Cooling a Mac Mini

Berserker

Berserker

Berserker

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Joined
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My Intel Mac Mini tends to get a bit hot and bothered at times. While there is certainly plenty of scope for running the single internal fan faster, Apple chose to make the fan speed controller proprietary and to favour quietness over coolness. Thus the internal HDD runs at 51C and the CPU runs at god knows what. Cutting blowholes or any other kind of case mod is clearly not an option with these. Just getting the case open on them is challenging enough.

So, anyone got any ideas? USB powered fans - do they even exist? Small externally powered fans? (having a monster desk fan blowing on it all the time seems a bit much).
 
Has it got a PCI slot (don't know anythign about MAC'S). If it has why not get the vantec pci fan cooler, i had it in my old pc for my fx5200 kicked out a nice bit of air and didn't make hardly any noise.
 
young lad said:
Has it got a PCI slot (don't know anythign about MAC'S). If it has why not get the vantec pci fan cooler, i had it in my old pc for my fx5200 kicked out a nice bit of air and didn't make hardly any noise.
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no, its the size of 4 cd cases
 
They are designed to run hot, in a similar way to laptops. I really wouldn't worry. :)
 
Some simple steps -

1: Open fridge door
2: Place Mac in fridge
3: Close fridge door
4: Make conroe PC

You're sorted ;)
 
People have already modded them to stick Conroe chips in them, with some pretty spectacular (performance) results. :)
 
Mac....'MAC'?


best way to keep it cool is throw in in a pond/river/sewer, whilst it's turned on.

and there's loads of USB powered fans about... google it :)
 
Berserker said:
People have already modded them to stick Conroe chips in them, with some pretty spectacular (performance) results. :)
Click to expand...

not a bad idea... you thinking about doing that??

Stelly
 
Not right now. :D

Anyway, I'd still like to find an external fan solution, even if I don't use it on the Mini, it'll be handy to have. I know it's perfectly possible to run fans from the 5V/500ma available from USB, because that's what Laptop cooling pads do, but I've not seen any option besides those (and the silly USB-powered personal cooling things which serve no purpose whatsoever).

So, there must be something 'out there'. Anyone got any ideas? (no competitors obviously).
 
could you not make your own???

you can buy PCB mount and normal USB connectors from most electronics retailers. you could solder a normal fan to it, or even attach a fan connector so you can plug in what ever fan you want?? thats what i'd do :), would look like a bodge job unless you made a case for it etc, but it would work well

also means you can use it on any PC that has USB :)
 
You assume that I'm any good with a soldering iron. In all likelihood I'd try to solder fingers, hands, other body parts, and god knows what else, without ever actually soldering the work at hand. And I'm not joking. :eek:

Would have done this already if I thought I could. :)
 
Berserker said:
You assume that I'm any good with a soldering iron. In all likelihood I'd try to solder fingers, hands, other body parts, and god knows what else, without ever actually soldering the work at hand. And I'm not joking. :eek:

Would have done this already if I thought I could. :)
Click to expand...

lol ah, well its never too late to learn :)
 
//Me goes off to knock up a USB - 3 pin fan converter for Mr Zerker dude. (if i can find an old USB cable to destroy)
 
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Seriously, if your not upgrading the CPU and its not crashing then dont mod it.

We forget sometimes that the various parts in a PC can take higher temps than what we "think" is normal. Its a small system, no matter what you do to it its going to get warm in there. Trust Apple, their great at designing things like this (well if you ignore the vent in the Cubed G4 but that was a one off ;) ).
 
He doesn't like hot hardware though, he gets all in a fluster and can't sleep at night. When he does sleep he wakes to bad dreams and lying in pools of sweat.

Some people fear spiders, some people heights, Mr Zerker fears hot circuits :D

They call this condition Crackleandzapaphobia.

;)
 
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