If you bought a new G4 Mac Mini before July 26, 2005 with the base configuration and you are looking to upgrade to Leopard, we have some bad news for you. You can't. You see these machines only came with 256MB of warranty-voiding non upgradable RAM.
That is unfortunate.
Your Options:
- Be content with Tiger
- Get a putty knife and 3rd part memory upgrade (1Gb whynot?) then upgrade.
- Start the mini it in Firewire Target disk mode and upgrade it from a newer Mac. It runs slow but ok.
Do we sound a little bitter? OK. You caught us - we are the proud owners of a two year old, co-located/non upgradeable Mini. Putty knife/memory kit en route...
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or four get a mac upgrades
or four get a mac upgrades shop to do it and guarantee their own work for about £20 extra on top of ram as the warranty is either long over or if you had applecare nearing. sensationalising again?
I would buy a newer
I would buy a newer model.
They're really not expensive. Everyone can efford.
Or pehaps choose option 2. I upgrade thy mac mini Core Duo by myself.
It is really simple. Even on the G4 model it's a bit more simple 'cause you only have to remove the top case and the RAM is on the side, not under the SuperDrive.
If this was a MS OS
If this was a MS OS upgrade.. it would obsolete hardware that has not even been released yet! ;)
2 1/3 years does seem a little short... I'm running Leopard on a Dual G4 1.25Ghz PowerMAC 2GB RAM that is much older then that!
TBM
I have a Mac Mini I
I have a Mac Mini I purchased in January 2005 that I use for work. 1.42 Ghz G4. I upgraded to 1GB RAM the first week I had it. Installed Leopard a few days ago, works very well. It was pretty slow with the 256k in it, I would be surprised if many people still had not upgraded after nearly 3 years.
256k. Wow.
256k. Wow.
ok well i actually got that
ok well i actually got that mac your mention... but then thing is i got 1 GB of ram, and i am running leopard right now, so its quite alright really!
I'm running Leopard on a
I'm running Leopard on a 1.42GHz G4 Mini now... Upgraded to 1GB quite a while back, but otherwise no issues. Speed is pretty good.
I am running Leopard on a
I am running Leopard on a Mac Mini with 512mb of ram. The thing runs very slow. I need at least another 512 to make it better.
Opening and upgrading the
Opening and upgrading the ram in the mac mini is something anyone who has been in the innards of any computer can do. It's easy, just don't loose any screws.
Sure physically you can do
Sure physically you can do an upgrade, if you aren't particularly intimidated by the concept (and are willing to risk whatever remaining waranty*) or you find a 3rd party that'll do it and back up the work themselves. But the point is that via a series of Apple policies the offical stance on a 28 month old computer boils down to "FU, your machine is at it's dead-end". While does cut it in some electronics product classes, that generally isn't how Apple handles their PCs. It's a big reason why Apple PCs tend to retain far more resale value than their Wintel counterparts.
But then again maybe it's more an example of Steve Jobs' lack of love for the Mini? :(
* Remember folks. Keep that original factory memory around, don't leave any incriminating scratches with the putty knife, and if the Genius asks if you openned the case up lie like a sidewalk. ;)
I checked with Apple on this
I checked with Apple on this when I bought the original Mini. I was assured it does not void the warranty. Also the warranty booklet mentions nothing about user installing RAM voiding warranty. Not sure where you got your info.
the reason you would need a
the reason you would need a warranty is because you broke something. Opening the Mini case and breaking something while installing RAM isn't that hard to do - it isn't user servicable officially by Apple.
For instance, if you insert the DIMM and break a plastic holder and the memory doesn't stay in, you are SOL - even under Applecare.
It can be worse. If you
It can be worse. If you actually confess that you openned it, or show up with the aftermarket parts still installed, some will just turn you away without looking at what is busted. You are assumed guilty of inneptitude. That is applied unevenly though.
