Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Please Help :( Thermal sensor broken
- Thread starter ttiftik
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You can put it back with a dab of glue people have a 90% success rate. Or you strip the sensor cable and solder it onto the logic board directly
Thank you for help. Which glue i prefer?
Because i m frightening the glue may damage the logic board (melt etc.)
No, don't use glue. Do a web search for electronic repair in your area. Phone the places and ask them if they can solder small electrical parts. If the can, take the computer to them.
I broke something similar on my MacBook Pro and found a repair shop that did it for $50. Worth every penny.
Folks, here's yet one more post from someone who thought they could do surgery on the Mini, went inside, and.... oops!
Why not just connect a USB3 or thunderbolt drive to one of the ports instead? Could have caused this poster a lot less trouble...
Why not just connect a USB3 or thunderbolt drive to one of the ports instead? Could have caused this poster a lot less trouble...
Just regular superglue. You need the smallest dab away from the two contacts then just apply firm pressure.
You could put it in place and then reflow the board but I'll let you google that as not everyone is comfortable with baking products.
Helpful
Not to cast negative light on the OP, but SSD is major surgery that's fraught with risk. It should be emphasized that while memory upgrade (2012 model) by the user is supported, anything else is not and will invalidate the warranty.
You'll also always wonder if it was something you did during surgery whenever you run into unexpected behavior in the future.
Putting in a SSD in a 2012 mini is not major surgery. Major surgery is putting in a 256gb blade SSD and a 1TB HDD in a 2012 iMac 27. THAT'S surgery. In all honesty if you have no mechanical skills whatsoever or just ham-fisted, then pay someone else to do it. But looking at the OP's pictures, that damage is easily repairable with someone who's skilled with a soldering iron.
Maybe not for you as a techie/geek, but it's not for the typical user who also might not want to invalidate the warranty. There's a significant amount of disassembly involved where a contact or connection can be easily broken. Fixing broken parts with a soldering iron is not where most people want to find themselves,
Forget it. Some of us have a lot of stuff to plug into the insufficient number of ports on a Mac mini. In my case ThunderBay 4, Apple keyboard, iPhone dock, EyeTV, USB backup drives, FW Alt Time Machine drive, monitor to HDMI and Ethernet. No more ports left!
I did the exact same thing the very first day, I bought a 2010 MacMini off Craigslist trying to install a SSD. I had to buy a whole new logic board -- found one no too expensive ~$200 off ebay tho.
Before you give up or spend $$$ on a new logic board, try to reflow the solder.
Assuming you still have the connector, you will need to glue it to the logic board in exactly the same spot. Just use a tiny dab of super glue, a really tiny dab. This takes care of the mechanical connection.
Next, just see if it works-the metal contacts should now be touching, and should work. A more reliable connection would be to get a heat gun (Harbor Freight is your friend, if in the US) and reflow the solder. I'm not going to go into that, but read up on ifixit.com about repairing the Xbox 360 red ring of death-they have detailed information about how to reflow solder. We're just re-melting those tiny pads of solder under the connector. I'll admit this is tight quarters, but worth a shot if your only other option is trashing the board. Which if you do please PM me, I'll buy it.
The other suggestion above about a soldering iron to reflow the solder is a good one too.
Best of luck.
Bad Idea...
Look at all the little plastic bits around the sensor port... Those will all melt along with the connector he's trying to reflow as the melting point of solder is much higher than the plastic for the connectors. Sheesh, is there anyone left in your area that has any soldering skills?! The benefits of the throwaway generation I guess.