Mac Mini Mid 2011 更换无线接收器金属网

I accidentally broke the little things that hold the cover to the case. Is there a cheap replacement to the cover? Those clips are held onto it very weakly.

Don't just use your thumbs... Use your whole palm to twist it, with maybe a thumb in one of the recesses, applying slight downward pressure.

I think it depends, I have seen some that are very difficult to open and some super easy. But I see them everyday. I wish there was a tool that fit in the holes.

When seating the bottom RAM chip you may have to apply a little extra side force to get it to seat properly. I put in the new RAM and just got a beeping sound upon starting. I then put the old RAM back in and got the same result.

Here is the solution I found on the Apple discussion board.

"Take a small flat head screwdriver and after you put the memory in slot 0, put the screwdriver between the top of the mac mini and the memory then turn the screwdriver a little to exert pressure on the memory into the slot. Do it on both sides of the memory."

This worked for me.

I remember this when I was changing my memory ... I realized (after opening) that more you push, more force it take to open the cover. As you push down you force the cover "to rub" the casing and possibly other things inside. If you "lightly" hold the cover it comes right off ... Remember: less is more! :-)

Have fun!

We found it hard to use the thumbs but if you put the casing on a carpet and one person is holding the case while the other is using his palm of one hand to turn the cover it comes off quite smoothly and without much downward pressure.

Use your whole palm to twist it, with maybe a thumb in one of the recesses, applying slight downward pressure. Thewatchseries

My HDD replacement procedure took 2 jours of research, one night sleeping on it and 30 minutes to perform…

On my mini, the fan has a 3rd screw on the bottom right of its housing just out of sight on the step 3 photo. I believe it was in the hole later referred to as the 26 mm T6 Torx standoff in step 14.

I needed a T7 for this, and had to remove all three screws before I could take the fan out.

The 3rd screw needed a T5, for me.

All of mine have 3-T6 screws.

I can't, for the life of me, get the left screw out of the cowling. Had to pull both out together. Now having a very hard time getting the cowling back in to replace the fan.

Mid 2011. I too had to remove the standoff screw. It seems to be a T5.

You will have to remove this screw in step 14, so why not now ;)

For me it was no prob to remove the fan just pulling carefully upwards.

Mid 2011 Server, I had to remove the fan screw

Mid 2011. The "yellow screw" from step 14 is captive in the fan and has to be removed in step 4.

Also it is much easier getting the fan correctly aligned on the stand of rubbery bit if you have the screw removed.

That's probably the must tricky part of the replacement. I did the same thing, i just pull on my cables and the connector stays on the board. Tried many times to switch cables into but any order i try is not the good one.

The avoid this, now, when i want to pull out my fan, i just use a plate screwdriver and lift up the connector. That's work perfectly.

I've just pulled out the connector that's soldered to the logic board because I used a pry tool. Be careful at this point to just pull gently on the four cables that go to the fan.

The CAUTION in step 13, "Make sure to pry up from beneath the wires and not underneath the socket," applies to this step as well, for removal of the fan wires.

I screwed it too... Not reading carefully enough, I accidentally removed the whole socket from the board. This happened with the IR connector too. When re-assembling the parts, the socket wouldn't stick to the board, now I know why. I don't want to buy a new logic board, because I can't afford one, so I'm trying to find someone to solder it. Seems hard to find someone able to repair logic boards these days. Hope I'll be successful, otherwise this is an expensive upgrade to my mac...

Don't remove it with your fingers, use a tool for that. And underneath the wires!

I broke the fan wires from the connector plug. Impossible to repair. I have ordered a new fan. Is there a correct orientation to plugging in the new connector?

For heavens sake please DON'T remove the fan. It's really really hard to reconnect it properly. And besides that you don't have to remove the Logic Board for just changing the HDD.

Does anyone know how to solve the full RPM fan issue? My computer guy couldn't solve with fan control software

I removed the fan and everything worked fine, but it’s good to know that it’s a “push-down“ connector, took me some time to relize that, all I needed to do was to press down the connector over the pins, see the picture for more details.

UGH I wish i read the comments. the photo doesnt show the direction to pull and mine ripped right off the motherboard.

SO glad I read these comments first.

I changed the directions to read:

“Use a Spudger to carefully pry the fan cable connector UP out of its socket on the logic board.“

You guys DO know you can edit these, right?

The direction you “ gently pull” to remove the connector is all important. You have to pull upwards, vertically away from the board. If you pull more downwards parallel to the board, you may end up wrecking the connector by pulling the wires out of it as I did. Fortunately the socket was okay so it was just a case of buying a $10 replacement fan (complete with new connector).

