Whether it's "worth it" or not depends on what you want to do with the thing. I'm in the midst right now of giving my 2006 Mac Mini a fourth lease on life. It started out as my main machine, but it struggled too much with the games I wanted to play. Then it was an HTPC for a time, but it was too loud (mostly its optical drive). After replacing it with a PC with no moving parts, I repurposed the Mini as a file server. That was the perfect role for it, and it performed that task for 13 years! Over time, USB 2 became too painfully slow, though, so it sat in a closet for the last three years. Now I'm hoping to turn it into a headless MIDI emulator for my old DOS gaming systems (emulating Roland MT-32, etc..) Granted I could get an old thin client to do this, but there's nothing special about them. Using a 17-year-old Mac as a MIDI emulator is just more interesting.
I had managed to upgrade my Mac mini to a C2D T7400 and 4GB of RAM, seems like all of it is accessible by macOS. Runs Lion reasonably well, and I actually got Mountain Lion and Mavericks running too, but either has their own set of issues, namely that no apps like iMessage or FaceTime would work on either, and sleep mode doesn't work on Mavericks.
One of these is probably comparable to a Raspberry Pi in terms of what the hardware is capable of. It seems like a fun weekend project to take one of these and put Linux on it and upgrade it.
I always have used it as an HTPC, upgraded it a few years back with 4 GB RAM and SSD. Didn't know cpu could be upgraded also. Now it's running Linux Mint 21.1 quite ok and thinking of making it a web server also.
I was thinking about buying this one, but eventually haven't found any real usage for it. I guess I'll pass. The case is really nice though. Might be a good shell for Raspberry Pi or something :)
I just bought a 2006 Mac Mini so I could play my favorite games again like Diablo 2, Civilization 3 Complete ( I hated the upgrades ) and other games. I am afraid to upgrade the browser for fear I wont be able to play my games. It has 10.6 on it and I cannot get on the web. Any help you can give me would be appreciated. I will be adding a 1 tb ssd to it and maybe memory and a new cpu ( gpu ? I always get them confused. I am 71 and used to KNOW this stuff but now I forget stuff. ). Thanks for posting the video and I subscribed.
Nice video. This was the first mac I ever owned back in the day and I did a similar upgrade to the CPU and managed to get Mavericks on it IIRC. Terrible graphics even at the time though! Wonder if the Geekbench results issues were down to an outdated browser?
Could be! I did a quick scan around to see if I could get an updated browser as well, but in the end, I am pretty sure the Geekbench results would tell us what we already know - the GPU is killing the performance. It was a stark difference vs the iMac, and the GPU in that thing isn't even good!
I used the t7200 because it was diiirt cheap to test out. If you want to venture down this path be sure you don't spend too much on the CPU, since the GPU is the bottleneck ;)
They are OK as a Mac OS X Tiger system. I had one in 2006 but it died some years ago, I've just bought a new unit to "play" with OS X Tiger with old intel and PPC apps.
They can be, but that 32bit EFI makes installing Linux just... a bit unfriendly. Most of the online guides also fall back to 'burn a CD' which is sad, because most new distros won't fit on a CD, or in my case, I don't have any burnable CDs or a CD burner even! So, the Raspberry PI wins the day here as well.
I have a 2006 model Mac mini that I upgraded the HDD to SSD and and it has 2gb of ram. I installed Steam on it and my kid uses it for playing "edu-tainment games". We've had no problems with any of the issues you mention...but then I also got rid of apple OS and installed windows 7 on it. I think THAT would be what's holding yours back. I'm most likely going to benchmark the current system as-is and then do the 2.33ghz processor upgrade and re-test. I'll let you know what the results are if you're interested.
Whether it's "worth it" or not depends on what you want to do with the thing. I'm in the midst right now of giving my 2006 Mac Mini a fourth lease on life. It started out as my main machine, but it struggled too much with the games I wanted to play. Then it was an HTPC for a time, but it was too loud (mostly its optical drive). After replacing it with a PC with no moving parts, I repurposed the Mini as a file server. That was the perfect role for it, and it performed that task for 13 years! Over time, USB 2 became too painfully slow, though, so it sat in a closet for the last three years. Now I'm hoping to turn it into a headless MIDI emulator for my old DOS gaming systems (emulating Roland MT-32, etc..) Granted I could get an old thin client to do this, but there's nothing special about them. Using a 17-year-old Mac as a MIDI emulator is just more interesting.
I have a strong desire to get one of those Minis, get a big SSD, install Snow Leopard and use it to sync with my iPod classic.
Spin that iPod wheel!
That's what I use mine for, literally
I had managed to upgrade my Mac mini to a C2D T7400 and 4GB of RAM, seems like all of it is accessible by macOS. Runs Lion reasonably well, and I actually got Mountain Lion and Mavericks running too, but either has their own set of issues, namely that no apps like iMessage or FaceTime would work on either, and sleep mode doesn't work on Mavericks.
One of these is probably comparable to a Raspberry Pi in terms of what the hardware is capable of. It seems like a fun weekend project to take one of these and put Linux on it and upgrade it.
