A tip for anyone doing this. The logic board exhaust fan connectors on these are notorious for lifting off completely when you attempt to remove the 4-wire fan connector plug from them. A combination of 9 years of thermal stress and a weak mounting. If this happens, they can be soldered back but its a fairly expert job. To prevent this happening to you, use either superglue or a glue gun, dependant on what you have available. Take the glue and, on 3 sides of the "C" shape of the logic board connector, carefully drop some glue to form a 'bridge' between the side of the connector and the logic board. The idea is to create a union that will help secure the connector to the board. Leave this to fully cure, and then carefully insert a thin spudger beneath the 4-wire connector and lift up, very very gently. You should then be good to go.
Happened to me! I'm in the middle of the upgrade, no chance of me fixing it back on as I can't solder, so I'm hoping it'll run OK without a fan as it'll have an SSD that produces little-to-no heat. It'll be very light use also. Fingers crossed!
@@chrisreynolds8219 I made this same error years ago on my 2012 mini. It overheated fairly quickly without the fan and you'd see that first in graphics slowing down and then everything else. Similar to running out of memory (looking at you Google Chrome...). I didnt have the resources to solder it back on to fix but I made a makeshift cardboard box with a 12v PC fan (with the black lid off of course) that the mini sat on for years and ran just fine but looked janky. Until, I got a 3d printer and the makeshift fan finally failed after 8 years or so. I 3D printed a mini pedestal enclosure and put a new larger fan in it for airflow. Not so janky and was able to add the largest fan possible. I hope this helps give you some ideas for a workaround.
Hey there just want to leave my thanks. This looks pretty daunting from the ifixit guide but wasn't that bad following along to your video, glad to see your screwdriver trick to pull out the main board instead of the "special tool" - I ended up using a couple of drill bits, guidance to anyone reading the comments first - if your tool is long and skinny enough, you'll feel the holes below the mainboard that you drop into to get leverage and push the board out the back. I have the latest Fedora 41 on this now and while installing software is a little slow on account of the old i5, the gigabit ethernet and USB3 ports are as fast as anything today, I'm super impressed with this decade old machine.
It may not be fast, but for light use and some light Apple ecosystem development tasks like Xcode and iOS development, it's perfect. It's also a great way to keep hardware living as long as possible.
@jendbe, I’ve just made the hardware upgrade like you did with success. 💪 Thank you very much for your support. 👏 Next step will be the sonoma upgrade using your tutorial from the next video. I’ll keep you posted. Regards, António
Patience is definitely required when working with Mac Minis, so well done!👍👍 In my opinion, soldered on ram., is a bad idea. I fit the mechanical drives into external enclosures so that they can be used for storage.
I work at a theatre group where we do some cracked psychedelic graphics for backgrounds on a extremely old Macbook pro. So Im making a mac mini 2014 into a test system to run the same programs on and make the necessary graphic adjustments so it doesn’t crash. All things considered, I think this would make for a pretty decent Psychedelic Powerpoint show maker 😂 (I use currently Qlab and hopefully will get into Touchdesigner)
Можно и без флешки установить последнюю поддерживаемую макос для этого мак ( и это sonoma) зажав option+command+r сразу после включения и он сам из инета стянет ее. пользуйтесь.
@@imacattackau5635Apple offered an option at purchase back then of getting a Fusion drive, which is a hybrid drive that includes both an HDD and an SSD/flash drive. Although it looks like NVMe, it’s not and is actually an Apple proprietary design so it won’t fit NVMe drives.
I have never had a Mac or Apple product, I am thinking of getting the late 2014 model since the 2018 models are still quite expensive. My question is, does Sonoma run well on it? I see some people complaining about overheating and a laggy interface. Also, since I've never used it, is OpenCore that reliable and safe for private information on it? I'm asking since it's nothing official from Apple.
Depends a bit what you want to do with the machine. Sonoma does run quite nicely but the 2014 model was never really a very powerful machine. 10 years later you definitely start to notice that.
