Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

legittree

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 10, 2020
2
0
I just got an old used mid 2011 mac mini. I popped it open to take a look around and accidentally ended up ripping off the surface mounted fan connector.

Ive been in my 2013 macbook pro and replaced a few parts and given it some upgrades, so I didnt think I would mess up so fast haha

Luckily, my day job requires a lot of eyelet soldering so I've got the soldering chops, but I've never done surface mount. I got the connector back on the board and the fan starts when I boot up the machine, but at full speed.

Ive read about the thermal sensor thats connected to the hard drive, but it seems the model I have uses information from the hard drive connection itself, from what I understand.

So my question: what regulates the fan, and could it be that one of the solder joints works to pass information about regulating the fan and that joint isnt perfect? Really any information I can get would help greatly. I plan on using this machine for a while as my home computer and giving it RAM and hard drive upgrades, but if I can't clock down the fan im much less inclined to focus on improving this computer.

EDIT: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-mini-2011-fan-full-speed-grrr.2005485/ this thread has the same issue, and hardwiring the component looks much easier, but I’d like to avoid that, specially because It didnt seem to work for him
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.