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2011 Mini Owners: Elevate your mini!
- Thread starter KyleAwesome
- Start date
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well the mini is tiny and can be placed in a quiet area. i do agree that at 2 feet from your ears the 2011 mini is not silent. I just finished a pc build for about 1.1k it is silent but it is effing big.
this case
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FEYKTI...e=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B005FEYKTI
these fans
http://www.amazon.com/Coolink-120mm...3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330818201&sr=1-3
this graphics card
https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-6670ULT
an ssd an intel i2500k cpu and a good mother board
equals a silent machine .
really sad that a mac pro 2010 quad is not as good as this machine for running windows and it cost 2.5k.
my home was 100 % mac until last spring.
I now have both pc tower and a pc laptop and plus 4 minis.
I got rid of my mac pro and my iMac to go this route.
the 6 computers are less then the mac pro and the iMac in cost.plus I have the best of both worlds.
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The fact remains, a processor running at 95*C for hours on end will almost never last as long as the same part running at 60*C. It's pretty basic thermodynamics.
I don't judge anyone for not taking similar precautions, but hating on someone for going the next level to protect a computer that is pricey, almost completely non-user repairable, and runs 5*C short of automatically shutting off for long periods of time is silly.
The way I see it, this would be pretty similar to a person who changes their oil every 3000 miles telling someone who changes it every 2000 that they are over-worrying. Will it make the car last longer? Who knows. Does an engine run better with cleaner oil? Yes.
Interested to know what you have tried. Have you tried decoupling with rubber feet? I've had my Mini i7 server for three weeks and I've heard the fan once when I started playing with Google Earth. It was loud. I thought my MDD G4 (windtunnel) was loud. Granted, my copys of Pro Tools 10 and Media Composer 6 haven't arrived yet. If its loud while I'm doing my production work I'm thinking I'll have to mount it under my workstation desk somehow.
I don't think you can build any pc faster or better hardware then top of the line iMac... That screen is 1000, plus a 340 dollar processor and 300-400 graphics card, plus some sweet hardware. The iMac spec out nice is like 2300. No way you can beat that in pc with equivalent hardware...plus the slim form factor as well with nice keyboard and mouse that doesn't require a stupid bluetooth dongle. The Mac pro, that I think you can easily beat in price in pc form. Price wise!!! You might just make it under if you find rebates but it not over priced by any means....
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It's funny I found this thread as I was always think go mouting feet on my mini, I run a fan on my mini because its in a very close in space along with my ps3 and 50 inch plasma, that plasama makes some heat so I also have fans running behind that as well. After my wife burned up my ps3 I put fans behind everything in the wall unit. My temps for the Mac mini server while rendering video and surfing the web 128f,at idle it's about 98-103f but like I said I have. A fan blowing right on the mini when ever I use it.
matching the screen is costly.
form factor is not possible to match.
A good quality screen is 800.
a quiet quality case is 100.
a quiet quality psu is 125.
the 2700k cpu is 350.
graphics is 400.
a quality mobo is 200.
an hdd is 125.
an ssd is 300.
16gb ram is 100.
keyboard/ mouse is 100.
blu-ray is 75
this is 2675. it would run better (running windows 7) then the imac and it could be upgraded. still you need to place that big case somewhere.
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Me and my brother inlay had a bet, he likes custom pc's because he games, and he says that all apple products are over priced then custom built pc's. So I made a bet with him that if he could come within 100 dollars of the IMac with similar hardware I'd pay him 100. He comes back with. Price of 1999 using the apple screen as well. But I start looking at the hardware he's got a 128 bit ddr3 graphics card...not ddr5 256 bit. Cheap keyboard and mouse...not built in Bluetooth. Not to mention no thunderbolt. And the case is huge
As like you said. The only thing I see being better in the pc as you stated is the graphics card being it wouldn't use a mobile one.
As like you said. The only thing I see being better in the pc as you stated is the graphics card being it wouldn't use a mobile one.
Unless you are lucky and buy a 24" Dell anti-glare e-IPS new for 150 USD (mispriced on Dell website). For non-professional close enough to an IPS screen. Sold the old 21.5" LG screen off for 100 USD.
Form factor of the iMac is already being matched by some models and is not unique to Apple.
Wonder how the new HP Z1 workstation will price out with a Xeon processor. Even if slightly more expensive I like the idea of being self upgradable.
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/workstations/z1_features.html
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For some of us it is not the price yet it is the reliability of running something 24/5 (yes five) and quiet as not to be distracted by noise.
"Unless you are lucky and buy a 24" Dell anti-glare e-IPS new for 150 USD (mispriced on Dell website). For non-professional close enough to an IPS screen. Sold the old 21.5" LG screen off for 100 USD."
Got a URL for that one?
If so, thanks in advance!
Got a URL for that one?
If so, thanks in advance!
At times on-line vendors make this mistake - I happened to browse the Dell website and did a search and found it. It was not in the usual location and I ordered one on a Sat morning at 3 AM. At lunchtime the link was pulled, about a dozen of us were lucky.
It is not the first time - years ago I got a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p on special for half price. Actually sometimes just after the start of the school year Lenovo has got specials - the other day they had a special here in New Zealand some high end Thinkpad T??? models for about 25% of the usual price - once again a mispricing (currency not converted properly, ratio the wrong way round). That's what you get when you outsource to third world countries. Have also ordered camera's for $10.- where the decimal had been entered in the wrong spot. Similarly I have bought books at Amazon for $ 0.87.
just put my sticky balls on the bottom of the mac mini... i can honestly say i think it is the best solution and best looking. they do not get in the way, and elevate it well enough to allow air flow. Plus they are really soft and do not move, also they absorb everything!
