that my warranty is useless because I modified the mini. Is this true? I could pry it open and put the old hard drive in. I won't be able to easily replace the memory. I tossed it after upgrading the mini. Am I screwed or do I have a standing chance with Apple to have them fix or replace it?
 
Nothing illegal here. Just a standard upgrade. I thought of the power adapter issue and I'm going to bring the mini into work to test it with another Mac Mini Power supply. I'm hoping it's just the supply that went bad.

~mullet
 
I would imagine "illegal" modifications would be using two sata hard drives raided together instead of one hard drive and an optical drive.

~mullet
 
mullet said:
I would imagine "illegal" modifications would be using two sata hard drives raided together instead of one hard drive and an optical drive.

~mullet
Click to expand...

I think by "illegal" he means you used the mini to smuggle drugs. :p
Listen, you open the case and changed the components. You're warranty is gone, and I bet that there is a warranty voiding sticker inside the case that any Apple worker will check. I'd still take it in, but I hate to say that you're likely SOL on this one.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
You're warranty is gone, and I bet that there is a warranty voiding sticker inside the case that any Apple worker will check. I'd still take it in, but I hate to say that you're likely SOL on this one.
Click to expand...

So you're pretty sure that if you crack open a mini the warranty is voided? I thought it was if you broke any parts in doing so you void it. The only way I can find out is if I take bring the mini in to Apple and find out what they have to say. If I don't say anything they'll know it was modified based on it not having an Apple branded HD. I could replace it with the original. That still leaves me with non-Apple branded RAM. I guess there is only one way to find out.

~mullet
 
there is always debate about this but according to multiple people who have called apple:

"Changing hard drives or RAM on the Mini does not void the warranty or applecare. If you damage the mini or any of its components during the modification this will not be covered under warranty. If the cause of the problem is deemed to be from the changes to the mini it will not be covered."

There are NO stickers that show it has been "tampered" with

If you want, open it back up and switch out the things you've added for the things that were stock, then apple won't have an idea you did anything to it

Good luck!!
 
robotartfashion said:
If you want, open it back up and switch out the things you've added for the things that were stock, then apple won't have an idea you did anything to it
Click to expand...

This is the least I'd do before taking it in. Since there are no Void stickers then I suppose if everything is intact your chances may be better than I originally had thought.
 
Might I suggest retracing your steps and re-doing whatever you did in traced steps. That is to say first thing you should do is take out the new RAM and put the Apple RAM it came with back in. Also try new power cord and swapping the original HDD in. But this to me smells of some bad RAM.

Let us know what you or the apple man find out.
 
My $0.02 here

The hard drive could have died.

You would think it would attempt to boot though.

Put the original back in and give it awhirl.

Then take it to Apple. It very well could be a power supply.
 
if you are pressing the power button and absolutely nothing is happening it has to be a power problem. I cant see anyway how this would be effected by a normal HDD and RAM upgrade. If i am not mistaken the PSU is on the power cord (big brick, like the Xbox 360) Have you tried another power cord? Have you tried different power sockets? What about the fuse in the plug?
 
I would suggest putting thee original drive back in and testing. If that doesn't work then bring it to the apple store, with the original drive in it and see what they'll do for you.
 
So I guess the moral of the story here is to always keep the old memory and hard drive that originally came with the Mac Mini, which I did since I upgraded the ram to 4 GB from Crucial bc Apple is Wacko:eek: to think I would spend $150 for 4 GB upgrade when mine was $72.00 at my door from Crucial direct.


Wicked1
 
My Mini died after a week. Factory configured. All it does is beep when you hit power. And this is my second, the first had a different issue. Pfft, screw this. Mac Pro on way.
 
itommyboy said:
Might I suggest retracing your steps and re-doing whatever you did in traced steps. That is to say first thing you should do is take out the new RAM and put the Apple RAM it came with back in. Also try new power cord and swapping the original HDD in. But this to me smells of some bad RAM.

Let us know what you or the apple man find out.
Click to expand...

Here's where I'm at at this point... Definitely checked it with other known working power supplies. Still doesn't power up. So it's not a power supply issue.

OK... So I didn't keep the original RAM but I was able to pick up an original stick from someone on eBay who did the same upgrade 1GB -> 4GB. It cost me $10 so it's worth it when it comes to dealing with Apple.

I'm going to revert everything back to it's original state and bring it into Apple.

So here's some theories. I'm doubting it's bad RAM. If it were bad RAM I think I at least would get some sort of boot up and beep sequence. Same thing with the hard drive. I would at least get the question mark logo if the HD went bad. So my wild guess is that it has to do with my mini dvi to hdmi adapter I used with it. A little while back it semi broke and I put it back together with electrical tape. My guess is it shorted out the motherboard some how. I did have display issues on cpu start up from time to time.

I'll let y'all know what shapes up.

~mullet
 
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