Upgrading a Mac Mini 1.1?

Hi,

I've bought my first ever Mac off eBay for a great price, only thing is it's an old Mac Mini and it probably is going to need upgrading. Although i've never had a Mac i've been upgrading PCs for years so i'm not necessarily new to getting my hands dirty. I've sourced a new hard drive for it as it only had 80gb and i've looked over many tutorials and videos on how to replace it and i'm feeling pretty confident on replacing it. Thing is though, I thought whilst i'm already opening the case to upgrade the hard drive should i upgrade the 1.66 ghz intel core duo CPU to an intel core 2 duo? I've look on eBay and saw quite a few, would this one fit?

Intel Core 2 Duo SLB3P T3400 2.16Ghz 1M 667 CPU | eBay...

If not, what about this one?

Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU Processor 2.00 4M 667 SL9SF | eBay

Or even this one?

Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 SL9SG 1.83/2MB/667 CPU Processor | eBay

What's the difference between them?

Don't really want to spend too much, but if I have to i'll wait a bit and save up some money. Do you think this is worth it? As the CPUs on eBay with the M socket are only £10-20 so I thought for that price it must be? Can you offer any other advice or tips?

This is my first post here and I am hoping you can help,

Thanks in advance,

Josh

Those are CPU! At first I though they were minis!


I have a 1.66 Core Duo Mini. It has a CPU socket. A Core2Duo works. I have a 2.16C2D in mine. Only issue is, you can not upgrade the firmware and it tells Lion you have a 32-Bit Core Duo and Lion will refuse to install. There is a way around it by taking one file out of the installer and it will install. Also the 1.66 Mini will max out at 2GB RAM. Lion will run but 2GB is a bit lean for Lion.

So you can max out that 1.66 Intel with a larger hard drive and 2GB RAM and a C2D but again remember, it's not a true C2D system although mine keeps up with my Macbook 2.0Ghz C2D except the Macbook has 4GB RAM which that older mini will not accept.


That is not much else you can do with a Mini upgrade wise inside it's case anyway.

dtravis7 said:

Those are CPU! At first I though they were minis!


I have a 1.66 Core Duo Mini. It has a CPU socket. A Core2Duo works. I have a 2.16C2D in mine. Only issue is, you can not upgrade the firmware and it tells Lion you have a 32-Bit Core Duo and Lion will refuse to install. There is a way around it by taking one file out of the installer and it will install. Also the 1.66 Mini will max out at 2GB RAM. Lion will run but 2GB is a bit lean for Lion.

So you can max out that 1.66 Intel with a larger hard drive and 2GB RAM and a C2D but again remember, it's not a true C2D system although mine keeps up with my Macbook 2.0Ghz C2D except the Macbook has 4GB RAM which that older mini will not accept.


That is not much else you can do with a Mini upgrade wise inside it's case anyway.

Click to expand...

So which would you recommend and which ones will fit my mac mini?

Have a look at this link from xlr8yourmac. it suggests Lion can be installed, at least version OS X.7.1 and that a 2.16C2D is 64 bit:-


Mac Mini Core 2 Duo CPU Swaps (2006-2008 minis)

That being they case go for the 2.16 IF the socket is the identical number. On upgrading a Mac Pro there are a lot of Intel processors about, but very few with the socket 771.