Excuse me, at the minute 17:30, when you boot from SSD after installation of Sonoma, the boot time is real or you have speed up the video ? In my Mac Mini 2014 the boot time is much longer...
Yes and yes. You can boot from the NVMe drive, when using such an adapter and the speed will be higher (depending on which NVMe SSD you choose) than what is the maximum of SATA. Just not sure with the limited CPU power if it is worth it.
@@jensdbe …ok, thanks… though I don’t understand your reference to “limited CPU power”. As to speed, the NVMe is probably sitting on a version 2 PCIe structure , so about a five-ten times speed boost over SATA. Very worthwhile , in my opinion…
@@jensdbeI just hit my Mac mini in angry like I always do but today I went to hard and I damage the apple logo and it went inside the Mac mini I don’t want else I could have damage and I turned it off now and want to fix the logo before anything bad happens to it what do you think I can do to get that logo back in place ? With out spending a arm and leg
I didn't do that but looking at other tested Mac Mini Late 2014's with the same CPU, I see very similar mumbers. So unfortunately the difference wouldn't be very big.
Yes. First make sure you update to the latest version of OCLP and install a new build of OpenCore. Then you should be able to update the Sequoia like on supported hardware.
Install a NVMe, it is much faster. You need the adapter he shows in the video. I installed both an NVMe and SATA SSD in a 4gb, 1.4ghz model. I would skip the SATA SSD and just put a 500gb NVMe in.
Hi there, I would like to ask an amateur question, please: Currently, I am looking to get a refurbished Mac, and my choices are between a Mac mini, late 2014 with 16 GB RAM and 512 SSD hard drive VS Apple Mac Pro (trash can) Intel Xeon 2.7 GHz 12-core 2.70 (2013) Please kindly inform me which one of these 2 will be good for video editing, Photoshop, and After Effects projects? Thank you very much in advance. Currently, I have an old iMac since mid-2011, and it has served me well so far. Please note that I have no interest in getting the M1 or M2 versions or any current desktop iMacs at the moment.
A tip for anyone doing this. The logic board exhaust fan connectors on these are notorious for lifting off completely when you attempt to remove the 4-wire fan connector plug from them. A combination of 9 years of thermal stress and a weak mounting. If this happens, they can be soldered back but its a fairly expert job.
To prevent this happening to you, use either superglue or a glue gun, dependant on what you have available. Take the glue and, on 3 sides of the "C" shape of the logic board connector, carefully drop some glue to form a 'bridge' between the side of the connector and the logic board. The idea is to create a union that will help secure the connector to the board.
Leave this to fully cure, and then carefully insert a thin spudger beneath the 4-wire connector and lift up, very very gently. You should then be good to go.
Happened to me! I'm in the middle of the upgrade, no chance of me fixing it back on as I can't solder, so I'm hoping it'll run OK without a fan as it'll have an SSD that produces little-to-no heat. It'll be very light use also. Fingers crossed!
@@chrisreynolds8219 I wish you luck, but they still run quite hot internally. The fan is essential IMO, unless you leave the base off.
@@chrisreynolds8219 I made this same error years ago on my 2012 mini. It overheated fairly quickly without the fan and you'd see that first in graphics slowing down and then everything else. Similar to running out of memory (looking at you Google Chrome...).
I didnt have the resources to solder it back on to fix but I made a makeshift cardboard box with a 12v PC fan (with the black lid off of course) that the mini sat on for years and ran just fine but looked janky. Until, I got a 3d printer and the makeshift fan finally failed after 8 years or so. I 3D printed a mini pedestal enclosure and put a new larger fan in it for airflow. Not so janky and was able to add the largest fan possible.
I hope this helps give you some ideas for a workaround.
