I finally got my old MacMini returned; after many posts that became false alarms, this time, it's for real. However, it's either shown it's age, or my sister has a bad reputation with computers (she's good with them, they just have the unfortunate high-risk of breaking on her randomly by random incidents). As it turns out, she wasn't kidding when she said that my old machine has been bricked (It turns on, but I'm stuck looking at the Apple logo with the mouse spinning in the center of the screen for longer than an hour). However, before I visit her next week for a replacement (we already made plans to do so since she first told me; and who knows? the replacement could be even better than the old one.), I'm going to see if I can debug or unbrick it and maybe salvage it.
However, considering it's already been through quite a bit, and showing some signs of wear when I first gave it to my sister (easily 2 years ago, maybe longer), I'm not surprised the thing bricked. But again, I'm taking up the challenge of unbricking it, since I still have the installation disk, another working computer with internet access, and everything else at my disposal; and on the fortunate side, my sister backed up all my stuff before she took control over it onto a separate hard drive, so nothing of mine is lost; provided a copy-return is done.
Depending on how things turn out, I may or may not need to replace it. Although the bricking should be in SAD, anyway, it's nice to see that little space on my desk filled again. Now I have motivation to clean it up. I've just about ran out of desktop real estate anyhow. I've got some work cut out for me if I do get it running again. In one order, updating all the software on it; the other being cleaning up another external hard drive that has had it's other files stored on it for ages (which fortunately is even compatible with Snow Leopard, and much of the older Power-PC stuff can be emulated as well (tested in a virtual machine, OSX Snow Leopard)); so I'm happy any way it goes because I have a reason to not fear an upgrade if I can't salvage it. Even if I do salvage it, I think my sister would still offer to upgrade it anyway (Seeing as Apple is full of dicks that don't like when users decide they want to modify/upgrade/update their computers manually) as her thanks for me lending it to her for all this time (and since she bricked it).
If I do have to resort to a replacement, shall I find another Power-PC mac, or an Intel mac? It's more a compatibility with past stuff on my machine; but I guess I can go for the Intel to keep it more up-to-date and powerful enough for a mac. The hard drive space upgrade will definitely be welcome as well. I forgot how little space I had on my old machine.
EDIT:
No luck mudding the brick. Damn thing is pretty much unresponsive, except to a few key presses and even so, that fan gets loud. I think the motherboard fried or something. I recognize that heat level, as well as the noise pattern. Maybe it was just about to brick when I lent it to my sister anyway. Sad thing is, I took care of it pretty well, seeing as it was my very first computer of my own ownership (needed it for design and to follow with my courses which used macs).
Well, that sucks, but on the bright side, I can still replace it by next week and crack this sucker open to see what fried. Might still crack it open anyway, seeing as it's way past warranty anyway. I already learned the trick to cracking open a MacMini, so it shouldn't be too hard. I probably won't be too shocked at what I find.
I may provide pictures.