Mac Mini CPU replace with Celeron? [Archive]

View Full Version : Mac Mini CPU replace with Celeron?

CeleronPopsicle

11-25-2010, 05:50 AM

A friend of Mine has a Mac Mini with the 1.5 GHz Core Solo CPU. It's too slow for him and he said he'd sell it to me disgustingly cheap.

I have a 2.5 GHz Dual Core Celeron e3300 CPU laying around that I had bought for a hackintosh project. But now I'm thinking that it would make a great upgrade to the Mac Mini. I'm thinking that it should work since they are both socket 775 CPUs. I've seen some Mac Mini Processor upgrade tutorials on line and it looks pretty easy to do.

I use a Dual core Celeron e1500 CPU in my current hackintosh. Snow Leopard recognizes it as a Core 2 Duo at the correct clock speed of 2.2 GHz per core. It is pretty snappy and makes a great general purpose mac / Media Center.

Any thoughts?

CeleronPopsicle

11-25-2010, 05:55 AM

Or, if i wanted to spend a few bucks, would it be possible to upgrade it to a quad core?

Imkantus

11-25-2010, 01:59 PM

A friend of Mine has a Mac Mini with the 1.5 GHz Core Solo CPU [...] I'm thinking that it should work since they are both socket 775 CPUs.You are wrong. Intel has never made a Core Solo for the Socket 775, it's acutally a mobile CPU that has been produced for Socket M (mPGA478MT) only. So no quad update possible as there is no quad CPU avaible. ;)
Also I would recommend to use a CPU that has the same TDP, to avoid damage to the other parts caused by bigger heat.

CeleronPopsicle

11-25-2010, 02:39 PM

Thanks for the response! That saved me an expensive mistake!

Just out of curiosity, would this be possible with core duo and core 2 duo models? upgrade the 1.66 or the 1.83 model to the 2.5 or a quad?

Imkantus

11-25-2010, 06:28 PM

Thanks for the response! That saved me an expensive mistake!Well here is an example of someone who has succesfully upgraded that Mini with a Core Duo T2600
http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2006/03/05/un-mac-mini-core-duo-a-2-16-ghz
The ebay price for that CPU is about 100USD (Maybe cheaper if you search hard enaugh to find someone selling a notebook with broken display or something like that.) - still expensive in my opinion...

Just out of curiosity, would this be possible with core duo and core 2 duo models? upgrade the 1.66 or the 1.83 model to the 2.5 or a quad?
Mid-2007 MacMini was the last one with socketed CPU, 3. Generation and any later ones came with soldered CPUs.