[CS-FSLUG] How to Upgrade a Mac Mini's CPU (Hey, Nathan take a look!)

[Nathan T.]

I've seen something like this before, except it was for going from a  
Core Solo to a Core Duo.

As much as I might like to have a faster Mini, I'm not comfortable  
working in the guts of a computer that was designed to keep me out.  
Apple just got lucky that I finally got curious enough to buy a Mac,  
I would never have bought it otherwise just like I'll never buy a  
brand name PC that won't take any off-the-shelf hardware and  
facilitate the installation. If I thought it would work out ok, I'd  
rather buy a copy of OS X by itself and then find myself a patched OS  
X CD off The Pirate Bay so I can install it on a home built PC rather  
than buy another piece of Apple hardware. I don't know that I'll be  
getting another Mac until I either fill up the hard drive on this one  
or the hardware dies after a few years, and my reasoning is that  
after years of being able to simply open a PC and stick in a new hard  
drive, video card, or RAM I don't want to be stuck with a platform  
that will either only take one hard drive and make that and the ram  
harder to get to, or one that does facilitate all that just like a  
workstation PC, but costs twice what my working budget for a new  
computer is.

I keep hoping someone at Apple will see the light and put out a mini- 
tower computer, I'm picturing a shorter version of the Mac Pro with a  
proper PCI-E slot or video card, a few PCI or PCI-E 1x slots  
(depending on which is used more on macs), accessible RAM slots and  
hard drive bays, tool-less entry and component addition/removal, and  
at 60% or less of the cost of a Mac Pro. I'm not asking to be able to  
buy the motherboards and processors myself, Apple can still make a  
premium on mostly complete systems and then allow me to add in the  
hardware I want with ease. Hey, even a headless version of the iMac  
that made it easy to get to the RAM, replace the one optical drive  
(even if the replacement has to come from Apple), and had an easy to  
access hard drive bay with room for a second would be enough to keep  
me happy.

If Apple designed computers the way I wanted them to, I'd be  
replacing my optical drive with one that can burn DVDs, adding a PCI  
card to get extra USB ports, adding in a proper video card, doubling  
the ram again, replacing the hard drive with a bigger one, and adding  
in a second hard drive.


On 8-Feb-07, at 10:27 AM, Timothy Butler wrote:

> How to upgrade a Mac Mini's cpu:
>
> http://www.hardmac.com/articles/68/
>
> 	-Tim
>
>
>
>
> ---
> Timothy R. Butler | "Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good
> Editor, OfB.biz   | an accident;  good is so  good, that  we feel
> tbutler at ofb.biz   | certain that evil could be explained."
> timothybutler.us  |                           -- G. K. Chesterton
>
>
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