Maxxing Out My Old 2006 Intel Mac Mini - CPU, RAM, SSD... eGPU!?

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks everyone for all of the suggestions about graphics cards and specifically, cards running Apple-specific firmware. I think this is right on the money and I've just managed to acquire a GeForce 7300GT from a 2006 MacPro1,1. It seems these cards are 32-bit EFI compatible so if anything is going to work, I think it will be this. Watch this space (ie subscribe to the channel) as I'll definitely be posting a follow up if it works!

[@Sansui350A]

Nice! Curious to see how this goes.

[@seanwieland9763]

Likewise, excited to see if you get this working. I have the same MacMini and would love to do this myself.

[@HPPalmtopTube]

You forgot something, I installed a laptop size Blu-Ray RW drive in mine (identical model) back in the day, instead of the DVD drive in the standard machine...

[@lemagreengreen]

I always wondered about those Mac graphics cards... could you just flash a Mac VBIOS onto a PC card?

[@Sansui350A]

@@lemagreengreen On some yes, you can. Look at the hackintosh'ing scene, and what they used to do when Intel macs were current.

[@ActionRetro]

What a delightfully janky experiment! Hope you can get the GPU going!

[@ctrlaltrees]

...and if you enjoy janky experiments, I hope you'll consider subscribing to the channel 😁

[@kevinf92]

I think Sean has been a bad influence on you :D

[@richneptune]

The most depressing thing about this video is that it reminds you of a time that Apple allowed you to do things like upgrade the memory and storage. Now if your storage breaks or you want to install more RAM, you're out of luck. So much for progress 😞

[@rawhide_kobayashi]

regardless of whether or not you agree with it for economic/environmental reasons, soldered memory has a massive performance advantage over slotted memory. new slotted formats are combatting this - CAMM2 - but even that isn't going to match soldered. socketed memory would make apple's current SOC paradigm impractical. the performance per watt and absolute power is unprecedented. m-series macs are actually incredibly economic options for running local llms compared to buying enough gpus and supporting hardware for models in excess of 24gb vram use...

[@anonwilczek6044]

You mean regress xD

[@rawhide_kobayashi]

@@SimplyTheSloth it's an objective fact of reality and you're free not to buy macbooks if you disagree with the poorly affected factors of this implementation. i've seen some people complain about camm2 as well, because it's just one module instead of 4 sticks - so you can't upgrade your memory piecemeal in a desktop system, but you already can't do that in a performance oriented context... getting memory to clock higher with 4 sticks has always been a tenuous prospect, and on modern platforms you're dumping multiple gigahertz going from 2 to 4 sticks... good luck getting 4 sticks any higher than 5600mhz on intel, and good luck getting past 4800 on amd. without quad channel support to make up for it... so it's actually an equivalent experience - replacing all your modules - if you care about performance and need a space upgrade... I've always been a proponent of having the financial management skills to get as much memory as you're going to need for the life of your platform anyway. and if they start selling SoC style consumer motherboards with [high end] soldered CPU/memory combinations for absolute max perf...? I'm in, bud.

[@Micro_Repairs]

You’ll want to, at a minimum, restart the session (log out/log in) to restart Xorg, as it doesn’t support display controller hotplug.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Ah yes, I have tried that and did mention it right at the end of the video but in hindsight I should have made it more obvious and demoed it not working. I do appreciate the suggestion though! 🙂

[@ncot_tech]

Wouldn't you also need to reconfigure X to also make use of the NVIDIA card? Either way I don't think hotplugging is going to work - try it in a real PC to see if it works, it'll probably do something similar. I think this is caused by Apple's firmware though, either being hideously confused by having two GPUs in the machine and not booting, or not understanding what the NVIDIA card is. If only we knew someone who was experienced at forcing Apple devices to do things they weren't designed for, who might be able to offer some advice 🤔

[@Tetracera.]

i have a old vtbook pcmcia video card that supports being plugged in and unplugged in xp, though that trident gpu's abit janky and i've seen random bsod's with it.

[@nalinux]

Sometime if initramfs is update you need a full reboot. And also some entry can be in blacklist modules ... Restarting X is often not enough. Then the usual tools ... dmesg, var/log/X.0.log, etc.

