Upgraded Early 2006 Mac Mini able to run Lion?

[paulrbeers]

I have a buddy who has a Core Solo Mac Mini. From an old broken laptop I have a Core2Duo Merom 1.83ghz processor that I would be able to drop in it. It seems that would in essence make the Early 2006 Mac Mini equivalent to a Mid-2007 Mac Mini that can run Lion. I'm just not sure if there is a firmware limitation that would stop it from truly running in 64bit mode. Any one know?

I actually did a swap just like this a couple of years ago and then sold the Mac Mini so I know I can physically do the swap, just not sure if it is worth it. If it can't run Lion Server, then I won't bother.

 

[Intell]

The thing Lion checks is the logicboard ID. This is burned into the board and cannot be changed. However, once the Mac Mini is upgraded to a C2D CPU, you can delete the SupportedPlatforms.plist and it will run without a problem.