DAGNABBIT! Broke it! Now I have a fan blowing on the open case while it’s operating. What can I use as a shield for dust but still allow for airflow?

in Step 6 — Cowling ; " Remove the single 3.5 mm T6 Torx screw securing the cowling to the heat sink", does it mean that it is the same T6 Torx screw for the cowling and the heat sink ?

In fact at the end, I mess this T6 Torx screw !

Uhh I can't get this to go back in? Not sure what is going on...

Note that when you are replacing this cowling you are putting the screw back into what looks like another screw that holds the heat sink to the logic board. Disconcerting but correct.

Note That the arc of the cowling does not butt to the edge of the chassis. But slides in below it. Once the two screws on the heat sink are aligned with the cowling holes, it's good to go.

Look very closely at how this is set. Take a photo. Because when I put mine back together it took 45 minutes just to get the fan and this cowling to fit in place next to each other.

The cowling has a notch close to the midpoint of the flange that goes under the outer case, which slides onto a standoff screw attached to the logic board. I used a Sharpie marker to put one "alignment mark" on the inner edge of the outer case. I put another alignment mark from the midpoint of the cowling notch out onto the visible part of the cowling. This made it much easer to reassemble, especially since my standoff post provided a tight fit, which, when I did this the first time, felt like "it doesn't fit . . . again?" It also helped to insert the end of the cowling closest to the heat sink first, which acted as a "fulcrum" for the cowling to "click" onto the standoff post.

On reassembly, if you're having trouble lining up the cowling with the screw holes, you can try pulling the logic board out a tad and set the cowling in place. Just try not to damage the cowling or the inside of the outer case when sliding it back in!

The "engineering tolerances" are definitely tight for the AirPort antenna plate. I would recommend trying to replace it as soon as it's removed for the first time, in order to work out the (precise) alignment of it.

Nothing I tried (including the suggestions here) seemed to help me during reassembly. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the holes for the two 5.0mm T8 screws to line up. Eventually, I had to resort to CAREFULLY and SLIGHTLY re-bending the curved edge of the antenna plate.

REATTACHING grate - al dente's trick helped me.

The tiny perforations on the grate rest ON TOP of the lip of the case, while the remainder of the grate slides UNDER the lip. It is very hard to see - I used a magnifying glass.

To get it into place, create a tiny hook on the end of a paperclip. Moving along the edge of the grate, lift a perforation with the hook to help it slip into place. Keep moving along the edge until entire grate is shifted into place.

I had several 2-terminal connectors that went to what appeared to be temperature sensors on several components including the hard disk and optical drive. I accidentally pulled the wires out of one of these connectors. Lucky for me, they came out clean and I was able to just re-insert them into the connector

On a Mini bought Jan 2014, Red screws were T-9 and orange were 2mm Hex, T-8 didn't work in either one. T-9 didn't work in orange.

As everyone else has noted during re-assembly, seating the antenna plate is tricky. For me, what ended up working was to attach the hard drive screws first. After this, with just a little wiggling of the plate, the 2 5mm screw holes lined up perfectly.

Aligning the drive holes with the ones on the antenna grate was easy – just take the pointy end of the spudger. Also, for getting the circular part of the grate set correctly, I had to bend down the outermost part a tiny little bit and then used curved tweezers to lift the grate once it was near its final position to get it slide in the last millimeter. Frustrating at first, but it worked after a few tries.

The antenna plate seems to give most people problems. Somewhere along the line I found reference to "a wiggle here and a wiggle there" and that seemed to work. Shy away from the brute force - it's the surest way to damage something.

Steen Rancher January 12, 2015

If 5.0 mm T8 holes don't line up with those on the body, you should hook the antenna up a bit.

Despite all the efforts, I couldn't manage to insert both side screws for the antenna plate. I ended up only using a single one (the one nearest to the HD connector), hoping it will hold the weight of the SSD.

Same issue with that antenna plate - take a look at it from the side and you will see the incredibly tight gap which the lip of the case needs to slot into. I assumed it simply butted up against the case, but no.

I used a big paper clip as suggested here, putting in one screw and then lifting through the perforations while applying a little pressure to the plate. Turned out there was one point misaligned and after a few tries it popped back in.

The thickness of your hard drive or SSD plays a part here, I think. With a thicker SSD (Crucial M4) in the upper slot I found the antenna plate very hard to re-install. After replacing this with a Samsung Evo 850 it was much easier, I think because the lower drive has more room to breathe. With the thinner SSD I didn't have to remove the power supply, either – a major plus.

For those having trouble reinstalling the Aerial Plate, it is probably a matter of alignment. The recessed edge of the plate slides all the way up under the lip edge of the case. I used my iFixit bent tweezers spread and inserted through a couple holes to lightly pull up on the grate while pushing on the flat edge. No hard force was required. It just snapped right in. You'll know when it is home because it will be a snug fit to the edge of the case inside the arc of the opening.