Hey there just want to leave my thanks. This looks pretty daunting from the ifixit guide but wasn't that bad following along to your video, glad to see your screwdriver trick to pull out the main board instead of the "special tool" - I ended up using a couple of drill bits, guidance to anyone reading the comments first - if your tool is long and skinny enough, you'll feel the holes below the mainboard that you drop into to get leverage and push the board out the back. I have the latest Fedora 41 on this now and while installing software is a little slow on account of the old i5, the gigabit ethernet and USB3 ports are as fast as anything today, I'm super impressed with this decade old machine.
Fantastic! No missing steps, every detail covered in this video! Thanks a lot!
Excellent presentation. Thank you. Your analysis of the performance is a plus and answers a lot of questions about this Mac Mini.
It may not be fast, but for light use and some light Apple ecosystem development tasks like Xcode and iOS development, it's perfect. It's also a great way to keep hardware living as long as possible.
@jendbe,
I’ve just made the hardware upgrade like you did with success. 💪
Thank you very much for your support. 👏
Next step will be the sonoma upgrade using your tutorial from the next video.
I’ll keep you posted.
Regards,
António
Sounds great! Good luck with the upgrade.
Great video, helped speed up my machine and worked perfectly.
Wow, how come I'm not knowing this before! Thanks for the info 🤘
Thanks for the video. Great content.
Very helpful - thank you very much!
Great video. Only apple can make complicated what should be simple, I mean this hd socket. Fortunately they didn't soldiered it like the ram.
Apple: Hold my beer!
Patience is definitely required when working with Mac Minis, so well done!👍👍 In my opinion, soldered on ram., is a bad idea. I fit the mechanical drives into external enclosures so that they can be used for storage.
Bonjour. Très bonne vidéo. Merci.
Yup makes sense. Since its laptop chip its only 2 cores so about the performance of desktop i3.
I repurposed my 1TB as a Time Machine drive. While not a fast drive the storage could still be put to good use
I work at a theatre group where we do some cracked psychedelic graphics for backgrounds on a extremely old Macbook pro. So Im making a mac mini 2014 into a test system to run the same programs on and make the necessary graphic adjustments so it doesn’t crash.
All things considered, I think this would make for a pretty decent Psychedelic Powerpoint show maker 😂 (I use currently Qlab and hopefully will get into Touchdesigner)
@@benji_tunez nice to hear rand good luck :)
At 03:10 , where did that lake/mountain wallpaper come from? It is gorgeous.
That's the default macOS High Sierra wallpaper as far as I know. Just Google "apple high sierra wallpaper" and you'll find it :)
@@jensdbe …thank you, i will have to track that down.
That's dude. Worked a charm.
Можно и без флешки установить последнюю поддерживаемую макос для этого мак ( и это sonoma) зажав option+command+r сразу после включения и он сам из инета стянет ее. пользуйтесь.
perfect !
Great video, is there a limit for the storage of this Mac mini?
why not just add an nvme ssd and leave the HDD in ? This way you don't have to open it up completely and still get both to use ?
Yeah but that comes with the additional cost of the adapter (and waiting for it) and I still had that SSD laying around anyway :)
@@jensdbe Mine must have been upgraded by Apple as it has both M.2 SSD and the 2.5 SSD.
@@imacattackau5635Apple offered an option at purchase back then of getting a Fusion drive, which is a hybrid drive that includes both an HDD and an SSD/flash drive. Although it looks like NVMe, it’s not and is actually an Apple proprietary design so it won’t fit NVMe drives.
@@imacattackau5635that's the fusion drive
@@imacattackau5635
How much was this £?
I have never had a Mac or Apple product, I am thinking of getting the late 2014 model since the 2018 models are still quite expensive. My question is, does Sonoma run well on it? I see some people complaining about overheating and a laggy interface. Also, since I've never used it, is OpenCore that reliable and safe for private information on it? I'm asking since it's nothing official from Apple.
Depends a bit what you want to do with the machine. Sonoma does run quite nicely but the 2014 model was never really a very powerful machine. 10 years later you definitely start to notice that.
