[Mac mini Late 2014] Ram upgrade

gilles_polysoft

macrumors regular

Original poster

Jul 7, 2017 Tours (France)

Hello,

to my knowledge there is unfortunately no schematic available anywhere for the Mac mini Late 2014 (Macmini7,1).

This is sad because no schematics means it is difficult to repair and even upgrade the ram on those models.
And those models are cheap, consume very low power and are very reliable.

I had a few of them available at my office, in either 4GB, 8GB and 16 GB configurations, and I wanted to upgrade at least the 4GB ones to 16GB ram.

so I decided to take note of the different configurations of the resistors on the motherboard, which change between the different RAM configurations.

This let me change the RAM and upgrade it. The ram is LPDDR3 in BGA 178, the exact same RAM as in the MacBook Pro and Air so it is easy to buy some new in Chinese market places or even to get some from dead logic board.

Here are the resistor configuration I noted. Green rectangle means 10k resistor present, red rectangle means 10k resistor missing.

The location of the resistors configuration is on the upper side of the logic board, at the opposite of the CPU.

1 - resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 4GB SK Hynix Ram

2 - resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 8GB Elpida Ram

3 - resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 8GB SK Hynix Ram

4 - resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 16GB Elipida Ram

If anyone can help me complete this thread with others RAM capacity / manufacturer configurations, it would be very nice.

Nevertheless, I was able to change and upgrade 2x Mac mini 2014 1.4Ghz 4GB to 16GB ram, this is not as fast as an M1 mac but this is nice

Reactions: chechugarriga, EugW, velocityg4 and 3 others

dosdude1

macrumors 68030

Feb 16, 2012 2,634 6,965

Awesome analysis, this will be very helpful for performing RAM upgrades on these. I was considering changing the SPD data in the SPI-ROM to accomplish the same thing, but setting the strap resistors as Apple intended, of course, is the best way to do it.

A side note: The manufacturer info (Elpida, Hynix, etc.) strap setting doesn't really matter; all that serves to do is change what is shown for manufacturer and part number in the Memory section of System Profiler. Since you were able to find a correct 16GB strap config, you can just use that for any 16GB upgrade, regardless of what manufacturer chips you install.

Reactions: EugW

gilles_polysoft

macrumors regular

Original poster

Jul 7, 2017 Tours (France)

dosdude1 said:

Awesome analysis, this will be very helpful for performing RAM upgrades on these. I was considering changing the SPD data in the SPI-ROM to accomplish the same thing, but setting the strap resistors as Apple intended, of course, is the best way to do it.

A side note: The manufacturer info (Elpida, Hynix, etc.) strap setting doesn't really matter; all that serves to do is change what is shown for manufacturer and part number in the Memory section of System Profiler. Since you were able to find a correct 16GB strap config, you can just use that for any 16GB upgrade, regardless of what manufacturer chips you install.

Thanks a lot ?

Yes I didn't know that, but tried and in my case the 16GB strap for Elpida RAM worked well with SK Hynix RAM.
thanks again ☺️

moyanagy

macrumors newbie

Aug 9, 2019 UK (born in Hungary)

Sorry if I don't understand here what has been done.

Have you unsoldered the original 4GB RAM and then soldered in new 16GB RAM in its place? I didn't think this was possible. Do you have a guide for this?

Also, do you have a link for this RAM you used?

dosdude1

macrumors 68030

Feb 16, 2012 2,634 6,965

moyanagy said:

Sorry if I don't understand here what has been done.

Have you unsoldered the original 4GB RAM and then soldered in new 16GB RAM in its place? I didn't think this was possible. Do you have a guide for this?

Also, do you have a link for this RAM you used?

Yes, that’s exactly what he did. I’ve done the same on a MacBook Air recently, which I made a video about here:

Reactions: EugW, Nguyen Duc Hieu, TimmuJapan and 1 other person

Kaida

macrumors 6502

May 28, 2016 Singapore

i saw that many sellers in China has already done it and advertise on upgrading to 16gb, but they did not say much about the different resistor etc.