Thanks for getting this thread back on track.......gave me a good laugh reading your first few words too!
**** man that's sad!
a few years ago Macs were always THE computer to get for musicians.
I just don't get why the thermal design is so poor. It's okay for what the Mini is - a computer with a 85 watt power supply. But with some engineering work, shouldn't it be possible using a 105W power supply and still get the temperature under 80 °C under load with reasonable noise?
However, I won't lift my future Mini. I can't imagine it's louder than a 15" MacBook Pro under load, so it hopefully won't bother me too much.
However, I won't lift my future Mini. I can't imagine it's louder than a 15" MacBook Pro under load, so it hopefully won't bother me too much.
Here is my setup.
The thing on top of the mini is the 500gb hard drive I got from jimmy ying here. I use it for time machine. And the enclosure is from geeks.com from ebay. 13 dollars and 50 cents including shipping. Its cheap plastic but does the job. It holds upto 650gb serial ata laptop hard drive on the left and laptop size cd rom drive on the right.
The fan clip broke but the actual fan is fine and works well. I just went to lowes or home depot (can't remember) and got the metal things with screws on the side to fix the broken clip.
The hard drive is sitting on top just because I ran out of space and needed place to put my fan. But it never gets hot.
The fan blowing into the mini keeps my temps down.
The thing on top of the mini is the 500gb hard drive I got from jimmy ying here. I use it for time machine. And the enclosure is from geeks.com from ebay. 13 dollars and 50 cents including shipping. Its cheap plastic but does the job. It holds upto 650gb serial ata laptop hard drive on the left and laptop size cd rom drive on the right.
The fan clip broke but the actual fan is fine and works well. I just went to lowes or home depot (can't remember) and got the metal things with screws on the side to fix the broken clip.
The hard drive is sitting on top just because I ran out of space and needed place to put my fan. But it never gets hot.
The fan blowing into the mini keeps my temps down.
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Can i just ask what is the acceptable temperature level for mac mini and what shouldnt it exceed? Because i keep having kernel panics on my machine, and the only thing i use it for it plex htpc stuff, apple doesnt seem to know whats causing it didnt now if it could be temperature?
more likely the ram
http://kelleycomputing.net/rember/
this is a free program to test your macs ram.
download it and run it use all ram and 2 passes when it asks.
as for temps under 90c for long runs is good.
if you have a 2011 or 2010 machine turn it upside down take the black plate off and boot. make sure the fan moves. this has happened to some the fan connection is loose and the fan does not move.
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Ok so downloaded and ran on my macbook, no probs, on my mac mini i got this log...
Memtest version 4.22 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2004 Charles Cazabon
Copyright (C) 2004-2008 Tony Scaminaci (Macintosh port)
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 only
Mac OS X 10.8 (12A269) running in multiuser mode
Memory Page Size: 4096
System has 4 Intel core(s) with SSE
Requested memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes)
Available memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes)
Allocated memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes) at local address 0x0000000101000000
Attempting memory lock... locked successfully
Partitioning memory into 2 comparison buffers...
Buffer A: 2624MB (2751553536 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000101000000
Buffer B: 2624MB (2751553536 bytes) starts at local address 0x00000001a5016000
Running 2 test sequences... (CTRL-C to quit)
Test sequence 1 of 2:
Running tests on full 5248MB region...
Stuck Address : setting 1 of 16 ok
Linear PRN : setting 1 of 16 ok
Running comparison tests using 2624MB buffers...
Random Value : \ ok
Compare XOR : ok
Compare SUB : ok
Compare MUL : ok
Compare DIV : ok
Compare OR : ok
Compare AND : ok
Sequential Increment: ok
Solid Bits : setting 1 of 64
FAILURE! Data mismatch at local BUFA address 0x000000016005e998, BUFB address 0x0000000204074998
BUFA Data: 0xffffffffffffffff, BUFB Data: 0xfffffdffffffffff
Block Sequential : setting 1 of 256
whatever this means???
Memtest version 4.22 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2004 Charles Cazabon
Copyright (C) 2004-2008 Tony Scaminaci (Macintosh port)
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 only
Mac OS X 10.8 (12A269) running in multiuser mode
Memory Page Size: 4096
System has 4 Intel core(s) with SSE
Requested memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes)
Available memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes)
Allocated memory: 5248MB (5503107072 bytes) at local address 0x0000000101000000
Attempting memory lock... locked successfully
Partitioning memory into 2 comparison buffers...
Buffer A: 2624MB (2751553536 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000101000000
Buffer B: 2624MB (2751553536 bytes) starts at local address 0x00000001a5016000
Running 2 test sequences... (CTRL-C to quit)
Test sequence 1 of 2:
Running tests on full 5248MB region...
Stuck Address : setting 1 of 16 ok
Linear PRN : setting 1 of 16 ok
Running comparison tests using 2624MB buffers...
Random Value : \ ok
Compare XOR : ok
Compare SUB : ok
Compare MUL : ok
Compare DIV : ok
Compare OR : ok
Compare AND : ok
Sequential Increment: ok
Solid Bits : setting 1 of 64
FAILURE! Data mismatch at local BUFA address 0x000000016005e998, BUFB address 0x0000000204074998
BUFA Data: 0xffffffffffffffff, BUFB Data: 0xfffffdffffffffff
Block Sequential : setting 1 of 256
whatever this means???
Looks like a bad stick of memory, take one out and rerun the test, if it fails then you know it's that one, if not then put that one in and take the other out and test again.
yes one good one bad is very common. I upgrade minis as a small ebay business. I have done a few hundred. it is common enough that it was my first guess for your problem.
the worse case is the sticks are good and one slot is bad. that is rare.