Well, my Mac mini, two-years old video recording and DVD player slave, developed a weird habit just yesterday. Upon switching it on, it would take some time to boot, only to freeze and display the "You need to restart. Press power button for several seconds." message.
Unplugged all external hardware except screen and keyboard/mouse. Boots sometimes, or not. No pattern.
Plugged in external disks one by one. See above. No pattern.
Ran checks and repair on all attached and internal disks (using another mac). No problems found.
Ran RAM test. No problem found.
Ran long RAM test. No problem found.
Restored a four-days old backup. Machine booted without a hitch.
Shut down. Went away for a few hours. Came back, switched it on, BOOM. Crash.
Unplugged everything again. No dice. Crash on power on, every time now.
Tore open the box. Hard disk dying, possibly? Hard disk is hard to reach. Pulled out the 2x1 GB 3rd-party RAM update instead, replaced the original 2x512 MB.
Surprise: Boot on first try. No more problems. So I guess all this points to the fact that I only need to return the new RAM under warranty (less than a year old), or at least I hope so. I'll see how this works out, tomorrow. Even if it's not covered under warranty, new RAM is dirt cheap* (~ 20 EUR per bar x2).
Why am I posting this at all? Not sure, most likely because of the relief of NOT having to replace the whole machine...
* compared to my first RAM upgrade at a whopping 256 MB for 750 $ per bar, that is
Unplugged all external hardware except screen and keyboard/mouse. Boots sometimes, or not. No pattern.
Plugged in external disks one by one. See above. No pattern.
Ran checks and repair on all attached and internal disks (using another mac). No problems found.
Ran RAM test. No problem found.
Ran long RAM test. No problem found.
Restored a four-days old backup. Machine booted without a hitch.
Shut down. Went away for a few hours. Came back, switched it on, BOOM. Crash.
Unplugged everything again. No dice. Crash on power on, every time now.
Tore open the box. Hard disk dying, possibly? Hard disk is hard to reach. Pulled out the 2x1 GB 3rd-party RAM update instead, replaced the original 2x512 MB.
Surprise: Boot on first try. No more problems. So I guess all this points to the fact that I only need to return the new RAM under warranty (less than a year old), or at least I hope so. I'll see how this works out, tomorrow. Even if it's not covered under warranty, new RAM is dirt cheap* (~ 20 EUR per bar x2).
Why am I posting this at all? Not sure, most likely because of the relief of NOT having to replace the whole machine...
* compared to my first RAM upgrade at a whopping 256 MB for 750 $ per bar, that is