Neither links are mine or affilated:

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mborado

macrumors newbie

Mar 23, 2022

32GB (4x Samsung K4E8E304EE-EGCE 8 Gb)

Reactions: gilles_polysoft

Jwkitler

macrumors newbie

Jul 12, 2022

Hello, do you have resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 16GB SK Hynix Ram?

Thank you very much!
Because i don't have the 820-5509-A board view file

100k and 10k resistor , is it same?

Do you know where are R2284 R2282 R2280 and R2291?

Thank

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Last edited: Jul 12, 2022

dosdude1

macrumors 68030

Feb 16, 2012 2,634 6,965

Jwkitler said:

Hello, do you have resistors configuration for mac Mini 2014 with 16GB SK Hynix Ram?

Thank you very much!
Because i don't have the 820-5509-A board view file

100k and 10k resistor , is it same?

Do you know where are R2284 R2282 R2280 and R2291?

Thank

Click to expand...

Just use the 16GB Elpida configuration, it literally does not matter what manufacturer data is used (it does nothing but set the part number in the memory section of System Profiler).

Reactions: Nguyen Duc Hieu

tomast

macrumors newbie

Aug 4, 2022

Hi guys,
I am trying to upgrade my mac mini 2014 from 4GB to 16GB but I cannot find chip numbers. Can you please post here the numbers of 16GB compatible chips?
Thanks

dosdude1

macrumors 68030

Feb 16, 2012 2,634 6,965

tomast said:

Hi guys,
I am trying to upgrade my mac mini 2014 from 4GB to 16GB but I cannot find chip numbers. Can you please post here the numbers of 16GB compatible chips?
Thanks

I use Elpida EDFB232A1MA-GD-F chips for these machines. They are readily available from various sellers on AliExpress.

Rickyandika

macrumors newbie

Dec 30, 2020

dosdude1 said:

Yes, that’s exactly what he did. I’ve done the same on a MacBook Air recently, which I made a video about here:

Click to expand...

Hi, to my understanding based on your video i could just buy some DDR3L 8GB Sticks(the right ram quantity), remove it and solder it to my Mac Mini but how do i know if the RAM uses BGA 178. Or does all DDR3L uses BGA 178?

Also do you know which mac uses BGA 178? I have 2015 MBP and wondering if i could upgrade it as well

EugW

macrumors G5

Jun 18, 2017 13,009 10,284

mborado said:

32GB (4x Samsung K4E8E304EE-EGCE 8 Gb)

View attachment 1979468

32 GB RAM works in the 2014 Mac mini? I would be interesting to do that just for kicks, since 32 GB was never offered as an option.

Kaida said:

i saw that many sellers in China has already done it and advertise on upgrading to 16gb, but they did not say much about the different resistor etc.

Neither links are mine or affilated:

淘宝网 - 淘！我喜欢

淘宝网(Taobao.com)作为专业的购物网站拥有全球时尚前沿的消费者购物集市,100%认证网上商城及超值二手商品区，同时购物安全，产品丰富，应有尽有,任你选购,让你尽享网上在线购物乐趣！

item.taobao.com

淘宝网 - 淘！我喜欢

淘宝网(Taobao.com)作为专业的购物网站拥有全球时尚前沿的消费者购物集市,100%认证网上商城及超值二手商品区，同时购物安全，产品丰富，应有尽有,任你选购,让你尽享网上在线购物乐趣！

item.taobao.com

Click to expand...

I'm curious. How much were they charging for the service?

Madsandmatter

macrumors newbie

Jan 25, 2023

Does anyone here provide this service for someone that’s not capable of doing it?

EugW

macrumors G5

Jun 18, 2017 13,009 10,284

Madsandmatter said:

Does anyone here provide this service for someone that’s not capable of doing it?

Yes... if you live in China or something.

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