I would also add that during the reassembly process, make sure the drive stays firmly seated in the grommets. There's a tendency for it to come out or partially out. I kept nudging on it to make sure it was fully seated. Then the antenna screws line up nicely. Some of the problems I read about getting the screws in I suspect arise form the hard drive not being fully seated.

Al Dente and Chris1000 provided the key for me. I used the logic board tool to help lift the cutout sections into place on the top part. Once I did that I slid in to place so easily I almost pulled it out of place trying to adjust it.

Hilariously, I was trying all the tricks, with the paper clip, and putting the drive screws in first, nothing working for me to get the case screw holes aligned. I ended up saying “one screw might just have to do it”, so I put the first case screw in, then I tried putting the second one in from an angle into the misaligned hole, and screwing it in, and that caused the plate to pop into place!

What finally helped me was to check things one at a time. To check the tongue-and-groove fit, I installed the antenna plate by itself, with the hard drive removed. I used a spudger to pry open the groove on the antenna plate, since I had closed it a bit by forcing things. After the antenna plate was going in by itself, I focussed on the hard drive. At first, I was pre-attaching the hard drive to the antenna plate, but this makes it hard to see if the hard drive is going in as far as it should. Getting the two protruding screws on the hard drive into their holes is tricky (I found turning the Mini upside down to use gravity helped), but for me it was some wires at the side of the hard drive space that were getting under the drive and making it sit up high that was the problem. Once I got the hard drive in, and then the antenna plate, I could get the last two screws which hold the drive to the plate to catch by turning the Mini upside down and tapping it on top to bring the hard drive close to the plate.

I used a big paper clip as suggested here, putting in one screw and then lifting through the perforations while applying a little pressure to the plate. Turned out there was one point misaligned and after a few tries it popped back in. Download this app Hotstar APP for PC

Here's where it started going south on me because the two T8 screws aren't really attached to anything because my hard drive is on the top of the case where the DVD drive used to be.

The top curved part of the antenna plate has a thin lip on the bottom edge, but is very flexible. During reassembly when sliding the antenna plate back into position, if the 4 holes do not exactly line up, then try bending that lip downward a bit and the antenna plate should then line up perfectly.

Actually, curved edge of antenna has a groove into which an edge of aluminium body should slide in. In my case a vary slight lift by putting tip of tweezers into one of the antenna top holes made a good help - antenna popped into correct position.

I skipped steps 10 and 11 but had to do the rest to get the drive out. My system had a second drive so that may be why the logic board had to be removed to have enough room to get the drive out past the DIMM sockets.

On the Late 2012 model the antenna connector is hidden under the case, so unlike as indicated in step 10 you can not see the connector and definitely not remove it until the Logic Board has been eased out an inch. Note how the cable makes a loop under the case as it is removed. Remember to reconnect the same way with the loop and connected before the logic board is pushed in all the way.

The antenna connector is underneath a black flap. I just lifted the flap slightly with a spudger and used my fingers to disconnect.

...in the latest delivery of the mac mini they had changed something. The antenna plug is hidden under a plastic cover and some tape on it.

You have to push up the cover and remove the tape...not really difficult, it was formed so you can put up easilly.

If your machine came with a 7mm drive and you are replacing with a 7mm drive you do not need to move the logic board. I installed an Intel 335 240GB drive which is a 9.5mm drive and to get that drive in I did need to bump the logic board out to clear the memory slot brackets. I did not need to remote any other wires or connections as the logic board only needs to move maybe an 1/8" to get the drive to clear the memory bracket.

I skipped this step with no problems.

I have a late 2012 Mac mini, but it must be an earlier version than this late 2012 Mac mini in this description, because removing the hard drive is much more complicated than described here. Please see this YouTube video if you have trouble removing your hard drive with these directions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvmuQIZP... There is a longer process you've got to go through. It can be done, it just takes much longer. (3-4 hours for me)

You can leave the antenna plate attached and remove the logic board if you're careful while removing the motherboard.

You might find the two silver screws (along the edge of the grill) will not attach. That's because the hard drive was installed a millimeter or two in the wrong place (or maybe the new hard drive has screw holes offset, in the wrong place). This happened to me. Rather than take it apart (again), I'll just secure the two screws that go into the tabs. No question this will keep things secure enough (just a question if I'll suffer noise or rattle). Extra screws are fun :-)

You can gently use the tip of a screwdriver to align the antenna plate screw holes as long as your hard drive pegs are aligned. *DO NOT FORCE* as your hard drive may just not be in the right place.