Nothing fancy. Just my previous desk with the G5 and the mini and a big work table besides it. Only half my stuff is hooked up, and I still need to snake some cat 6 in, so I’m getting by on wifi to the router & NAS on other side of the house.
Currently on the bench: macbook with dead battery ( + full backup + snow leopard clean install) – hp slimline with dead psu -toshiba notebook waiting for windows 7.
Here at icerabbit HQ we have been a little too busy recently to focus on testing the new Mac mini 2009 2.26GHz with other hard drives, after we upgraded the memory. Last night I finally gave the mini a nice place on my desk under the 20″ Cinema Display to which it is hooked up.
My original plan has been to use the Mac mini with a faster 3.5″ external hard drive, rather than upgrading the internal drive, which is rather tricky. If you like detailed instructions to perform such an upgrade, look no further than this iFixit guide.
Noting that I haven’t switched to the mini as my primary machine yet; so far, I have been very satisfied with the speed of its 2.5″ Fujitsu …. hard drive. The combination of this drive + the mini is more responsive than many macs with 5400 rpm drives I have seen over the years. So, I haven’t special ordered an anno 2009 zippier 3.5″ 7200rpm drive yet for the ministack. Right now it looks like I will use the ministack for secondary mass storage with a regular drive.
I still want to do some tests using the newertech miniStack v3 with some older drives as well as a couple retail external drives from Maxtor (3.5″USB2 & FW400) and Seagate (2.5″USB2). While I agree that the internal SATA bus is the fastest connection, it doesn’t mean the internal hard drive is the fastest by default. Regardless of connection method, the internal hard drive is still the slowest component in the computer (apart from the optical drive) and so an external hard drive could be faster.
Even if I don’t find something faster than the internal drive in the house it will be a fun exercise to see how long it takes to back up the mac mini using USB2, FireWire400 and FireWire800. What external bench scores will be? Which will be the faster drive? Which applicaion will be faster? SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner? And what about temperatures? Does all this hard drive activity kick the fans in overdrive, or not? Click through for the findings.
[Update: Part 2 with some external drives is posted here ]
Quite a number of people wonder if it is worth upgrading the Mac mini 2009 from its default Core 2 Duo running at 2 GHz to 2.26 GHz (13% CPU increase), so below are my first benchmark results.
I hadn’t see any 2.26 GHz benchmarks yet, when I decided to order my mini with this upgrade. I figured it was worth it since I was going to save money on doing the other hardware upgrades myself. Upgrading the CPU, memory & hard drive kicks a mini over $1000.
Note that I consider 2GB pretty much a mandatory upgrade, so it enables both memory channels and unlocks the shared graphic memory from 128MB to 256MB. The jury is still out, I think, about a 7200 rpm drive. Generally the hard drive is the slowest component in a computer (ignoring the optical drive) and a 7200 rpm drive should be faster than a 5400 rpm drive. But, other technical details come into play like amount of cache, # of platters, platter density, … and so you can see a great 5400 rpm drive hold its own against an average 7200 rpm model. Research is key. The PowerBook greatly benefits from the 100GB 7200 rpm drive over the default one, but maybe Apple made a good hard drive choice here.
Note: Geekbench 32 bit demo mode.
Mac mini 2009 2.26 GHz – 1 GB RAM - OS X 10.5.6 – 1st Boot *
Geekbench 32: 3007 — Integer: 2428 — Floating point: 4343 — Memory: 2410 — Stream: 1558
Xbench: 124.57 — CPU: 142.52 — Thread Test: 307.03 — Memory Test: 154.54 — Quartz Graphics Test: 170.22 — OpenGL Graphics Test: 110.46 — User Interface: 248.38 — Disk test: 48.79
* I noticed after completion that Apple had a software update process running in the background that was pulling several hundred KB/s of updates, so that may have compromised the result.
Mac mini 2009 2.26 GHz – 1 GB RAM - OS X 10.5.6 – Restarted
Geekbench 32: 3032 — Integer: 2448 — Floating point: 4413 — Memory: 2413 — Stream: 1486
Xbench: 178.53 – CPU: 136.81 — Thread Test: 321.07 — Memory Test: 156.73 — Quartz Graphics Test: 179.30 — OpenGL Graphics Test: 137.04 — User Interface: 244.39 — Disk test: 48.52
Upgrading the mini is not for the faint of heart, but I did it. More on that in my upgrade story.