[@ThePsychoticWombat]

Maybe try wayland instead of X?

[@SockyNoob]

I'm glad machines from my childhood are now finally cool enough to be featured on retro channels. I'm not glad that it means I'm getting old though.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Haha, well if it helps I'd just finished University when I bought this, I think it was the first paycheck from my first real job 😅

[@SockyNoob]

Hybrid SSD? Jesus that takes me back. They were touted as the future, but made little more than a whimper in the computing world. Flash storage progressed way faster than expected.

[@niceguyjoe]

I still have one of these old Mac Mini Core Duos running and in use daily. I use it headless to rip music CDs to my NAS and to power an iFi headphone amp and DAC. I use the Daphile Linux distro and it works perfectly. It just keeps going 16 years strong!

[@MSThalamus-gj9oi]

I have one of these. I bought it brand new back in the day. I've since repurposed it as a MIDI synth emulator running a manually cut down version of XP. It works really well, completely headless. The remote it came with really comes in handy for mixing the MIDI into the sound effects from the sound card.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh nice! I love seeing this old hardware being put to good use rather than ending up in landfill.

[@VincentGroenewold]

Love that time. I had a 2012 model and when it broke, I could still get it up again and working for years. I switched to PC/Linux after that due to the amount of glue in later models. :)

[@SockyNoob]

Xfce is definitely the GOAT. I still use it even on powerful machines.

[@SockyNoob]

OpenCore Legacy Patcher allows you to run the latest x86 MacOS on just about any x86 Mac made. Action Retro made an excellent video on the topic.

[@ctrlaltrees]

I looked into it and unfortunately it's not compatible with the MacMini1,1 (or indeed the 2,1). But definitely useful for later machines 👍

[@RichardTroupe]

Great work in getting Debian on it! A small suggestion as well... I'm pretty sure that Fedora Linux has a 32-bit bootloader for 64-bit architectures. I managed to install it on an underpowered Linx 1010B tablet with only 2GB and it gave it a new lease of life.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh nice, I was a full time Fedora user for a few years, big fan of that particular distro.

[@MarkBankhead-x1h]

@@ctrlaltrees I have Fedora 40 server running on my upgraded 2,1. There is an online patcher tool for the boot ISO

[@Dev_olution]

Guilty of having missed a lot of your videos lately but wanted to say how good you are doing and your confidence is really showing. Excellent stuff :)

[@ctrlaltrees]

Hey, it's easily done, there's so much good stuff out there to watch! Thanks so much for the kind comments, I do feel like I'm hitting my stride with the new studio and I'm enjoying it a lot so I'm glad that shows. 🙂

[@Dev_olution]

@@ctrlaltrees really does, looking forward to a rees marathon

[@therushden]

channelling your explaining computers vibe on this one. great video👏👏

[@ctrlaltrees]

Chris is a national treasure!

[@andresbravo2003]

You’re on a full blast today.

[@HoffmanYouTube]

Weirdly I got a lot of nostalgia from this video. I had a first generation Intel Mac tower. I also had to install the hacked firmware to turn it into a 2,1 mac which allowed me upgrade the CPUs to higher than spec'd. In terms of GPU, I think the tower allowed me to boot into Windows with a standard PCIe graphics card. However, I think the area you might need to dig into is replacing the GPUs firmware with something Mac compatible. It wasn't something I needed do because I left the old card in the system whenever I needed to get back to Mac OS.

[@ctrlaltrees]

The firmware thing is a good shout and something I've been pondering. I'd either need to track down the PC version of a Mac card (maybe the GeForce 7300GT as used in the MacPro1,1) and flash it, or get very lucky and bag a Mac version. But you certainly might be on to something here...

[@RolandoMarreroPR]

I did a similar build! But upgraded from a 1.6GHZ to a 2.0GHZ C2D used the lion beta to update the firmware form Mac mini 1.1 to 2.1 upgraded to 4GB ended running Yosemite and Peppermint Linux! All the upgrades were $12 total! (At least they were 5 years ago).Anti-x also worked great with these minis!

[@BollingHolt]

... also, good luck getting the GPU up and running. Love your videos!

