Geekanoids: New Mac Mini & Geekanoids Upgrade Fever

New Mac Mini & Geekanoids Upgrade Fever
Saturday, August 18, 2007

Soon after the latest batch of Apple announcements, a new Mac Mini was winging its way to sunny Kent. It landed, was tested, and before you could blink an eye, it was down to the business of upping the memory. The reason for this post, is just to share some wisdom gained through the process, so that if you choose to undertake (at your own risk) such an upgrade, it may go a little smoother.

The first task was to get the case off the Mini. I had read horror stories of taking a wallpaper stripping tool to the case, and this was not the way I wanted to go. I like my Mac kit in good condition, so the fear of scratching it up was a no no. Stumbling across an article that involved feeding thin wires into the case and over the retaining pegs sounded just the trick. Ninety minutes later I had it all wired up, and then when I tried to pull the pegs, it would not work, what a total waste of time. So a trip to my local DIY shop soon had me going full circle on my earlier decision, as I returned home with two wallpaper stripping tools.

The tools were very sharp and went in the side of the case really easily. I then padded things out with some plastic credit cards, and gently coaxed the case off. It was easier than I expected and no damage whatsoever. The airport received pops off, then one tiny wire, and four screws, the whole gubbins then sort of hinges backwards, allowing access to the memory.

I used the two 1GB sodimm modules that had come out of the Geekanoids MacBook Pro, so no cost was involved (just time). Installing them from this point was a breeze. Re-assembly was very easy indeed and before snapping the case back on, I carefully powered up the Mini to check it recognised the new memory, which it did. This is a good idea, as if it hadn't worked, getting the case off again would have been an ordeal to say the least. Getting the case back on was really easy, so I was very happy. Then comes my next tip…

The Mac Mini was behaving really weird. My mouse pointer would not go where I wanted, it also kept insisting I had a button pressed down. The dock would not resize, or magnify, or auto-hide. This was weird, but then I remembered the most fundamental thing to do when performing any type of memory upgrade, and that was resetting the PRAM. I did this, but still had problems, so then I reset the PMU, after which things returned right back to normal. So heed this advice and upgrade with care.

Labels: Apple Hardware

posted 21:46,

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Dave

Dave has been in the graphic design industry for 14 years. Long time reviewer of technology related products, he is Owner/Editor of Geekanoids.

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