Also there is another way to
Also there is another way to do this without all the hassle of a newer machine. Make a Read/Write image of the Leopard Install disk and using XAR unarchive the OSInstall.mpkg. Edit the Distribution file and you will see a script with an area that looks for the min RAM. Change it to 256MB and resave the file. You then have to follow some other steps to repackage it and burn the image to a dual layer disk and viola a version that can install on 256MB RAM. Check out Macosxhints.com for more. But seriously, adding RAM really is the quickest and best way to do it!
Ah, but where are you going
Ah, but where are you going to get that DL DVD burner from?
Aside from that, I think that it should be expected that such a low-cost machine would have a shorter lifespan. 256MB wasn't even a lot two years ago. Today, if you buy a new machine with 512MB, you do so because you want to keep the price lower, and you should accept that you'll outgrow this memory faster than you would if you had 1 or 2GB.
I got a mini almost 2 years ago and knew it was a stepping stone to a bigger machine, but I still got 512MB in it so that it would be worth something when I sold it.
I'm still running Tiger on
I'm still running Tiger on my Mac Pro, and I am not necessarily getting the feeling that Apple thinks it's obsolete just because i'm not running Leopard.
I used to work for Apple
I used to work for Apple support. You do not void the warranty by upgrading ram on the mac mini. Why do you think it has a ram slot that you can remove and replace the ram?!?!? You do however void the warranty if you break something in the process. The only other stipulation is that if you call Apple for support, they can only support the base configuration that the computer was bought as.
2 1/3? how do you count? The
2 1/3? how do you count? The Mac mini was first introduced in january 2005...that makes 2 years and 10 months? that's definately more than 2 years and 1/3.
Like the linked page
Like the linked page and article say, Apple sold the 256Mb Mini until late July 2005.
People who are bashing Apple
People who are bashing Apple are probably just pissed they didn't get on the bandwagon sooner, making fools of themselves and (now especially) wishing they bought some stock. :-P
-ed, or they might have bought a base model mini 2.3 years ago
People who are bashing the
People who are bashing the Apple bashers are probably just dealing with their own buyer's remorse and general insecurity. Who's the fool now?
Who hasnt upgraded
Who hasnt upgraded their memory yet? Are you guys BSing? You don't really still have the 256MB card in there? I changed that right away... I makes for a good story though...
ELAINE: Hey. Didn't you
ELAINE: Hey. Didn't you already get Leopard?
GEORGE: No. I didn't get it.
ELAINE: Why? What happened?
GEORGE: I made a mistake.I bought a Mini 2 years ago.
For those of us who wanted a
For those of us who wanted a low-cost, efficient Colo machine, the 256Mb Mini made lots of sense. It still runs OSX 10.4 server just fine. It is a great SMTP Relay, DNS/Apache Server that takes a bunch of low loaded web pages fine and has for just over 2 years.
That does seem like a short
That does seem like a short lifespan! I'm running Leopard on a five-year-old 1GHz G4 PowerBook purchased in 2002. When I bought the Book I had it configured with a gig of RAM. Still going strong! (Knock on titanium) :)
nice to see the admin delete
nice to see the admin delete posts when they feel like it, i love censorship, even if its against the admin, what a bunch of cowards
we haven't deleted anything
we haven't deleted anything but rabid fanboy bullshit. Yourself being included.
I just upgraded my 1.25ghz
I just upgraded my 1.25ghz Power PC based Mac Mini. it is a little difficult to get the case open, but once that is done, it is super easy to upgrade the memory to the maximum of 1GB. I did find that leopard WOULD NOT install until I formatted the hard drive, as Mac OS Extended, with a GUID partition map. Which meant that I needed to backup my files to an external drive, and then format the drive, install Leopard, and then painstakingly put things back, one by one, including saved preference files, bookmarks, address books, ect. However, Mac OS X 10.5 has been running for a week now, on this Mac Mini, Flawlessly. It is pretty fast. Obviously not as fast as it is on my Macbook, but it does work well.
Hey I'm running OSX 10.5
Hey I'm running OSX 10.5 right now
my owner upgrade me with 1GB ram since day one.
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