[@scotttait2197]

1:24 " Mac's it out" 😂

[@jimcabezola3051]

I SO wish I saw your video before I fancied I could be another Christian Barnatt with my own retro project... I never knew a 64-bit CPU could be stuffed in this 32-bit logic board. Staggering! Sadly, however, I took the slash-and-burn route and tore out all the rusty, dusty guts of my 2006 Mac Mini. Drilled holes on the bottom to allow the attachment of a Raspberry Pi4 on the floor of the cabinet. Well... It's a regular dog's breakfast, this. But I adore my old Macs...even as cabinets for truly rubbish Raspberries... Watched this video on the selfsame edition of Debian 12 you used here! As it did for you, it's running beautifully on my 2015 MBP. Mahalo for another thought-provoking video!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Hey, why not? These things are cheap as chips these days. Sounds like a fun project!

[@m4rgin4l]

Great. Now I have the Bubble Bobble theme stuck in my head.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Never a bad thing 😉

[@stevenryall3186]

Dude you created an optical illusion in this video. At around 27 minutes you show two terminal windows alongside a spinning gears graphic. Amazingly, when you look at one of the gears graphics, the other one appears to have stopped spinning. You can only see them both spinning when you look in the area that is inbetween the both of them!

[@otoayana]

hi! i have one of those, and was completely unaware of the mPCIe capabilities! thanks for making a video about it. it's one of the quirkier retail macs, since there's even a model with a core solo, which is the one i have.

[@Wiggs1979]

I was about to add the same comment about the third stock CPU option, the core solo 1.5 GHz. I had one too, upgraded it to a core 2 duo 2.00 GHz CPU (T7200) and in fact still have the old core solo CPU kicking around.

[@RobertFixit]

My first thought was hot swap! I didn’t think you would actually do it LOL I wonder what happens if you put a mac specific GPU? I do recall with Macbooks you could do some fancy terminal commands to enable/disable the secondary display. I would if that might help here. There was also a program you could download to manually switch but I forget the name.

[@proteque]

I used to have this exact mac mini. It ended its life as a media pc in the living room. did the cpu and ram upgrade back in the days as well. Cant remember what I changed into though. For some reason... :D I never did try adding an external GPU though. Great video as always! Fun project. XFCE is a great choice. I even use it on modern machines. Saves a lot of ram and a bit of cputime (compared to cinnamon and gnome, which == battery time).

[@RobReynolds]

Rees has gone full Action Retro

[@ctrlaltrees]

Shenanigans!

[@bazzaar1869]

I think going via USB3 to the graphics card is a mistake. Just get a mPCIe to PCIe adaptor. This will connect one lane of PCIe directly to the graphics card and allow it to be seen at boot. The adaptor should also have a power input to drive the card, I doubt the USB3 gizmo has the horsepower to power a PCIe card.

[@oodatoodat1]

I actually enjoyed this actual video and actually left this actual comment.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Well, here's an actual reply for your efforts 😝

[@macintush]

Did you try refind/rEFIt bootloader? Let me know if it works. Also is that card compatible with Mac? I know it’s linux but still

[@cyber_pirate]

Just a random thought, does OpenCore Legacy Patcher work on this CPU? You might be able to get the latest macOS on this computer.

[@MegaZeeeh]

Whisker menu and plank will do wonders to this desktop

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh interesting, thanks. I'll have a look into them.

[@NeilGrevitt]

This is great, I'm going to have to dig out my old Mac Mini to see which version it is and do something similar! Wallpaper scraper worked well for me also, back in the day!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Glad I've inspired you! They really should have sold an Apple-branded wallpaper scraper back in the day, I reckon they could have charged at least £200 for it 😂

[@NeilGrevitt]

@@ctrlaltrees Ha, that's a great idea, wish I'd thought of that back then! Thinking about the GFX card, I don't think it's a hardware issue as it can be seen when hot swapped. Is there a way to force the Nvidia (Nouveau or official) driver in the kernel, in the same way you forced i915?

[@abunk8691]

I wonder if that setup would work with an AMD GPUs that were used in Mac Pros from the time? Stuff like ATI/AMD FirePro GPUs or Nvidia 8400/9400 GPUs if you can find their Mac versions. Though the 32-bit EFI bios might be also a source of problems with that external GPU setup.