@@jensdbe Just basic stuff. My major concern would be how secure it is to use oclp.
Nice❤❤❤
Excuse me, at the minute 17:30, when you boot from SSD after installation of Sonoma, the boot time is real or you have speed up the video ? In my Mac Mini 2014 the boot time is much longer...
It's definitely not real time. Takes a lot longer normally :)
If one installs an MVMe drive, will it run at a higher rate than the SATA drive?
And if so, can the Mac boot from that faster NVMe drive?
Yes and yes. You can boot from the NVMe drive, when using such an adapter and the speed will be higher (depending on which NVMe SSD you choose) than what is the maximum of SATA. Just not sure with the limited CPU power if it is worth it.
@@jensdbe …ok, thanks… though I don’t understand your reference to “limited CPU power”.
As to speed, the NVMe is probably sitting on a version 2 PCIe structure , so about a five-ten times speed boost over SATA. Very worthwhile , in my opinion…
@@jensdbeI just hit my Mac mini in angry like I always do but today I went to hard and I damage the apple logo and it went inside the Mac mini I don’t want else I could have damage and I turned it off now and want to fix the logo before anything bad happens to it what do you think I can do to get that logo back in place ? With out spending a arm and leg
i brought up the base of off the IR sensor connector on accident. Is it bricked and nothing I can do to fix it?
Great job but did you repaste the cpu ? Bench be a bit higher .
I didn't do that but looking at other tested Mac Mini Late 2014's with the same CPU, I see very similar mumbers. So unfortunately the difference wouldn't be very big.
can now be upgrade on macOS Sequoia?
Yes. First make sure you update to the latest version of OCLP and install a new build of OpenCore. Then you should be able to update the Sequoia like on supported hardware.
Will the mac mini show display without a harddrive?
@@estevanolivier4011 should be, yes
Is it easier to add nvme add with an adapter
Not necessarily easier but the advantage is that an NVMe drive is (a lot) faster and that you can use both the NVMe drive and SATA drive.
NVMe drives are more stable than SATA SSD and don't have problems with Trim command
Hi , can i create the Sonoma flash drive in a different mac?
Sure, have a look at this video I did which covers that: th-cam.com/video/acpQuCIy3GA/w-d-xo.html
Whta about a 1.4 ghz 4 GB Ram Mac Mini? Will it pay out? Or is it a waste of time?
If you can't upgrade the memory, 4GB starts to be really sluggish for day to day use.
it payed out. I use it as media center and it is quite fast compared to the old HDD.
@@PedroPizza-pv9mh glad to hear. Would be a pity to see it being unused.
4gb ram 💀
4gb ram in 2024 🗿
I have a 4gb ram version. Do you think it will still run or should i go use the nvme route instead of the 2.5" ssd. Thx😊
Install a NVMe, it is much faster. You need the adapter he shows in the video. I installed both an NVMe and SATA SSD in a 4gb, 1.4ghz model. I would skip the SATA SSD and just put a 500gb NVMe in.
Hi there, I would like to ask an amateur question, please:
Currently, I am looking to get a refurbished Mac, and my choices are between a Mac mini, late 2014 with 16 GB RAM and 512 SSD hard drive
VS
Apple Mac Pro (trash can) Intel Xeon 2.7 GHz 12-core 2.70 (2013)
Please kindly inform me which one of these 2 will be good for video editing, Photoshop, and After Effects projects? Thank you very much in advance.
Currently, I have an old iMac since mid-2011, and it has served me well so far.
Please note that I have no interest in getting the M1 or M2 versions or any current desktop iMacs at the moment.
Where you get the installer?
I cover this in a separate video. You can find it here: th-cam.com/video/acpQuCIy3GA/w-d-xo.html
Bro please upload
"How to download and Install Windows 11 2023 Update l Version 23H2 on unsupported Hardware"
waiting for it very badlyyy 😭😭😭😭😭
next time doit more easy ,,, buy nvme adapter put in motherboard its so simple sir