Mac mini 2009 2.26 GHz – 4 GB RAM - OS X 10.5.6 – Restarted
Geekbench 32: 3081 – Integer: 2492 — Floating point: 4378 — Memory: 2476 — Stream: 1821
Xbench: 130.57 – CPU: 137.74 — Thread Test: 252.28 — Memory Test: 174.42 — Quartz Graphics Test: 185.21 — OpenGL Graphics Test: 136.94 — User Interface: 285.55 — Disk test: 48.90
I had no idea why the second Xbench score was significantly higher the second time around with 1GB, only to see it drop back to a still improved level with 4GB. A fourth & fifth result were 131. Actually, the only difference that I am aware of was that the initial monitor topped out at 1024 x 768 pixels, versus the mini’s monitor now being 1920 x 1080. Back to the original 15″ monitor: Xbench 132.
Also noteworthy:
Default installation takes up close to 17GB with the OS & iLife ‘09.
Boot time: 4 seconds to the “bong” and 35 seconds to desktop fully loaded with custom menu bar (iStat Menu), Wifi on DHCP, BlueTooth on.
Shut down time: I have seen it shut down as fast as 5 seconds. Another time 32 seconds, where the display goes blank in 3-4 seconds, but it takes another half a minute for the mini’s power light to extinguish.
All in all I am very pleased with the mini’s performance.
I have been waiting for the mythical midrange mac for so long – namely since the G4 Cube was shelved and Apple went with Intel – that I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Mac mini 2009.
Of course this probably means we will see Apple release such a mid-range machine in the next few months. Which would be the third, or is it the fourth?, time an Apple product we buy is significantly upgraded or replaced by a new model a few weeks later. C’est la vie. I know, you just can’t time Apple for some things.
So, why the Mac mini? Well, it is very simple. There are three things I like in computers: horsepower, silence & a sense of value; and one thing I absolutely hate: glossy screens.
The latter immediately rules out the glossy iMirror, I mean iMac. If it were matte, I could be convinced about the all-in-one factor. Glossy MacBook & MacBook Pro = no thank you. We have two glossy portables (one of which a MacBook and the screen is really sub-par) and I see no need to buy another. The Mac Pro certainly has the horsepower, but $3000 for another behemoth like the G5? I would have to be mad.
If Apple had a new Cube or a one third or quarter size Mac Pro, with Core i7 CPUs (instead of those $$$ Xeons), somewhere in the $1000 – $1250 range, I would order one instantly. Unfortunately the new Cube is still a pipe dream, so, there is only one machine left: the mini. With the 2009 revision it includes dual monitor support and after some evaluation, I figured the time was right to simultaneously downsize (in size) and upgrade (in cpu). I decided on the base Mac mini with 2.26 GHz CPU and will do the upgrades myself.
During the un-boxing I found it funny how I kept thinking there should be something more in the box, like a mouse or a keyboard. Pretty much any new computer I have purchased or set-up for someone else ( apart from self-build ) came with a new keyboard & mouse; so it felt like the mini was lacking those. No luck fitting them into the mini’s box, I guess ;)
Only a mini DVI to DVI adapter is included, so if you have a VGA monitor, or something else, you will need an additional adapter as well as the keyboard, mouse and monitor.
I was somewhat surprised by the huge power brick. It is hefty, but fortunately smaller than that of a Cube.
Here is the port configuration in the back: including FireWire 800 and mini DisplayPort. While I didn’t like Apple’s decision to use mini DisplayPort on their MacBook & MacBook Pro, I am happy it is added on the mini besides the DVI port, so it is dual monitor capable.
I know some people are interested in the Mac mini 2.26 GHz benchmarks and I will post those next. Default as well as upgraded with more RAM and later with a 7200 rpm drive.
This my entry for the Thoughtfix N810 Giveaway contest.
Should there be an embedding problem for your browser, you can access the clip via this link also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFLz9skxOvI
Updated 4/1/2008: Since we now have our own server I can embed the video.
Actually, we are ultra-mobile.
Blogging without a desktop or notebook computer from the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet.
