Just moved to a new place and so I reinstalled my HTMacMini (2009 nVidia 9400M model) in a slightly different configuration. My wife wanted it more out of sight so I put it in a drawer which had some ventilation but maybe not enough. After a week, tonight, it became impossible to wake up the display with the keyboard. I connected to the Mini via screen sharing and everything seemed fine. I rebooted the Mini and while I got a signal on TV, the picture was now flickering pretty regulary (as much as once per second). Again, connecting to it via VNC/screen sharing works fine. Did I screw it all up by not allowing enough ventilation in the new setup? Any way I can diagnose exactly what's going on? Could it just be the miniDP connector? Could I replace this?
If indeed the display output is fried, how could I still put my Mini to good use? Would airplay to a new Apple TV be a solution (my TV is 1080p)? I know it can replace my Mini to watch netflix but I have a pretty large collection of mp4 and mkv videos. Could these be streamed by the Apple TV if a HD is attached to the Airport Base? I guess these extra questions might be asked separately…
Best Answer
I have the same model Mini and have found it to be extremely sensitive to temperature. You're lucky you didn't permanently damage yours by keeping it in a drawer. It needs to be out in the air with good clearance around it so that the fan can draw air through.