Opinions on my 2011 Mac Mini BTO

[indg]

you need to reset the keyboard so that it's no longer paired to any other mac and is discoverable. bluetooth is on by default so it can locate discoverable devices such as keyboard/mouse.


Turn the Apple Wireless Keyboard off.

For an aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard, hold the keyboard's power button for more than 3 seconds.
For a white Apple Wireless Keyboard, turn over the keyboard, and turn the power switch to the off position.

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There is a separate thread on this issue here ...
https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/146/

that's not a link to the thread.

 

[JDLang]

you need to reset the keyboard so that it's no longer paired to any other mac and is discoverable. bluetooth is on by default so it can locate discoverable devices such as keyboard/mouse.


Turn the Apple Wireless Keyboard off.

For an aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard, hold the keyboard's power button for more than 3 seconds.
For a white Apple Wireless Keyboard, turn over the keyboard, and turn the power switch to the off position.

I unpaired it with all other devices. Tried again. Nothing.

 

[Mr.C]

did you try this?
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1569

what mouse? I have found that a cheap mouse like this



http://cgi.ebay.com/Logitech-Wirele...368?pt=Mice&hash=item3f0ce31550#ht_989wt_1086


plug the mouse receiver into the mini and try to get the mini to find the keyboard. what do you have for the mouse?


target has the mouse above on sale for 12 bucks. my new mini works with a wireless keyboard but says f u to an apple mouse. works with the logitech m305 mouse

Neither of those will help. During the setup process the Mini and Lion just refuse to recognise and connect to the Bluetooth keyboard, track pad and mouse. I don't know if this is a bug with Lion or what. I certainly had batteries in my devices and I did turn them on.

On a related note ever since I got the Mini setup and migrated from my old Mini the the keyboard and track pad have had trouble connecting automatically when the Mini is turned on or restarted. It doesn't happen when coming out of sleep mode.

Not to mention they have alpha-numerical names in Bluetooth preferences and these name cannot be changed to the actual device names. I was told by an Apple store genius to re-install the OS or wait for an update to Lion neither of which are helpful.

 

[JDLang]

There is a separate thread on this issue here ...

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/146/

I and a number of others had the same problem. I'm not sure why and I couldn't get it to work. In the end I ended up going to one of my local stores to buy a USB keyboard as I didn't have any lying around at home.

It was annoying having to spend £9.99 on a brand new keyboard but it was the only way I could progress. That said the USB keyboard may come in handy in emergencies along with my Apple USB Mighty Mouse which I also had to use as the Mini refused to connect to my Track Pad or Magic Mouse.

This is annoying. I had a lot of important stuff I needed to do tonight on the mini. Ugh.

 

[Mr.C]

you need to reset the keyboard so that it's no longer paired to any other mac and is discoverable. bluetooth is on by default so it can locate discoverable devices such as keyboard/mouse.


Turn the Apple Wireless Keyboard off.

For an aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard, hold the keyboard's power button for more than 3 seconds.
For a white Apple Wireless Keyboard, turn over the keyboard, and turn the power switch to the off position.

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that's not a link to the thread.

Corrected the link.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1210004/

That's not the issue. I disconnected them and unpaired them from my old Mini and even turned of Bluetooth on it. They still did not get recognised and paired by the new Mini.

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This is annoying. I had a lot of important stuff I needed to do tonight on the mini. Ugh.

I was under the assumption I had a USB keyboard lying around just incase I needed one. As it so happened the only keyboards I had were the old style Windows PC based PS/2 connection keyboards which won't obviously work.

Luckily I started the setup early on a Sunday afternoon and still had time to go to the shops to pick up a keyboard as I had left the Mini in it's initial setup stage not being able to go any further and not wanting to shut it off just incase I messed things up. I do think it's probably best having a USB keyboard and mouse lying around just incase there is a need for them.

 

[indg]

some tips here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15827519

i don't know if this would work, but as a last resort you could fire up your mini in target disk mode, connect to the macbook with firewire and boot the macbook off the mini's startup drive and do the initial setup that way. that would get you past the initial boot up process at least.

 

[philipma1957]

delete

 

[indg]

Not to mention they have alpha-numerical names in Bluetooth preferences and these name cannot be changed to the actual device names. I was told by an Apple store genius to re-install the OS or wait for an update to Lion neither of which are helpful.

select the device and click the gear icon at the bottom and select Rename.

 

[Mr.C]

select the device and click the gear icon at the bottom and select Rename.

I tried that already several times on all three Bluetooth devices and it doesn't work. The names don't change and still remain as the alpha- numeric ones. It's really bizarre having these problems with the Bluetooth and the Bluetooth devices.

