Mac Mini (2007) no power

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Looking for some thoughts before I get my hands on this unit. Bought my dad a used mac mini last fall. It's a 2007 model, Intel Core Duo unit. All was find and dandy until early this week. Dad reports he came home, fired up the unit, checked email etc., and went on about his business (did not shut down or sleep the machine). Came back a while later to the machine powered down.

Now it won't power up at all. No light, no fan, no nothing.

Have tried most of the obvious stuff -- unplug everything and try to start; confirm the outlet he's using is good; tried resetting the SMC -- still nothing.

There's no apple store where he lives, so I'm probably going to have him send the mini to me to see if I can make anything good happen.

Other than the possibility that the power adapter is bad (is that a likely issue?), anything else other than a dead logicboard (and thus dead unit)?

Thanks.
 
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2GHz Mac Mini 2GB RAM 160GB 10.6.2 | MDD DP 1.25GHz G4 1.5GB RAM 10.4.11 | 233MHz iMac G3 10.3.9
MY 2007 Mini CD did that while using it - died completely. Did SMC and the works and was completely unresponsive. Still had AppleCare (only had it a month) and they replaced the bad logic board. Power supply and cable were still good. This was 3 months ago.
 
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Daddy Elmis
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assuming this is a bad logic board, how can I get the old data off the hard drive (assuming it's still good)?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2GHz Mac Mini 2GB RAM 160GB 10.6.2 | MDD DP 1.25GHz G4 1.5GB RAM 10.4.11 | 233MHz iMac G3 10.3.9
If AppleCare is current, take it in for disassembly. If not, get yourself a putty knife, screwdriver, and space to work on!

Intel Mac mini: Take Apart Guide (RAM & HD) | Applefritter

Once the HD is out, find a 2.5" external enclosure to put it in and boot it up on another Mac. Copy the contents over!
 
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Daddy Elmis
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didn't realize the HD was a standard configuration drive. The good news, I suppose, is that since the thing is probably dead anyway (will be confirming that this week), little fear of screwing it up taking the HD out.
 
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Daddy Elmis
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so the Apple Store looked over the Mac Mini and they ruled out most things, and concluded it's the logic board. $350 plus tax for them to put a new one in. They did give me the names of some other authorized independent repair shops in case they could do it cheaper, and the Genius also suggested buying a logic board and doing it myself (he even googled and eBay'd while I was there to see if he could find one). Very helpful Genius.

I'm pretty confident I could change the board myself (lots of experience with PC repair), but since this would be the one and only time I've ever done it on a Mac Mini, the odds of some mistake (forgetting to reconnect something, breaking a connector, etc) are relatively high (which leads to cost and time increases).

So I'm torn -- (1) $350 to fix this locally and get a 90 day warranty; (2) send it somewhere else and may save a bit (waiting on quotes but it seems it's gonna cost at least $300 anywhere); (3) buy a used Mac Mini off eBay, and maybe get the same problem in a few months; or (4) buy a new one for $600 and get Apple Care (another $170).

This is for my 79 year old dad who I've recently converted to Apple, so it has to "just work" when plugged in. Interested in thoughts on the alternatives.
 

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