Cooling a Mac Mini

Berserker

Berserker

Berserker

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Joined
4 Nov 2002
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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).
 
People have already modded them to stick Conroe chips in them, with some pretty spectacular (performance) results. :)
 
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).
 
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. :)
 
Actually, I'm not so worried about the CPU because it'll throttle. The real problem is that the hot air blows out onto the VGA and USB connectors, which can result in an unexpected surprise when you go to unplug something. If I can put a fan somewhere to shift that hot air (without causing a finger hazard), then it'll be sorted. :)
 
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