[@BollingHolt]

Very cool! I have a 2005 G4 Mac mini... I experimented and got MacOS 9 on it, but going back to OS X apparently isn't as easy as I thought it would soooo.... another video project for another day ;)

[@mattsword41]

"I don't have much choice in this" whilst in a total over the top mess of own making that could be easily backed out of.... Spoken like a true retrotech enthusiast... love it :)

[@ctrlaltrees]

Ha! 😂

[@A1L2E3X44]

Nice video bringing back memories od my old mac mini! I wonder what is the model of the dell monitor you are using?

[@ctrlaltrees]

Good eye! It's a Dell 2007FPb - one of the only true 4:3 IPS monitors available. I bought it because it works very well on camera (of course it looks fantastic IRL too) and the little detachable soundbar is very cool too. Unfortunately prices have been driven up in recent years by people buying them up to upgrade Arcade1Up machines, apparently.

[@iainhay2823]

Congrats on the pcbway sponsorship, one of my favourite companies and on one of my fave channels👍

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks! They've been chasing me for ages but I decided it was finally time to take the plunge as they're a genuinely good company that I'm happy to recommend - and it will help to cover the costs of my increasingly expensive projects 😁

[@iainhay2823]

@@ctrlaltrees yep they are a real community asset with who they sponsor, all decent channels and they are a decent company. Bring on the projects!!!!!

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

Great video! A few things I want to offer for advice (from someone who does stuff exactly like this all the time: 1. XFCE tends to run a lot smoother on weak hardware because it tends to bias the OS load in favor of the CPU, using a lot less hardware acceleration. That's perfect when you have a situation like this with the Intel GMA950 graphics chip; not so much with a much faster dGPU. If you do manage to get a graphics card working more reliably, switching to something like Cinnamon would be a much better idea, as it will ostensibly offload a lot more OS resources from the CPU to the GPU. 2. The GTX 750 Ti is *extremely* touchy and doesn't like playing nicely with a lot of setups, so I have a suspicion that your eGPU troubles were simply caused by the 750 Ti being a stick-in-the-mud. In addition, many BPO (Board Power Only) GPUs do not like these setups, as they are simply not being fed enough power from the adapter. Getting one which either can cope with the low power requirements (Nvidia Quadro 410 if you need a suggestion) or getting one which wants additional auxiliary power (Nvidia GTX 950 if you need a suggestion) may help you. 3. Since the Mac Mini is fully-upgradeable, and the eGPU solution is hardly plug-and-play, how about putting the whole setup into a desktop PC case? You could mount the Mac Mini so that the rear I/O is exposed, mount the eGPU adapter to let you put the graphics card into the expansion slots, mount the PSU it needs into the case, get a cable extension for the DVD drive, connect the case's power switch to the Mac Mini, *and also* it would give you the opportunity to connect RGB fans up to it (Using Corsair RGB fans with a USB Type A => USB 2.0 header adapter, it is entirely possible to get it all talking to the Mac Mini and control the RGB over a software like OpenRGB). Maybe mounting this whole thing into an old beige PC case would make the most confusing "reverse reverse" sleeper of all time? Dual-booting Windows XP (The GTX 950 has official drivers for XP) and modern Debian (the latest Nvidia drivers still support the 900 series) would be quite a treat to see. Finally, if you still cannot get an eGPU working on this, then I would like to suggest another adapter: mini PCIe => dual PCI 32-bit. This is a very interesting adapter that effectively gives you two expansion slots on the Mac Mini, and being PCI there are not only a whole plethora of old cards available for you to install, there are *also* modern cards still being made for PCI, such as USB 3.0, SATA, FireWire, and more. Coupled with the idea of mounting it into an older PC case that could effectively turn this Mac Mini into a cute little retro mATX setup. Just some thoughts I had spewing from my brain. Good luck :D

[@ctrlaltrees]

Wow, thanks so much for the detailed comment and the suggestions, I really appreciate it. Certainly a lot to mull over here. I hadn't come across the mPCIe to dual PCI adapters, that seems like it would open up a lot more options. I have made a note of all of this for a potential future update!

