mac mini thoughts buying

rise aboverise above
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
my friend is selling a mac mini 1.25ghz. the stock one for 500 bucks, but for 250. the problem is that it won't start and i think the motherboard has a reset button, not sure thought.



i would buy it but not sure if i can do a lot of mods. upgrade the hard drive to a 250gb 7200 hard drive, 1 gb of ram, superdrive of newegg, and proablely wireless.



is it possible? my question is. thank you.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    ciparisciparis Posts: 87member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rise Above

    my friend is selling a mac mini 1.25ghz. the stock one for 500 bucks, but for 250. the problem is that it won't start and i think the motherboard has a reset button, not sure thought.



    i would buy it but not sure if i can do a lot of mods. upgrade the hard drive to a 250gb 7200 hard drive, 1 gb of ram, superdrive of newegg, and proablely wireless.



    is it possible? my question is. thank you.



    How old is it, and does he have a receipt? If it's still under warranty, $250 is a good price -- you could buy it and get it fixed for nothing, assuming it hasn't been abused.



    The hard drive and RAM are easy upgrades. The rest, not so easy, and really not easy if you want it to look right.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    rise aboverise above Posts: 71member
    he bought it during the summer. and not sure if he has the recipet. but i am trading and x-box for it.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    ciparisciparis Posts: 87member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rise Above

    he bought it during the summer. and not sure if he has the recipet. but i am trading and x-box for it.



    Sounds like you're getting a good deal. Get it repaired it should be under warranty.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    rise aboverise above Posts: 71member
    i have a question, so yeah my friend gone to trade. but the mini won't start when pressing the button. he took it to the apple shop and they said the board was cracked, any one have this problem. or there is a fix???
  • Reply 5 of 9
    smhub1smhub1 Posts: 21member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rise Above i would buy it but not sure if i can do a lot of mods. upgrade the hard drive to a 250gb 7200 hard drive, 1 gb of ram, superdrive of newegg, and proablely wireless.



    You won't be upgrading the hard drive to those specs.



    Mac Mini's use notebook HDDs which, at present, come in either 100GB for 7,200 rpm or 120GB for 5,400rpm (as per the Apple website). I don't believe there are any current notebook drives with more than 160GB - and upgrading to anything approaching this size will cost you more than the Mini itself (at full retail).
  • Reply 6 of 9
    chris vchris v Posts: 460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rise Above

    i have a question, so yeah my friend gone to trade. but the mini won't start when pressing the button. he took it to the apple shop and they said the board was cracked, any one have this problem. or there is a fix???



    The fix is that Apple replaces the motherboard under warranty. Other than that, there is probably no fix.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    jpenningtonjpennington Posts: 476member
    If apple will fix it for free, good deal. If not, wait for a refurb to show up on Apple.com/store/ and buy that.



    No way you could get an internal 250gb for a mini (it is laptop without a screen). You could get a 100 or 120 and get a 250 FIREWIRE (not usb, firewire doesn't use the CPU). What will you need that much memory for, that will used on a mac mini?
  • Reply 8 of 9
    rise aboverise above Posts: 71member
    i want to set it up for the living room, and use it as a mac media center.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    jpenningtonjpennington Posts: 476member
    You should be good then. I have a 250GB Lacie FW400 drive connected to a mac-mini I use as a file server and it works well.



    Like I said though, FIrewire doesn't use the CPU whereas USB2.0 does, so go with firewire.
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