Today, I downloaded the final version and give it another try. Unbelievable but true: I booted the LiveCD system and (almost) everything works without any manual configuration! Sound, Wireless LAN, Desktop Effects (AIGLX + compiz built-in), changing screen resolution and much more.

After a few minutes, I found out that although the bluetooth device in the Mac Mini was recognized, it did not find any other bluetooth devices. And there does not seem to be a bluetooth manager applet like the network manager.
Furthermore my relative new scanner (Canon Lide 70) does not seem to be supported…

Anyway, I will definitely get rid of the Windows Vista installation next to Mac OS X in favor of Ubuntu. Goodbye MS.

In addition I noticed that the fan did not speed up (it stay around 1600rpm all the time), if the cpu was extensively used, and speed stepping of the cpu (Intel Enhanced Speedstep) did not work. In the apfeltalk.de-Forum I got the hint to reset the PMU and to update the Mac Mini’s firmware. After doing so the fan speeds up on high load and the maximum temperature dropped from 97° celsius to 90°. Not very much, but hey….it’s a good start.

Unfortunately speed stepping of the Core 2 Duo still does not work properly. The cpu frequency decreases to 1 Ghz but increases back to 2 Ghz within a second. If anyone has a hint…please drop me an email.

Here are some values and graphs from Hardware Monitor:

Normal load (screenshot done after 2 hours of using Firefox, AdiumX, NetNewsWire Pro, EyeTV, Skype):

Maximum load:

cpu speed stepping:

On Monday I successfully upgraded the CPU of my Mac Mini. The old Intel Core Solo 1,5 Ghz had to give way for a new Intel Core 2 Duo 2,0 Ghz (T7200, code name “Merom”). Additionally I replaced the two 512 MB RAM modules with two modules of 1024 MB each.

1. The Mac Mini still works stable!

2. The speedup is really huge. I did not do many exact benchmarks but most applications are starting much faster than before (espcially iPhoto with 8000 photos and Rosetta applications like MS Office or Acrobat 7) and feel more responsive.

3. The CPU temperature during normal usage (running apps: AdiumX, Skype, Mail, NetNewsWire, iTunes, EyeTV) ranges from 55 to 67 degrees celsius. At maximum load the temperature went up to 97 degrees for a short time (most of the time it was at 90 to 92 when running SETI@home). Although this is within the limit of critical temperature (which is at 125 degrees celsius for the Core 2 Duo), it is unfortunately not very low. I did not measure the temperature of the Core Solo 1,5 Ghz before the upgrade, but can remember that I ran CoreDuoTemp some weeks ago during normal system usage and got about 60 degrees celsius.

4. Some images of the upgrade can be found here.

Benchmarks:
Here are some benchmark values of the Mac Mini with the old CPU (first value) and the new one (second value). The third value shows the speedup-factor.

Xbench values
CPU Test: 56.20 -> 104.55 => 1,86
Thread Test: 82.82 -> 199.50 => 2,40
Memory Test: 105.20 -> 117.77 => 1,12

Most of the other Xbench tests showed a speedup similar to the memory test.

Cinebench 9.5
Rendering (Single CPU): 216 -> 332 => 1,54
Rendering (Multiple CPU): n/a -> 619
Multiprocessor Speedup of Core 2 Duo: 1.87

Shading (CINEMA 4D): 265 – 405 => 1,53
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting): 850 -> 1440 => 1,69
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 869 -> 1574 => 1,81
OpenGL Speedup: 3.28 -> 3.88 => 1,19

Result: SPEEEEEED

Beside work there did not happen much in the last weeks.

I installed the newest Ubuntu Linux release on a notebook. It was very surprising to me, that except the internal win-modem everything worked right out of the box. Even OpenGL-accelerated desktop with AIGLX and Beryl as composite manager works without the need to fumble with any configuration files manually. Another surprise was that sane now supports Canon Lide 35/50/60 scanners, so that I can finally use my Canon Lide 35 successfully under Linux.

Furthermore I am currently upgrading my Intel Mac Mini. I already installed 2GB of RAM yesterday and will soon exchange the 1.5 Ghz Intel Core Single with a 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo (“Merom”).

Next weekend Judith and I will fly to Stockholm to visit her Cousine Julia and her boy-friend Arndt. I am curious how the IKEA-country will look like.

Update: Somehow the new SMC-Firmware-Update, which was published by Apple this morning, seems to be involved into fixing the issue as well. Mh, I don’t care…it is working again…and that’s great.

Unfortunately the Mac Mini does not start anymore since a few days. If I try to switch it on after a shut down or waking it up from sleep mode, the white LED is glowing and I can hear the fans running, but nothing else happens. I can only get it to start again doing the following steps (from Apple Knowledge Base):

1. Plug off all cables
2. Wait 10 seconds
3. Plug in power cable again while pressing the power button
4. Press the power button again => Mac Mini starts
5. Plugin again all other cables while the Mini is starting

I did not find any hints on the net, yet. I hope I will get this somehow fixed. Otherwise I will have visit one of the Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP).

If anyone has a hint for me, please contact me.