[@RyanMercer]

Pepsi Max?

[@danielktdoranie]

This is the real concern

[@songsan807]

Good video. Even though I have a 2006 MM, I am not going to go through the hassle of sourcing the higher spec CPU and 4GB mem. Just going to get a 2010 or 2012 MM and call it a day. What is interesting is that the 2014 MM allow you to buy a NVME adapter that you can use as a faster primary drive. Could you connect an eGPU to the NVME slot and see if that would work? Since the NVME slot would be close to the bottom case after you pop off the black cover, it should be easy to access.

[@DerekWitt]

This ought to be fascinating! That Mac mini’s case looks like it’s been through the wringer.

[@ctrlaltrees]

I honestly can't believe it still works considering how much it's been abused over the years. Say what you will about Apple but their build quality is second to none.

[@DerekWitt]

@@ctrlaltreesI still have my Apple TV 3, albeit sitting in a drawer. Pretty much useless these days. My 1st generation Chromecast would be much more useful.

[@semexdaniel45]

​@ctrlaltrees real talk bro when it comes to build quality none of them can beat apple

[@nalinux]

It look easier to open than my 2012. Its mechanic is a pain ... But at least, it's still usable in 2024. Of course I updated it with a SSD, 16 Go ram and Linux Mint, and it's perfect for a daily usage. Excepted games, of course. And I payed it 100$, coming with a Superdrive, nice deal I think. I don't know anything about Mac, I'm a Linux user since 1998. It was a try. Fun fact, the Intel graphic card driver from Mint works better than the one from Catalina ... I had some adaptors from AlieExpress which were a pain to use. Often all they need is a reflow on the soldering pads.

[@MrLurchsThings]

So you took an old Mac, upgraded it,and loaded Linux. Sean has a lot to answer for 😂

[@ctrlaltrees]

He's a bad influence!

[@jabrow7135]

The GPU might be pulling too much power at boot to allow the system to progress. So it might work with one that requires external power.

[@cannaroe1213]

RAM upgrade with BIOS mod was incredibly based. I imagine the GPU is asking for too much RAM from PCIe interface, could even be a boot thing and hot-plugging it would bypass that... but assuming it wouldn't, your best bet is to buy a older, smaller, more appropriate GPU. EDIT: Oh Shi--

[@dnel83]

I have the same model mac mini and have been playing with it for the past couple of weeks. I haven't upgraded it but I put Snow Leopard back on and been seeing what I can get it to do. I didn't use Mac OS until later starting with Mavericks so its been interesting seeing how it has changed. Love me a 16:10 monitor btw, wish they were more common in larger sizes

[@MotownBatman]

Man I LOVED Maximus Arcade I Still have a Copy of 2.09 & 2.10 I believe This was 5-Star in 2k4

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks! Agreed, it was a fantastic frontend. I got it for free with a set of X-Arcade sticks.

[@lelandclayton5462]

It's probably not able to get enough current flowing through the PCI-E adapter for the card. Try a GPU that requires additional power from the PSU. Could also be possible the embedded video is sitting in the same address as the GPU.

[@metalmusic1401]

pretty sure any graphics cards for mac need a specific bios to be able to boot with the mac firmware

[@Sansui350A]

Hmm... one thought here is maybe trying a card that was used as an upgrade/original in a Mac. Aka a Mac edition ATI/NVIDIA card, OR, one that is very close to what would have shipped with a Mac Pro etc. Some PC cards can be cross-flashed. I suspect your issue is the firmware on the card.

[@NeilGrevitt]

Great idea! Firmware makes sense.

[@andrupka8749]

Good idea but the Apple specific firmwares just include the GOP drivers, which aren't necessary for booting but they are needed to display things in the EFI (like the boot picker and startup screen) before the OS level driver loads. Still worth a try.

