Mac Mini 2,1 wi-fi upgrade

[Arkious]

Hey,

I was looking at upgrading the wifi in my mac mini, and i have come across two options that could be viable. Just wondering if anyone knows what works/ what does not.

1) Purchase the mini PCI Express Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n card

2) Purchase the custom Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11ac card

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Bro...Components_InterfaceCards&hash=item2ed8bc9d4f

and fit it into one of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Mini-...Components_InterfaceCards&hash=item418a19819b

Anyone know if either will work? my worry is that i can only run Lion, which is 2012, and that AC card is 2013+. I would guess other than driver issues the AC in an adapter like that should work fine?

Cheers

 

[Cave Man]

Unfortunately, you can't get more than 802.11g (what you have now) without modding your mini for additional antennas. I bought this Edimax USB wifi dongle to go with my 2006 Mac Mini (Core Duo upgraded to Core 2 Duo) and it gets 802.11ac speeds with my Airport Extreme Base Station.

 

[rigormortis]

you can get extra antennas from eBay. its not much of a mod you just stick them somewhere and tape it

maybe the metal case will get in the way and reduce signal

something like this would work i bet

it would just clip onto the new wifi card


http://www.ebay.com/itm/2xWNC-Lapto...-PCI-E-U-FL-for-Intel-7260-3160-/201086699344


still i don't think it would work, but someone has to try this k and find out if it doesn't work , they can report here and then get their money back

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you might need two of those antenna sets if the wifi card wants 3 wires

 

[Intell]

Mac OS X 10.7 cannot work with an AC card. You'd want to get an N card for it. One thing you could do for an additional antenna, is use the antenna that is connected to the Bluetooth board. Simply disconnect it from the Bluetooth board and connect it to the second antenna port on the Airport card. Remember when doing this you will loose Bluetooth.

 

[Arkious]

Thanks for the advice guys.

As for 10.7, I am going to attempt to install Yosemite on this mini using the work arounds. Don't know how feasible it will be but this would give me driver support.

I actually have 2 antenna lying round somewhere so I might be able to put that in. If not I will just ditch the idea all together and stick with G as it's never caused issues so far. I'm putting in an SSD and upgrading the ram from 1gb to 4gb which is costing around £90 all together.

It's only really used for an older version of photo shop on leopard atm but I'm going to install the newest I can and then use vmware to run a server version of leopard.

It's a shame you can't unlock the sata so it runs as 2 instead of 1 speeds.

 

[Intell]

I would suggest not even trying to get 10.10 to run in that machine. It would perform extremely poorly.

 

[paulrbeers]

Thanks for the advice guys.

As for 10.7, I am going to attempt to install Yosemite on this mini using the work arounds. Don't know how feasible it will be but this would give me driver support.

I actually have 2 antenna lying round somewhere so I might be able to put that in. If not I will just ditch the idea all together and stick with G as it's never caused issues so far. I'm putting in an SSD and upgrading the ram from 1gb to 4gb which is costing around £90 all together.

It's only really used for an older version of photo shop on leopard atm but I'm going to install the newest I can and then use vmware to run a server version of leopard.

It's a shame you can't unlock the sata so it runs as 2 instead of 1 speeds.

I upgraded one of my 2006 Mini's to an N card. I bought a couple super cheap antennas off ebay and I just ran the wire out of the back thru the vent holes in the Mini. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

 

[Arkious]

I would suggest not even trying to get 10.10 to run in that machine. It would perform extremely poorly.

I would switch off all the pretty graphics, and it's not for gaming, just to update the iphone and use for photoshop as leopard doesn't allow iPhone updates anymore.

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I upgraded one of my 2006 Mini's to an N card. I bought a couple super cheap antennas off ebay and I just ran the wire out of the back thru the vent holes in the Mini. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

Which N card did you use? Just an apple one?

 

[Intell]

It is very unlikely you'll have any graphics at all on that machine as they are very unstable with 10.10 and difficult to even get to that point.

 

[paulrbeers]

I would switch off all the pretty graphics, and it's not for gaming, just to update the iphone and use for photoshop as leopard doesn't allow iPhone updates anymore.

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Which N card did you use? Just an apple one?

I bought one from eBay that was guaranteed to be apple compatible. No idea what it was but it worked. Probably still in that mini put it has been shelved so no idea.

 

[Arkious]

Might try for mountain lion then

And ok thanks, I might have a go but going to wait for the other stuff to turn up first