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Opened my new Mac Mini - some info

TechViking said:
Run dual 2560x1600 screens at the same time? Really I say? And how would one connect the second one since 2560x1600 requires the mini DP to dual link dvi adapter, and there is only one mini DP port?

Dont always believe what Apple tells you... I called yesterday and asked about 2560x1600 support, the rep told me the mini supported it out of the box and that I would not need any extra adapter, and finished with "would you like me to place that order for you now"?

I then asked if that was really true, mentioned the dual link adapter etc, he then excused himself to talk to a "technician". When he returned he confirmed that the extra $99 adapter was indeed needed.
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Use the mini dvi port for the second 2560*1600 screen.. The first 2560*1600 screen uses mini display port...


Sorry that I didn't take a copy of the online chat for posting here.. :eek:
 
I'm using the 24" LED ACD with my mac mini, now I'm thinking about buying a cheap 20"-24" screen as the second screen.
 
This may be a dumb question, but it will be my first Mini.

Which button to push to start up the Mini after installing the NEW hard drive so I can reinstall OS X?
 
Yeah, this thread has become useless...


DjAmTraX said:
This may be a dumb question, but it will be my first Mini.

Which button to push to start up the Mini after installing the NEW hard drive so I can reinstall OS X?
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The power button? In the back? I don't even know of any other buttons on the Mac Mini.
 
twoodcc said:
i think you need to check out ifixit.com
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There is a good video at OWC (macsales.com) web site... in the Tech tab I believe. It is a video for the last model... but I think it is still the same case. It is a pretty good vid and shows you what to do to swap out the memory and hard drive.
 
Mac Mini is probably the best mac ever made, imo. I didn't know the CPU was replacable on the previous model. Luckly I bought one a year ago.

When I bought a Mac Mini I had to sufffer with the pathetic 80GB HD, which was sort of ironic that my iPod was 160GB. Anyway one of the first things I did was replace the internal hard drive with a 320GB and partition equally so I could install XP. Everything worked fast, even for intensive 3D modelling, and most PC games worked great.

Slightly annoying now not to have a SuperDrive but I still love it. Since then I've increased the Mac partion and replaced XP with Windows 7 and have had no problems.

One thing you should be every careful with when opening your Mac Mini is not to touch the wifi antenna, it could impair your signal like what happened with mine, though I think its improving now.

This new Mac mini looks awesome. FW800, 5 USBs, new display connectors, and the best selling feature is the new NVIDIA graphics card instead of Intel GMA... not the best for 3D modelling.
 
Hard Drive Specifics?

anyone know what cache the Apple Mac Mini hard drives have?

I am trying to decide whether to purchase through Apple with the 250GB drive or upgrade myself to a 7200rpm 500GB 16mb cache drive through Newegg. Newegg offers drives with either 8mb or 16mb of cache and I am wondering what comes from Apple.

thanks.
 
inVaUSA said:
anyone know what cache the Apple Mac Mini hard drives have?

I am trying to decide whether to purchase through Apple with the 250GB drive or upgrade myself to a 7200rpm 500GB 16mb cache drive through Newegg. Newegg offers drives with either 8mb or 16mb of cache and I am wondering what comes from Apple.

thanks.
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All 5400 RPM drives have 8MB cache (or almost all). The 7200 RPM 250GB and up HDDs have 16MB cache (or at least a vast majority). Buy your own unless you don't want to open the thing up or want 7200 RPM. Though you might be waiting a while for the 7k500 Seagate as it looks like they don't even have it listed anymore.

The Hitachi 7k320 is always a great price at $59.98 after $20 MIR, The Seagate 5k500 and the Samsung Spinpoint M6 5k500 are both $94.99.
 
tobyg said:
It came with 1GB. I bought a 4GB kit. Confirmed just putting a single 2GB in (and removing the stock 1GB chip), it bumped up to 256MB VRAM. But then I put the other 2GB chip in to do more tests, and of course even with 4GB it's 256MB VRAM.

Yes, if you've read about this all day, its 128MB VRAM which is shared with your systems main ram when you only have 1GB of RAM. 2GB or greater, the system automatically takes 256MB of that for VRAM.
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Let me get this straight, when you compare the two mini's on apple's website and it says under graphics that the 599 model has 128 shared and 799 model has 256 shared sdram it's only because the 799 model has 2gb of ram...isn't that misleading? what if i get the 799 model and put in 4gb of ram, vram will still be 256, correct? I really think new switchers will get screwed on this thinking that it's a physical memory difference not a ram dependent issue. Heck, that's what I though initially so that's why I'm asking..

So really just buy the 599 and add your own ram which will give you the same vram as the 799 model and everything else is the same (excluding the hdd)
 
ashok77 said:
Let me get this straight, when you compare the two mini's on apple's website and it says under graphics that the 599 model has 128 shared and 799 model has 256 shared sdram it's only because the 799 model has 2gb of ram...isn't that misleading? what if i get the 799 model and put in 4gb of ram, vram will still be 256, correct? I really think new switchers will get screwed on this thinking that it's a physical memory difference not a ram dependent issue. Heck, that's what I though initially so that's why I'm asking..