I never had these problems on the old Mini running Snow Leopard. I know they are not major issues but it's still annoying and the small "OCD" part of me really wishes I didn't have these problems. I have a few other issues with Lion but I won't mention them here as they are not related.

 

[indg]

I tried that already several times on all three Bluetooth devices and it doesn't work. The names don't change and still remain as the alpha- numeric ones. It's really bizarre having these problems with the Bluetooth and the Bluetooth devices.

i just renamed my apple bt keyboard connected to lion server on mini and it changed it instantly. it had a previous name though, not alpha-numeric ones like yours. have you tried disconnecting and re-pairing?

 

[Vermifuge]

7200 vs 9200

Sorry but these numbers are not right. As you can see in the image below my Mac mini with Dual Core i7 and 8 GB ram is getting about 8300. That puts it within striking distance of the Quad Core i7.

 

[Mr.C]

i just renamed my apple bt keyboard connected to lion server on mini and it changed it instantly. it had a previous name though, not alpha-numeric ones like yours. have you tried disconnecting and re-pairing?

I've tried that too. When I do that and browse for Bluetooth devices they are listed as their actual names but once they connect they get assigned their alpha-numerical names. When I try the rename option under the cog wheel menu the names don't change. I don't really know what else to do. Like I said it's not the end of the world but it would be great to get it resolved.

It is really annoying especially as it's an issue I would expect to have under Windows and not the Mac OS. I might try giving unpairing / disconnecting them, turning Bluetooth off, then on, and then try to pair and connect them again. However I doubt it will work.

 

[indg]

@mr c., i assume you also clicked the "Update Name" under the gear menu. i think that just updates the name in the display. i didn't need to do it to see the change though after renaming.

@Vermifuge, i think philipma posted the 32-bit scroes. 64-bit is over 9660.

generally for geekbench scores:
dc 2.7 i7 is 15% faster than 2.5 i5.
qc 2.0 i7 is 17% faster than dc 2.7 i7 and 34% faster than 2.5 i5.

 

[Mr.C]

@mr c., i assume you also clicked the "Update Name" under the gear menu. i think that just updates the name in the display. i didn't need to do it to see the change though after renaming.

I tried both and neither worked. I think at some point I'm just going to re-install the OS from scratch and then restore from my Time Machine backup. I will probably wait for the next one or two point updates and see if that fixes this and my other issues first.

 

[JDLang]

FINALLY!!!

I have migrated all of my stuff over to the mini. The server application does require a little more know-how when setting up ethernet connections that just 'plug-n-play' from my experience. The DNS settings took a little googling on my part to figure out to get it all set up ignoring the server portion.

The keyboard malfunction was annoying more than anything else.

So far, this little thing flies! My post processed data is around 15 GB. I usually waited between 45 minutes to an hour just to open the files. That has now been reduced to about 7 minutes. Applications are also much faster.

It started out rough, but as more time passes, I am really enjoying Lion and the mini.

 

[Mr.C]

FINALLY!!!

I have migrated all of my stuff over to the mini. The server application does require a little more know-how when setting up ethernet connections that just 'plug-n-play' from my experience. The DNS settings took a little googling on my part to figure out to get it all set up ignoring the server portion.

The keyboard malfunction was annoying more than anything else.

So far, this little thing flies! My post processed data is around 15 GB. I usually waited between 45 minutes to an hour just to open the files. That has now been reduced to about 7 minutes. Applications are also much faster.

It started out rough, but as more time passes, I am really enjoying Lion and the mini.

That's good to hear. Congratulations and enjoy your new Mini.

 

[indg]

@JDLang,
so what did you do to get the wireless kb working? was it able to pair up correctly or did you have to use some workaround?

re ethernet and dns, you don't really need to use the server app for any of that for basic setup. can just use the network preference pane in system preferences. ethernet should be enabled and using dhcp by default. and you can specify the dns servers in the advanced setting under each service, but that should already by taken care of at the router level.

 

[JDLang]

@JDLang,
so what did you do to get the wireless kb working? was it able to pair up correctly or did you have to use some workaround?

re ethernet and dns, you don't really need to use the server app for any of that for basic setup. can just use the network preference pane in system preferences. ethernet should be enabled and using dhcp by default. and you can specify the dns servers in the advanced setting under each service, but that should already by taken care of at the router level.

Fortunately for me, I work in an environment full of other people that either use Unix/Linux or Mac systems only (seriously, there isn't a Windows machine on the entire 3rd floor of out building). So I was able to find a USB keyboard.

The DNS issues came when I started switching around on multiple accounts on my Mini. The DNS settings were changed from "Automatically Detect" to "Manual" somehow. This was causing one user account to not have internet access, while the other one could. Once I switched back to "Automatically Detect" the problem was solve.