MAC mini usb ports dead after processor upgrade

[Albertomac]

I have a core solo mac mini, I replaced the processor with a T5600 1.8 ghz core 2 duo... the computer boots just fine and enters to the desktop , but the USB ports are dead, the keyboard and mouse light dont even power on, i tried differents keyboards, removed the internal battery, unplug for a while the power to clear the smc,etc etc....

Any ideas? as I cant use the keyboard I cant start from another disk, target disk mode,zap the pram etc...

A technician said that probably there is a physical surge protection from the processor to the usb ports and that he will try to find it to disable it tonight and tomorrow morning will tell me the results...

 

[Maxx Power]

Well, many things are possible. I suppose you could check the two capacitors (flat black/white squares near the USB ports on the motherboard) that they are holding a charge of about 5V each while the mini is powered up (you can disconnect all other things and just power up the main board with the CPU/RAM briefly to just check the USB 5V. If your peripherals are not even registering power, it could be that the regulator is dead or a capacitor is shorted (happens naturally).

I have linked a picture of the early model mini. Notice near the 4 USB ports up top and immediately below them are two capacitors labelled 150 J70 and a big plus sign on each.



So if they are not even getting power, then something is wrong with whatever is providing the 5V, which is likely a regulator (probably on the flip side of the board) or the associated circuitry. In that case, I'd check to see if the capacitors are shorted by powering down the mini and using a multimeter in resistance (ohms) mode to check against the two terminals of the capacitors.

 

[Albertomac]

Maxx Power I have sent your info to the technician as im not very good with circuitry ....
Thanks for your fast response and for showing interest in my problem...I will update tomorrow, hopefully with good news

 

[Maxx Power]

Maxx Power I have sent your info to the technician as im not very good with circuitry ....
Thanks for your fast response and for showing interest in my problem...I will update tomorrow, hopefully with good news

Good luck! I still have one of these machines (with the old Core Duo CPU) serving streaming duty.

 

[Albertomac]

Hi.....

the technician guy thinks the problem is that the new processor uses more power than the original and it pull it from other components in this case the capacitor that power the usb...

one capacitor that power the usb ports its giving 3.3v instead of 5v(figure 1 on image) and 4 capacitors near the processor are giving 1.3v and should be giving 3.2v aprox (figure 2 on image)
he has the idea that its going to disconnect the usb from that capacitor to another thing that gives 5v to power them up.....

what do you think? we havent tried putting back the original processor to see if the usb ports work again...he said nothing is burned or damaged that in theory it should work

 

[treekram]

According to the Intel specs, the T1200 has a TDP of 27w, for the T2300 (the alternative core duo CPU), it's 31w. The T5600 is Core 2 Duo and the TDP is 34W. So your technician could very well be correct. Maybe the best you can do is T2400 Core Duo (31w TDP) which was an option for the Late 2006 Mini. It looks like the T7600 Core 2 Duo was offered as an upgrade (34w TDP) for both early and late 2006 but you'd have to research if the upgrade was just a processor switch or it had a different logic board.

 

[Maxx Power]

Hi.....

the technician guy thinks the problem is that the new processor uses more power than the original and it pull it from other components in this case the capacitor that power the usb...

one capacitor that power the usb ports its giving 3.3v instead of 5v(figure 1 on image) and 4 capacitors near the processor are giving 1.3v and should be giving 3.2v aprox (figure 2 on image)
he has the idea that its going to disconnect the usb from that capacitor to another thing that gives 5v to power them up.....

what do you think? we havent tried putting back the original processor to see if the usb ports work again...he said nothing is burned or damaged that in theory it should work

View attachment 699365

I am suspicious of the reasoning. That 3.3V sounds like a digital-IO voltage, and if so, means that those capacitors are part of a filter for digital ICs nearby the USB port. Hence, those two larger capacitors may not be related to the 5V supply line of the USB ports. As for the 4 capacitors near the CPU, those are most definitely buffering the CPU core voltage line (Vcore) and should be around 1.3V. That is around the correct voltage for your Core 2 Duo CPU.

What I would recommend you do (or your technician), is to replace the CPU back to the older one, and test to see if the USB ports are putting out any power (use a USB flash drive with a LED, or a USB flashlight or whatever that has an indicator to demonstrate power on status).