So really just buy the 599 and add your own ram which will give you the same vram as the 799 model and everything else is the same (excluding the hdd)
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Correct. Increase RAM to 2GB by adding one 1GB DIMM and you get 256MB VRAM. Increase to 4GB, you still get 256MB VRAM.
 
tobyg said:
The CPU is not socketed. It can not be changed.

There is a little, what appears to be, temperature sensor on the front of the hard drive. If you change your hard drive, you'll have to remove this and stick it on the new hard drive. It's just stuck on with some double sided tape.

Also confirmed - upgrade from 1GB to 2GB and I now get 256MB VRAM.

3DMark2006 v1.10 scores:

Mac Mini 2.0ghz 1GB RAM - Single 1GB DIMM (128MB VRAM)
3DMarks : 1502
SM2.0 : 525
HDR/SM3.0 Score : 551
CPU Score : 1772

Mac Mini 2.0ghz 4GB RAM - 2x2GB DIMMS (256MB VRAM)
3DMarks : 1932
SM2.0 : 691
HDR/SM3.0 Score : 712
CPU Score : 1816
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Thanks, ordered the 1GB one and 4 GB of Ram without the apple Tax so I can have the 256MB Vram.
 
ashok77 said:
Let me get this straight, when you compare the two mini's on apple's website and it says under graphics that the 599 model has 128 shared and 799 model has 256 shared sdram it's only because the 799 model has 2gb of ram...isn't that misleading? what if i get the 799 model and put in 4gb of ram, vram will still be 256, correct? I really think new switchers will get screwed on this thinking that it's a physical memory difference not a ram dependent issue. Heck, that's what I though initially so that's why I'm asking..

So really just buy the 599 and add your own ram which will give you the same vram as the 799 model and everything else is the same (excluding the hdd)
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its called marketing

all companies are guilty of it

also, its the truth, they aren't lying, and if you ask the question to their engineers they tell the truth, so I wouldn't sweat it

p.s. people that are buying stock and not self upgrading probably have no idea what vram is and most likely never even catch that in the specs

just a thought or 2 :)
 
Ordered 4GB RAM from OWC. Now I just need a Mini. :D

I went to the S.F. downtown Apple store three times today. Each time they tried to sell me the old one since they didn't have the new.
 
HHarm said:
Any reason a 80Gb Intel X-25-M wouldn't work on a mini?
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It would work but I wouldnt buy an intel x25-m as of now.

There is a problem with writes that depreciate over time where it slows down to a crawl even much slower than a 5400rpm hdd in writes after prolonged use.
 
So iFixit is opening the mini now... and i'm glad my mini isn't the only one that had this problem..

http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/Faqmviyjf1VPHArN.large

There is a little plastic tab that is supposed to hold each of the left side wireless antennas in place. iFixit's plastic piece is broken too. Mine snapped off. It's just a tiny little piece, but oh well. See right below his thumb, it's crooked and ready to snap off as mine did.

Just a FYI for other people opening their mini's.
 
tobyg said:
So iFixit is opening the mini now... and i'm glad my mini isn't the only one that had this problem..

http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/Faqmviyjf1VPHArN.large

There is a little plastic tab that is supposed to hold each of the left side wireless antennas in place. iFixit's plastic piece is broken too. Mine snapped off. It's just a tiny little piece, but oh well. See right below his thumb, it's crooked and ready to snap off as mine did.

Just a FYI for other people opening their mini's.
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could that be so that apple can tell if you open it or not?? or can you open it without breaking it?
 
jjahshik32 said:
Most people will be using the mac mini for day to day things where RAM and faster HDD comes much more handy. Also playing 1080p movies and such depends more so on the gpu card itself and the nvidia 9400m gt card handles it just fine. My above mentioning of all that activity, I can do it all without any slowdowns and my cpu usage shows only at 75% (jumps around from 60%-75%)
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Not if you're using a 3rd party app like plex/boxee, which uses the CPU for video decoding (I think only quicktime has GPU acceleration for video)? 1.83GHz minis were borderline for 1080p video, sometimes capping at 200% and skipping frames. 2.0GHz is ok, but some may like the headroom of an extra .26GHz - may let you get away with having widgets on the dashboard/more plugins etc.

When snow leopard comes out with CUDA that might improve, but its an unknown at this stage.
 
mrklaw said:
Not if you're using a 3rd party app like plex/boxee, which uses the CPU for video decoding (I think only quicktime has GPU acceleration for video)? 1.83GHz minis were borderline for 1080p video, sometimes capping at 200% and skipping frames. 2.0GHz is ok, but some may like the headroom of an extra .26GHz - may let you get away with having widgets on the dashboard/more plugins etc.

When snow leopard comes out with CUDA that might improve, but its an unknown at this stage.
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the OLD mac mini 2.0GHz could play 1080p just fine, no skipping at all. dont know what your talking about.

the new mac mini is awsome. didnt know that the new QT helped out playing BR movies btw.. have to check that out.
 
Also, just because they are 2.0 v 2.0 it's not apples to apples. The old chip was using a 667 bus, whereas the new chip is running a 1066 bus - as is the DDR3 ram (versus the old DDR2).
 
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