[@walterb.9290]

Actually, OSX Lion 10.7.5 runs fine. Prefered browser is Pale Moon. I've got a 2006 Macbook 2,1 mac 3GB Ram, running Logic Pro 9 with a few AU plugins. Runs fine. Also Bootcamp Windows7 for the weird stuff

[@Kap0wn3D711]

Are Mini's easier to open as they age? I picked up an older G4 which has it's factory RAM configuration (256MB under tiger, which means a lot of spinning beachball whilst it pages to the disk) just wary of breaking the clips

[@ctrlaltrees]

If anything I'd expect the clips to go brittle with age. I think you just get a feel for it 😁

[@interlace84]

Love the idea of going back to Macos but... That core2duo has 64-bit support and seeing 3GB RAM detected in MacOS makes me think that's a 32-bit release-- seeing that 750ti game in either Linux or a debloated Win10/11 would be awesome :)

[@ctrlaltrees]

Ah, very well spotted. There's actually an interesting explanation for the RAM - the 3GB limit is a limitation of the i945 chipset, basically there's some system stuff mapped to certain areas in memory which means that only around 3GB is available to the OS even with 4GB physically installed. It's not a 32-bit vs. 64-bit thing, although it definitely appears that way - in fact some people only upgrade their Mac Minis to 3GB for this reason, but it was only £10 for the RAM and far more common to find a pair of 2GB SODIMMs so I just went ahead knowing that the full amount wouldn't be available. I was going to explain all of this in the video but was very conscious that it was getting very long, so that ended up being cut. In hindsight I should have at least given it a mention. 🙂

[@buitreador]

@@ctrlaltrees i got the same problem in my Thinkpad T60 (performed the same upgrades and installed Mint)

[@gregf9160]

Linux would run absolutely great on this perfectly good hardware. Debian is a good choice. It's what I would do, to be kind to the hardware.

[@BertrandLeRoy]

Curious about the change of stance on sponsorship. Fantastic video as usual!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks for the kind comment. The sponsor thing is a relevant question and I appreciate you being civil about it! Basically it comes down to wanting to put more and more time and effort into my videos, and covering my spiralling costs. I'm a contractor in my day job so every hour I spend on videos is an hour I'm not billing to my clients, and to be honest that's always in the back of my mind. I'm also paying rent on the studio - although in the name of transparency I should mention that this is pretty much covered by the ad revenue and Patreon money most months. I appreciate that people aren't keen on sponsors - I often find them quite disruptive myself - so I fought hard to get good terms with PCBWay, particularly on the length, positioning and content of the sponsor message to make it as unobtrusive and genuine as possible. Of course the counterargument is always that KZbin should be a hobby rather than a commercial enterprise, and I totally get that angle too. But I really want to make the best videos that I can for my audience and having the financial support of a sponsor does really help me to justify all the time and expense that I put into them. The channel is still a net loss for me financially, and that's fine with me. I've never positioned myself as "anti sponsor" and have worked with various companies in the past, so I'm hoping nobody out there is calling me a hypocrite. I was just waiting for the right deal to come along and I knew from talking to fellow tech KZbinrs that PCBWay were an excellent company to work with. Of course, there's always my Patreon if people want sponsor-free early access to my videos, and I support an awful lot of creators on there myself for just this reason. Hope that makes sense!

[@BertrandLeRoy]

@@ctrlaltrees makes total sense, thanks for the thoughtful and long response. I know what it’s like to work as a contractor.

[@who_goes_there_studios]

the issue is the integrated graphics. you need to cover the pads on the back of the cpu in a pattern that disables it. you can find instructions online. just make sure you have the drivers installed before you boot it

[@bobbus_74]

Intriguing stuff Rees. I got given a 2014 model recently. Not sure I'll be able to pimp it quite so impressively though!

[@ctrlaltrees]

You can probably just plug a Thunderbolt eGPU straight into that, which would be cool to see but nowhere near as janky as my convoluted setup 😁

[@bobbus_74]

@@ctrlaltrees yeah, I mean where's the fun in that? 🤣🤣

[@tappel0]

Cool. I'm a Debian user since about 2002.

[@Cyber_Gas]

C00l

[@phr3dmcc0y]

Windows vista and 7 64 bit drivers will work in windows 10, but you have to install them using the install *.inf function. So you'd need to unpack the driver files then let windows look in the directory for the drivers

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Apologies, may I ask how did you know that for renderer was best i915 instead of llvmpipe?