Although the CPU TDP of the Core 2 Duo processor is more than the older Core Duo, it should not result in this situation, as the voltage regulator module (VRM) of the board is completely independent of the USB ports, which are controlled by the South Bridge (that big flat IC with the green edges in your photo). If your South Bridge does not work, then your mini should not power up at all.

Long story short - check that the USB ports are putting out power first, measure between the 5V (one of the pins soldered under the port, you may have to test all of them, but I'm pretty sure that it is either the leftmost or rightmost one in your pics, as you see 4 little solder joints below each USB port in your picture, two innermost ones are for the data+ and data-, so the outer two are 5V and return, test to see which is which, if there is any 5V at all) and the metallic sheath of the ports to check.

I have marked the pins of each USB port and identified the most probable solder pins for the 5V in the leftmost USB port position for you on the image you attached. See image, the black ovals mark each set of 4 solder pins per USB port and the two lines indicate the outer pins (test both to see if there is any thing close to 5V) for the leftmost USB port.

 

[Albertomac]

thanks treekram and Maxx Power for your answers

Maxx Power, tomorrow will test what you posted, but I wonder if the usb ports work again with the old processor what could be done to make them work with the faster one...well lets hope it works in the first place with the old one first..

 

[cynics]

According to the Intel specs, the T1200 has a TDP of 27w, for the T2300 (the alternative core duo CPU), it's 31w. The T5600 is Core 2 Duo and the TDP is 34W. So your technician could very well be correct. Maybe the best you can do is T2400 Core Duo (31w TDP) which was an option for the Late 2006 Mini. It looks like the T7600 Core 2 Duo was offered as an upgrade (34w TDP) for both early and late 2006 but you'd have to research if the upgrade was just a processor switch or it had a different logic board.

Keep in mind the TDP (thermal design point) =/= Power consumption watts. For example Ryzen 7 1800X has a TDP of 95w, but can actually consume upwards of 140w under a heavy load.

I personally don't think its power related (although its just a guess). Those two CPU's at idle will be using around the same amount of power.

I would try putting the original back in just to make sure it the ports still work at all. If so I would research this CPU and its capabilities are (unless this is a common upgrade).

 

[Albertomac]

it seems two capacitors near the usb ports are dead, will be replaced and will update you with the results..

 

[treekram]

Since my last response, I was curious and searched the web and other people have done the upgrade you want to do without problems. Hope everything goes well.

 

[Maxx Power]

Good luck, I hope things work out. Keep us posted.

 

[Albertomac]

Sorry for the lack of updates...the usb ports got working again with the capacitors change but my clumsy fingers dropped my hard drive on the floor..it botted fine once but only once...i was able to back up the files putting it inside a usb box....I have spent days repairing it with terminal commands and disk utility with no luck...tried erased with zeroing it to..after 20+ hours of waiting I canceled it..cant mount it, it doesnt appear anywhere in disk utility..

I borrowed an used hard drive from a friend but he dont remember why he had a spare drive tucked in the first place, maybe its something wrong with it he told me....

So installed it snow leopard from the dvd..it took 8 hours.... said it was ok and needed a restart to finish.... did that and then a dialog box says that it couldn install mac os x and need to reinstalling it again and to check the error log..so checked it and the only error was something wanted to install on the dvd which is a read only and that was it...

So ignored the error and restarted and ejected the dvd with f12 at startup and everything seems fine ..the new processor is recognized but....theres no sound... hadware manager shows no iternal sound available..tried many things but no luck

I downloaded 10.6.8 update and applied to see if this solutioned but after installing it the computer shut down completely...I boot it up and in the apple logo grey screen a progress bar appaeread below and started to fill but suddenly the mini shut down itself again...I restarted and the same story...

So searching in forums I pressed command s at boot up and applyed many terminal commands to fix node and structures..it fixed some things but it said it couldn repair but tried many times and finally rebooted and could enter the desktop...system info shows mac os x 10.6.8 and core 2 duo processor...restarted a few times to test and it seems fine...

The only problem now is I dont have sound, not even the startup sound..I found online that maybe the audio cable is wrongfully connected...I hope thats the problem...and I hope the new hard drive its indeed okay too....

Tomorrow will update with the sound issue

Sorry for any typo im in a cell phone and Im not a native English speaker...