I always have used it as an HTPC, upgraded it a few years back with 4 GB RAM and SSD. Didn't know cpu could be upgraded also. Now it's running Linux Mint 21.1 quite ok and thinking of making it a web server also.
I was thinking about buying this one, but eventually haven't found any real usage for it. I guess I'll pass.
The case is really nice though. Might be a good shell for Raspberry Pi or something :)
I just bought a 2006 Mac Mini so I could play my favorite games again like Diablo 2, Civilization 3 Complete ( I hated the upgrades ) and other games.
I am afraid to upgrade the browser for fear I wont be able to play my games.
It has 10.6 on it and I cannot get on the web.
Any help you can give me would be appreciated.
I will be adding a 1 tb ssd to it and maybe memory and a new cpu ( gpu ? I always get them confused. I am 71 and used to KNOW this stuff but now I forget stuff. ).
Thanks for posting the video and I subscribed.
Nice video. This was the first mac I ever owned back in the day and I did a similar upgrade to the CPU and managed to get Mavericks on it IIRC. Terrible graphics even at the time though! Wonder if the Geekbench results issues were down to an outdated browser?
Could be! I did a quick scan around to see if I could get an updated browser as well, but in the end, I am pretty sure the Geekbench results would tell us what we already know - the GPU is killing the performance. It was a stark difference vs the iMac, and the GPU in that thing isn't even good!
Great video and a fine computer
I did the CPU upgrade back when the Core 2 Duo first came out. That MacMini is still dog slow.
Yeah, the end is here for the core 2. I tried Linux on an old laptop with a core2 and it’s “ok” but that’s about as good as it gets.
I’ll do the same soon. What CPU did you use exactly? I will upgrade the core duo with a Core 2 Duo T7600, which is the fastest CPU that will work
I used the t7200 because it was diiirt cheap to test out. If you want to venture down this path be sure you don't spend too much on the CPU, since the GPU is the bottleneck ;)
My suggestion: put 10.7 server on it, and it can function maybe as a Timemachine, a VPN server, etc.
Not a bad idea, but I already have a pi4 running as all those things! Probably the focus of my next video, getting a pi4 as a NAS for ~3-4 watts.
what about a mac mini 2008 core 2 duo 8 gb ram with 128gb ssd?
They are OK as a Mac OS X Tiger system. I had one in 2006 but it died some years ago, I've just bought a new unit to "play" with OS X Tiger with old intel and PPC apps.
How did you do to install the mac os in the SSD because my mac mini A1176 2007 was unable to boot
Good question. I ran into the same problem. I tried cloning the 10.6.8 OS X onto a SATA3 128 GB GoodRAM SSD & the OS didn't boot st all... 🤔😕😞
What SSDs are compatible ? Because I tried cloning the 10.6.8 OS X onto a SATA3 128 GB GoodRAM SSD & the OS didn't boot. 🤔😕😞
i think its good for a basic windows/linux machine
They can be, but that 32bit EFI makes installing Linux just... a bit unfriendly. Most of the online guides also fall back to 'burn a CD' which is sad, because most new distros won't fit on a CD, or in my case, I don't have any burnable CDs or a CD burner even! So, the Raspberry PI wins the day here as well.
I have a 2006 model Mac mini that I upgraded the HDD to SSD and and it has 2gb of ram. I installed Steam on it and my kid uses it for playing "edu-tainment games". We've had no problems with any of the issues you mention...but then I also got rid of apple OS and installed windows 7 on it. I think THAT would be what's holding yours back. I'm most likely going to benchmark the current system as-is and then do the 2.33ghz processor upgrade and re-test. I'll let you know what the results are if you're interested.
is youtube usable and web browsing with the cpu upgrade?
@@mg86_ si, incluso se puede hacer sin problemas con el de 1,8ghz
what about fan noise?
It isn’t too bad, the bearings on my old Mac are sot though, a new fan would fix my noise, but it didn’t change much with the new chip.
@@messing-with-computers Oh okay. Just in comparison to a MacBook Air?
@@axel9546 - Not sure I understand fully, but overall these machines are not too loud as long as the fan is not broken ;)
Can anyone tell me where I can upgrade my 2018 i3 cpu to a i7
What ssd did you use?
I looove the cheap pioneer ssd on amazon. Have used them a ton, no issues so far.
Thank you
How can you build a cheap nas with a pi 4? Also would a 770m from a MSI laptop work without flashing with a mi 2011 21.5inch imac
Building the NAS is actually my next video!
The msi card would probably need at least a Dell vbios flash from what I know.
@@messing-with-computerscan I flash a Mac vbios onto it after putting it in my Mac?
Edison Chow - yes. In my “2011 with brightness controls” video I show that process. Requires installing and using Linux or windows to flash the vbios.
@@messing-with-computers but 2011doesnt support bootcamp
Can I put a core i3 or i5? Or pentium?
No
windows 10 doesnt work at this config ?
It might? I am not completely sure on that.
@@messing-with-computers usually works at c2d
why would you want to run windows 10 on a core 2 duo, sounds horrible