Certainly exciting, and goes to show how powerful compact gadgets can be. No power cord. No keyboard. And you don’t even have to use the stylus to type. You can just tap on the screen. Hit publish and ‘Boom’ … as Steve Jobs would say ;)
Now I just need to figure out how I can do basic photo editing since I like to post pictures. Though, I admit, photo editing on a 4″ screen could be a challenge ;) Haha. But, seriously, publishing images to a blog this way would be ultra sweet and do-able if it weren’t for the size of the images most people start out with. The smallest resolution images my cameras take is 1600×1200. Too big for blog purposes where <500px W and <25KB/img is desirable.
I never thought I would think of how I can take smaller images with any of my cameras, but now I am :)
I received a call from Averatec Advanced Customer Care. After yesterday’s re-escalation from tier 1, that was pretty quick this time.They will not exchange our defective machine with a new one. This even though it is pretty obvious we have a “lemon” and we are certainly not to blame for the issues in their repair facility (which returns non-repaired machines to the customer) nor their shipping department (which in our case made
2 shipping errors during the 3 RMAs)
Our options are:
a) another repair
b) exchange it (for a refurbished unit it turns out)
c) refund (turns out to be partial).
Another repair? There is no quality control in the Averatec Repair Department so that is a no-brainer
really. This machine has been bouncing on trucks for 6 weeks already. Who says this repair will be the last one and will be professional? Why wasn’t the battery replaced as promised three times?
Exchange it? I initially said yes, till it became clear it would be for a refurbished machine. I don’t think that is a viable option, as that would means we are exchanging this machine (after 3 RMAs) for another one which has had 3 RMAs … and is refurbished by their technical department without QA. Absolutely not an option.
That leaves the refund. Which is actually only a partial refund as it is a used machine and according to Averatec has been used for 9 months. That translates for us to 2/3 of the purchase price.
Purchased 9 months ago? Yes.
But 9 months of use? No way.
They conveniently ignore that:
- this machine came with issues and we tried to troubleshoot in house first
- we have been troubleshooting with customer care over the phone since June/July (last summer)
- only after several mandatory steps were allowed to mail in the machine with RMA 1 (before they refused to accept it were hardware issues)
- since the first RMA (=November) have not had possession nor use of the machine, which is a total of 3.5 months!
In all honesty, I more than likely have spent more time troubleshooting this machine and dealing with Averatec; than Carolyn actually used it.
So, how in the world can they say we used it for 9 months when it about half of that time it was under RMA?
By the way: this machine still has the protective plastics on it and is absolutely clean plus scratch & dent free. So it is not like this machine is abused by a teenager and the issues are a result of misuse, inadequate care or so and we are looking for a free ride. Our systems are treated like babies.
Don’t get me wrong, we do not expect a full refund and understand that this machine is not new. But the facts are the facts and I think they should do better. Yes, OK, we were slow of the mark detecting issues. But, if you have a new machine, do you test every feature within the first week? Like test battery life? Back up data to DVDr? Check for dead pixels which may happen to be masked by the Averatec theme? I don’t think you do. Neither do I. Should we be penalize for that? Or for their lengthy repair procedure?
The way I look at it, I would say: ” We’re sorry and apologize for all the inconvenience. Here is a new
machine. If you like we will honor the purchase price as a credit towards the a different machine. ” Now that would be customer care. Sadly, all they do is alienate an existing repeat customer who will now not purchase their brand again, who will no longer recommend it to family, friends & colleagues and in the next user surveys will apply the correct votes for this vendor.
A final note about Averatec, Averatec Customer Care, Advanced Customer Care:
- Dead pixels. A screen is only replaced if you have two dead pixels side by side
- Battery replacement <6 months. We were promised a replacement under warranty, but have not received it.
- Technical Support / Customer Care. You will be required to wipe your machine and reset it to factory default. [maybe not if you have a dead hard drive]
- RMA. You will only receive an RMA after one or more factory resets and lots of other useless troubleshooting in our case.
- Ground shipping. RMA shipping is via Fedex Ground / Home Delivery. Because their repair facility is on the West coast, this means a 14 day total transit time from the East coast.
- The left hand does not know what the right hand does. During RMA the Averatec server gets infrequent updates. If you call in to check on the delay, Customer Care does not know what the repair facility does. Their server and the one from the repair facility only sync on weekday nights or whatever, so on more then one occasion the information was not up to date.