[@asmrart6196]

Nice beige monitor in the background

[@WoNCrawler]

You can probably use a Radeon 460 a e-gpu. Check if there is a possibility to skip the m.2 to usb to pci-e construction with a different adapter directly using the pci-e lanes.

[@vjnobody]

Does this new bios support the core2quad?

[@ctrlaltrees]

Unfortunately not, the 2.33GHz C2D T7600 is the highest spec CPU that these can be upgraded to.

[@tomaszbielecki7759]

I really doubt that PCIex x1 ( I cheked its 25W in HP mode ) will provide a 60W power output for a gpu card. But pins will recognize device as you provided.

[@ziyyigotipyigo6833]

I am suspicious of the socket on that mini-PCIe card. Using that USB 3.0 PCIe card with, say, a USB 3.0 flash drive, what kind of data throughput can you get?

[@mattsword41]

The 32bit UEFI thing was a real pain! I inherited my brother's old core2duo macbook that I then used for windows - I had to use a modified windows 8.1 to boot it without macos

[@ctrlaltrees]

Agreed - such a headache! I didn't mention this in the video but I actually did a huge amount of research and testing with various OS options while working on this video - I put a page together on my website (still very much a WIP) which is linked in the description.

[@onigvd77]

i’m close to doing all these upgrades to my mini. but i thought there was a way to have a 64bit boot loader. before this i managed to get 32bit linux Mint working.

[@ctrlaltrees]

I was hoping so, it would definitely be useful. I think the issue is that whatever flash chip holds the 32-bit UEFI just isn't big enough for a 64-bit loader.

[@NorthWay_no]

You should have filmed what the "fail to boot" exactly is just to make it 100% clear. Myself I'm more of a "baptize it with fire" when it comes to old PC/Intel stuff with the one exception (there always is one, isn't there?) of keeping a box that supports PCI. Nowadays I'm contemplating getting an Amiga daughterboard with PCI instead... (it's a HardSID Quattro in case you wonder).

[@ctrlaltrees]

Yes, I probably should have shown that. Basically I press the power button, the fan spins up and the power LED comes on but nothing else happens.

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

You're running nouveau drivers? The open source ones? Um... not a great idea. I haven't really tried them myself but I've read that they aren't great. Not sure why. Anyway, Try the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. v470.63.01 appear to be the latest that will support the GTX 750Ti.

[@ctrlaltrees]

That's just what Debian loaded automatically. I'll certainly be giving the proprietary driver a try. I'd expect at least basic functionality from nouveau though!

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

@@ctrlaltrees yeah but you might be onto a more important idea with 32-bit vs 64-bit UEFI support, so maybe that 750Ti just won't work in this case... IDK; I don't have a machine that old.

[@gunark]

Four gigabytes, Rees? Four? That’s insane.

[@ctrlaltrees]

No one man should be allowed to weild so much power

[@Garoninja]

Sir this is tech heresy

[@nitroxinfinity]

The Core 2 T2400 is indeed a 32bit cpu, the T7600 however is a 64bit cpu so maybe more memory is possible?

[@ctrlaltrees]

Unfortunately the Intel i945 mobile chipset used in these machines only supports 4GB, so it's a hard limit. I guess any more than that was inconceivable in a mobile device in 2006! Shame really, more RAM is always useful.

[@joshj88]

Ok now take the G4 and run a mini pci to pci extension with an egpu

[@Mrneilthompsonuk]

Mint 21, on mine. Didnt appear to boot left it for a couple of hours and then the os booted

[@ctrlaltrees]

It may be that you need to boot from a Mac OS install USB and "bless" the OS partition. There's some info on this on my website: ctrl-alt-rees.com/2024-08-13-operating-system-options-for-32-bit-efi-mac-macmini-11-21-macbook-imac-64-bit-usb-install.html

[@jorgenkarlsson6654]

this might be an idea. I installed mint on an macbook Air 2010 (core2 duo). it had intel graphics and nvidia graphics. When i installed nvidia drivers, it would just boot with black screen. The solution was , i cant remember exactly something with apple firmwares way of not start PCIe bus corectly. so after some googleing i found some setting to add in grub to get it to work. i suspect its a similar thing with this, so if i get around to it i will google the solution again.

