June 23, 200917 yr Well in the string of broken shit that has occurred of late my mini may have bit the dust tonight. It won't see my seagate hard drive, won't play any music, won't fire up any of my audio editing programs... I'm going to let it rest for the night and hope I can get it to fire up for a restore from time machine but who knows. The cpu temps ramped up fast to about 210 degrees is that too hot?
June 23, 200917 yr I would think so. My laptop cpu runs at around 150 degrees and that's considered pretty hot. Hope it revives itself though. =/
June 23, 200917 yr Looking among the thermal specs provided by Intel for their Core 2 Duo processors, the thermal specification for most of them are around 75C/165F. For some of the higher performance processors, they have a higher spec of ~105C/221F. Either way, your processor is running excessively hot. example: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAVN
June 23, 200917 yr String of broken shit is right. Voltron's amp and now JP's mac. What's going on in Cali lately? Good luck.
June 23, 200917 yr I gave it a bit more thought on the drive home. If your computer is running that hot, some part of the heat management most likely has failed. i.e., fan has died, heatsink has somehow come loose. The probable reason that you cannot run your programs is that the processor has detected the excessive heat and is slowing itself down to prevent self-destruction. If the high temperature continues, shut it down immediately and take it for service (assuming it's under warranty).
June 23, 200917 yr John, The only good news is that from your description it doesn't sound like a HD failure so at least the content of the drive may be recoverable. I'm in the "take it somewhere" camp.
June 23, 200917 yr If you've got an apple laptop, you can mount it in target disk mode over firewire How to use FireWire target disk mode Then you can verify all the data is backed up, and then take it to an apple store, if it's still under warranty, or put it on a new system. This is the first time I've heard of a problem like this for the minis, so I'm guessing fan failure is probably the right call, and hopefully nothing was cooked too bad. My laptop sometimes overheats, and when it does, it shuts off before any damage happens.
June 23, 200917 yr Fan failure makes the most sense if those temps are correct. The CPU is def. throttling itself at that point...
June 23, 200917 yr Fan failure makes the most sense if those temps are correct. The CPU is def. throttling itself at that point... was going to say the same, that's a bit too hot
June 23, 200917 yr Author Well I popped the top and pulled the fan and am taking it over to Fryes to see if they have a replacement, if not it's off to the internet to find one. I am hoping the cpu was not fried during the overheating, its been acting funky for a week so we'll see. thanks for all the help
June 23, 200917 yr That is a total drag, JP, and I hope you can fix it. I do want to note for the record that JP's Mini was at no time in the Sprinter and this failure cannot be blamed on VanJam.
June 23, 200917 yr Huh, for some reason I had always thought of the Mac Mini as being passively cooled. Guess not! Good luck JP!
June 23, 200917 yr Nah, it's no cube. Good luck JP. My MacBooks CD/DVD drive is now working only intermittedly after returning with VanJam. Seems on its last legs. If you need a replacement on the cheap...
June 23, 200917 yr In addition to fan/heatsink problems, there might be something wrong with ACPI or thermal management. I have never seen a computer that doesn't automatically shut down at 90 C. Those temps are quite extreme.
June 24, 200917 yr Author Are things like ACPI or thermal mgt user fixable items, thanks for the info
June 24, 200917 yr I thought that thermal shutdown only happens after the maximum temperature spec of the processor has been exceeded?
June 24, 200917 yr Might also be worth checking the thermal paste on the CPU. Apple have been known to use crap paste, and Arctic Silver is cheap.
June 24, 200917 yr Author Might also be worth checking the thermal paste on the CPU. Apple have been known to use crap paste, and Arctic Silver is cheap. I'm already on that I took the heatsink off last night and check the cpu for scorching (had an AMD once go hot due to my negligence that scorched when getting hot) and it looks fine but who knows. I picked up artic silver yesterday for the reassemble. I found a local supplier for the fan and will be picking one up Friday (fingers crossed). Thanks for all the help folks
June 24, 200917 yr I thought that thermal shutdown only happens after the maximum temperature spec of the processor has been exceeded? Correct and for Intel's core2 lineup the max is a 100C and it won't even shut down automatically then, it'll try to stay on and just drop its speed till the point where the temps don't go past 100C.
June 24, 200917 yr In addition to fan/heatsink problems, there might be something wrong with ACPI or thermal management. I have never seen a computer that doesn't automatically shut down at 90 C. Those temps are quite extreme. You must not work with servers very often then . 1U chassis w/ single or dual quad core chips, can hit 90C fairly easily.
June 25, 200917 yr Are you speaking of on-die temp? IIRC, most Intel Xeon chips are only spec'd to 75C or so. Not sure what AMD thermal specs are though.
June 28, 200916 yr Author The mini is officially DOA, oh well. There were many missteps in getting the fan and and resetting the heatsink after reapplying thermal paste. I get the opening sound for a second a white screen that announces the screen resolution then the fan blows stone cold air for a few seconds then back to no vid output and it shuts down. Probably look at new mac minis today
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