- Quality Control is absent. ( Three times we were promised a new battery, which we did not receive. Twice the optical drive went in for repair/exchange because of 1x burning. Twice it came back with an absolutely non-functional optical drive; and once it was protruding from the machine (unmistakably not installed correctly) )
- Return shipping is hit and miss. The initial return went to the wrong address even though it was noted in the system and on a paper with the machine.
- RMA 2 is still ground shipping. Customer Care can only ship ground and are only allowed to issue call tags, which means you have to be available 8 hours to allow the system to be picked up at your house or office. They do not issue a shipping # so you can drop it off at an authorized location at your convenience.
- RMA 3 = Advanced Customer Care. After two RMAs you can (or will) get bumped up a level and they will expedite shipping to 2-3 day air upon request. Upon request they will also give you a shipping label, instead of the pickup call tag. But, you need to call regular customer care yourself to explain the
issues you are having (again) to get a ticket #. Then you call that # in to advanced customer care so they can call you back after setting up shipping.
- After three RMAs, if there are still issues, you cannot continue working with your contact person from Advanced Customer Care. You need to call tier 1 /regular tech support, explain the situation, get a ticket # and request escalation. Another person takes the case.
- RMA #4? After three RMAs you can get another repair, an exchange for another refurbished unit or partial refund.
Kiwi – our Averatec 4265-EH1 notebook – is finally back with us, after its third RMA. The repair or shipping department forgot to return it via 2 day air. That meant again a 7 day ground trip.First looks: The combo drive (DVD CDRw drive) now sits flush and closes properly. The severely stripped case screws have been replaced as I had requested. But that is pretty much where the good news ends. The battery again was not replaced. Even though this was noted in RMA #1, repeated in RMA #2 and once again in RMA #3. Or was it? I know 110% sure I requested it more then once.
After a little room temperature warm up period to acclimate the system, I fire it up. The optical drive is correctly recognized. Finally! Why didn’t they do this the previous time(s)?
We already knew battery life is only 1 hr 15 min or so when you play a DVD. Tested it again, battery life is still 1 hr 15 min. I cannot accept this as “long battery life”. Our 2yr old 12″ Averatec 3150HS did better:
2 hours and time to spare.
One new anomaly shows up: the battery status does not update. It remains at 100%? Even 1 hour into a movie.
That’s odd! But, before I complain to Averatec again, how about the “BatterySaver” feature?
Fresh boot on the mint factory pre-installed system, I press the dedicated button on the top right side of the base above the keyboard:
What the heck? A “Blue Screen of Death?” Can’t be. Let’s try that again.
Well, I most consistently get a screen lockup similar to this with fuzzy vertical lines and total lockup. (non-responsive system) As pictured below.
On occasion it is the BSOD above. ( Note. The Norton splash screen to sign up (comes back after factory reset, and I haven’t activated it yet) was moved a little to the left by me to further illustrate the lockup. By default it sits more centered. )
I can clearly repeat the steps & crashes.
Time to document it and get back to Averatec. This is where it gets more interesting.
With RMA #3 I was referred to Advanced Customer Care. I was told to get back in touch if things were not resolved. So, I write my contact person a detailed email describing the symptoms with some
screenshots. I also request to be escalated further and referred to a manager or a person in a decision making level that can help us out for a refund since after all these months of troubleshooting and 3 RMAs in 3 months where we saw the machine not even a handful of days; we still have a dead pixel, very short battery life and now power management issues on top of it. I don’t have the energy to test real-life performance and DVD burning speed. It seems to work snappier, but that’s without any load, no antivirus, firewall, … nothing. So who knows?
My contact advises me promptly that I have to call the regular tech support hotline again, report the issues, get a new ticket / RMA number and request to be escalated. What? Sure enough. Another call to tech support where I have to explain the whole situation and give them the instructions from Advanced Customer Care. How backwards is that? I was at the second support level, need to get the level three but I have to go back to square one, wait for escalation, wait for level two to get in touch with me and
then hopefully be escalated further.
And so the saga continues. I am not surprised any more. We’re just both very very disappointed by the lack of professionalism. Technicians don’t test their repairs and ship machines back which clearly were not re-assembled correctly. They do not include repair notes. We don’t understand their organization. One hand does not know what the other does. You’re bounced up and down the support chain.
We can only hope that with patience this will get resolved at some point.
PS: Unfortunately this all too clearly reminds us of the huge struggle we had with Fedex’ insurance a few years ago. But that is another story.