[@garfield12344]

Nvidia needs boot access to the kernel level that's why Debian won't boot with her in... , and is not initialized after boot ... Try AMD old card from Intel mac era Radeon HD 5xxxx

[@protox07]

I like your videos

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thankyou, that's very kind of you to say. 🙂

[@TheFluri]

Anybody knows what graphical interface was used in this debian?

[@fooflyz]

Maybe some advice from Action Retro is required?

[@peyton_uwu]

24:00 I've been treading down the same path you have with a late 2006 iMac, and have fouhd that antiX & MX Linux both indtall perfectly fine. Which is to be expected, since they are Debian based lol

[@chuckobrando4057]

Have you tried using an AMD gpu?

[@ctrlaltrees]

I don't have any to hand but it's certainly on the list. Thanks!

[@danielktdoranie]

Video cards that go in Macs need a Mac specific firmware flashed to them, yes even on Intel Macs. A video card (that has a Mac firmware) and works on an Intel Mac Pro should work on a Mac mini via this eGPU set up

[@thomas.alrek.90]

No they don't. That's only required to get video output during the boot process.

[@AKATenn]

is the motherboard UEFI compliant?

[@andrupka8749]

Macs pre-2013 use EFI, not UEFI (and before 2008, even on 64 bit machines, they used a 32 bit implementation of it), as the transition happened before the UEFI spec was finalized.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Somewhat, as you might expect it's Apple's own implementation which comes with its own quirks. I really need to dig into it some more. Edit: Oh, I just spotted the other reply right after posting. Yes, that would certainly explain it!

[@davidosh434]

try open core patcher

[@dylanrush184]

There is only one X in the word “maxing”. Why did everyone’s X key get sticky recently?

[@Vuknovic_04]

Just use OCLP to install Sonoma or Monteray on the Mac mini

[@ctrlaltrees]

I certainly looked into it but unfortunately this model isn't supported. I think it only works with the 64-bit EFI models. Great project though!

[@the_holy_forestfairy]

Do you know ActionRetro here on YT? He does all sorts of funny nonsense with Apples & Macs 😀

[@ctrlaltrees]

I do indeed! Sean is a good friend of mine. If you look back on my channel we actually did a video chat (I'm not sure we could describe it as an "interview") that you may find interesting. 😁

[@andrupka8749]

@@ctrlaltrees lol I actually always recognise your name in his Patreon supporter list at the end of his videos. Incredible vid by the way.

[@oscodains]

Seeing the cinema display: I’ve had an idea to take a current Mac Mini/Imac and put it into the chassis of the Cinema Display to create a chinless imac. IMO, Apple has no excuse for the cinema display form factor not to be the new mac mini. I’m putting the idea out there in hopes someone else may do it, I don’t have the money for a new apple silicon imac. Why? The chin is ugly and unnecessary. Make the computer a little bit thicker to get rid of the chin. The old cinema display is more than thick enough to fit a modern panel & hardware inside for a hackintosh DIY job, with space for decent air flow too. It’s a desktop, the cinema display is a perfect thickness. Having it be as thin as possible doesn’t make sense for a desktop - it just has to look good. For a serious suggestion, the Pro Display now is probably thick enough with a normal LCD panel. Seeing has how it already has a SOC to drive it, just swap out the panel & PCB and you got the perfect mac.

[@iainlee]

"I snapped it off because...I don't know why I snapped it off. That was a bit silly."

[@ctrlaltrees]

I actually do know why but it's a long story and probably better suited to a potential follow up video 🤣

[@RandomSetVideos]

please clean the dust if you didnt

[@otakuman93]

just to let you know, nvidia gpu's don't really play well with linux, you might have much better results with an amd gpu as they are supported much better, best of luck of you

[@berk3106]

you said betwixed 14:16

[@ctrlaltrees]

I did

[@mlthmp]

Want to have fun? Upgrade the memory in a 2018 mini.. oh man lol

[@dejanpetkovski8761]

Install a Nvidia driver for Linux and try again

[@oldnotobsolete.2925]

Ah, you've got to love a video that gets the work "betwixt" into it.