 

[Albertomac]

The sound is working again! the audio cable had a bad contact.... a little tape was the solution...im testing the OS, preview app is not working it give me a error dialog box...I reinstalled it from the os x install disk using the PACIFIST app,not luck..so I watched in the error log that imagecapturecore was missing so using pacifist searched that in the Snow leopard installer and installed in his location and now it worked fine!

But now im seeing the computer doesnt recognize its bluetooth module....will have to open it again I think....

 

[teksurv]

You've put in a lot of work for that machine, hoping for the best.

 

[Maxx Power]

Just be very sure that all the antennas are attached. The two antenna cables are easily detached or forgotten when you reassemble. The ribbon cable (flat cable) that connects to the ports carry the audio signal. Double check that the ribbon cable is seated properly. Also, you should test the machine BEFORE you close the top. Just leave the top off and run the machine like that for a day to make sure all your ports/functions are working before you close the top again.

 

[Albertomac]

Hi everybody...an update..
we open the mini to try to fix the no bluetooth issue,but things got a turn for the worse....the audio stopped working again, the cable its in the right position,it wasa adjusted multiple times, so not audio and bluethoot........

by the way the computer couldnt sleep either , in terminal said usb7 was the thing waking it up...it appears is the bluetooth module which is connected internally by usb at least thats what I found online...

the technician said now that the audio card is not receiving any voltage and the same module that power it it also powers the bluetooth, so he will try yo find a fussible or something that could be damaged....

Lately I have been having such bad luck with computers..last year I ordered a nvidia GTX 1060 for my pc from the united states and it took out my power suppley and motherboard..so I had to pay international shipping for a replacement card and had to get a replacement mother board and another Cpu blower...

 

[Maxx Power]

Hi everybody...an update..
we open the mini to try to fix the no bluetooth issue,but things got a turn for the worse....the audio stopped working again, the cable its in the right position,it wasa adjusted multiple times, so not audio and bluethoot........

by the way the computer couldnt sleep either , in terminal said usb7 was the thing waking it up...it appears is the bluetooth module which is connected internally by usb at least thats what I found online...

the technician said now that the audio card is not receiving any voltage and the same module that power it it also powers the bluetooth, so he will try yo find a fussible or something that could be damaged....

Lately I have been having such bad luck with computers..last year I ordered a nvidia GTX 1060 for my pc from the united states and it took out my power suppley and motherboard..so I had to pay international shipping for a replacement card and had to get a replacement mother board and another Cpu blower...

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I would say that don't spend any more money on the mini. It is not worth much these days. You can better spend your money if you save it for a better mini down the road. That generation of minis are plagued with a few bad design choices such as that fragile ribbon cable for the back ports, short lifespan ceramic capacitors for the CPU power section, fragile plastic standoffs for the motherboard that rips out after a few repairs, CPU retention clips that are also easy to break, ball bearing fans that are hermetically sealed and can not be lubricated. These are all small issues in that, they can be fixed with diligence and time, but at some point of time, you have to ask yourself - is my time really worth fixing this nearly 10 year old computer, if it keeps on having issues (however small) ? I keep my old mini around, but recently the RAM failed on it after 10 years of use, probably due to the heat over the years (that section is not well ventilated as per design). It had other issues as well: HDD death and replacement, fan bearing failure, all plastic standoffs ripped out or were fractured. While I had the time, I fixed these issues, but I can not imagine keeping this mini for much longer if other issues show up.

As for your new GPU, there may be multiple possible causes that affected the outcome. Given that I have had multiple GPUs (about two dozen over the last 10 years) and about 1/3 to 1/2 of them had issues at some point of time in their lifespans (mostly within warranty), I would not recommend purchasing GPUs overseas, as whatever money you save is offset by money you lose trying to RMA them. I wouldn't go into detail about GPU failure rates, but I certainly would not want to pay for shipping (a few GPUs I had were RMA'd multiple times, what a waste of money).

 

[Albertomac]

If the fix is expensive, im considering one of those chinese cheap usb sound boards...anybody got a suggestion for one brand or model in particular that work well with snow leopard ? and maybe one cheap bluetooth usb too.....

I can get one of these for about 7 dollars

http://kenbuys.com/usb-soundcard-for-snow-leopard-10-6-os-x-and-sony-ps3/