I'm using MorphOS since 20 years on my Pegasos2 (which died last week), so I registered my MacMini and installed 3.18. Wayfarer and Iris have already been updated.

Is it a known problem that the MacMini generates a very high load and behaves sluggish when running two applications while switching between them (for example Wayfarer and Iris)? There should be plenty of memory and processing power, and with a single application the system is quite responsive.

I could describe the effect as if some swapping takes place. Even the screen starts flickering, displaying corrupted graphics for a millisecond. The fans become very loud. And the mouse pointer stops moving, as if the system is suffering an interrupt storm. After some time it eventually normalizes again.

The system was freshly installed a few days ago. No extra software running. I also checked the debug options.
Never experienced that on my Pegasos 2.

Did the same switch a long long time ago and the Mini was always 2x as fast as the Peg.

While there is the possibility of a SW issue for it sounds more like your Mini is either dying or has a severe cooling issue.


Open it up, check for dust bunnies and while your in it make sure to upgrade the HD (if your just still running 20 year old spinning rust).

Arrrgh! Hardware? I really don't hope so. Although you are right that the Mini is probably not much younger than my Pegasos2. It just wasn't used for 10 - 15 years. And the disk is... definitely old. Definitely no SSD.

I already considered replacing the battery, which seems to be dead, but after I saw some videos how to open the Mini I really would like to avoid that. ;)

The problem looked like a software issue - to me. But that doesn't mean much...
Maybe there is defective hardware which causes an interrupt storm in certain situations?

If you have those applications on separate screens, do NOT use 24/32 bit depth for those. Set your screens to be all 16 bit. Even with the 1.5GHz mini, the amount of graphics RAM isn't much. Running out of graphics ram will cause swapping and will be slow as you've described.

This is especially true if your monitor is Full HD. Mini's hardware was not designed to work with such screen resolutions and is just barely keeping up - plenty of displays actually request frequencies for FHD that the Mini cannot produce.

Think of the Mini as an iBook with a different form factor - and those were shipped with 1024x768 screens :)

[ Edited by jacadcaps 13.11.2024 - 18:47 ]

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Huh? Getting into a Mini is as trivial as it can get.

But sure jaca has a point, VMEM usage has gone up quite a bit since my last dance with a Mini and I for sure forgot about the existence of the 32MB versions.....

Yeah, sounds like running out of graphics memory. I'm running my mini with 64MB vmem so that I have Ambient as enhanced/FullHD/32bit/doublebuffered screen, but then other screens are in the traditional non-enhanced mode to save memory. I can have two or three screens simultaneously on my machine without swapping, but if you have mini with only 32MB it's going to be worse. And only 64MB ones have worked fine with FullHD displays here.

Find a suitable compromise for yourself by trying out settings in the Screens preferences ("Enhanced Display" and resolution/depth) and in the DisplayEngine preferences ("Enhanced Display Engine").

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All applications were running on the Ambient screen, which was set to 24 bit after installation.

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Exactly! That's the reason! I have a 32MB Radeon9200 and setting the Ambient screen to 16 bit helps a lot! Thanks.

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No, it's just 1280x1024.

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Checked some more disassembly videos last night, but I am not convinced. But I'm a software-, not a hardware guy.
Looks like you cannot disassemble the Mini without damaging the case or breaking some of the brittle brackets... :P

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No need to break anything, mate. Don't use The Force, use some proper tools instead (a fine metal spatula should do) and you'll be OK.

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Much better than youtube - Mac Mini iFixit.

The usual metal spatulas I found weren't thin enough, but then I found "japan spatulas" which did the trick easily. This kind of link.

When closing the case you must be careful with the small metal plates at the back. They are easy to bend in wrong positions and then it's difficult to close the case properly without having some kind of gap there...

Ok, so at least I need some special tools and some skill. I might be able to acquire the first, not sure about the last... :)