[DrHogie]

Hello, first time poster. I upgraded my 1.5 GHz Core Solo mac mini (purchased refurb from apple.com in August 2006) from the stock 512MB RAM to 2GB RAM, some 2x1GB PC2-5300 kit listed here:

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Notebook Memory - Retail

I got the case off and got to the RAM without any problem. Inserted the new RAM, made fairly sure it was seated well (when it was completely seated, I can see the slightest sliver of the tops of the pins on the RAM) and put it back together, all but the case top. I seated the case top on the mini, but didn't snap it back into place.

I reconnected all of the cables and powered the system on. It powered right on, booted into OSX. The RAM showed up correctly in MenuMeters and the "About This MAC", as well as System Profiler. All 2GB was present and accounted for.

I started opening up different applications to stress test it and watch for pageouts. I had Safari and iTunes open, and opened up Parallels to try and really fire up the RAM. It started up, and as I was fidgeting with the settings for the Boot Camp parallel file . . . the system went haywire.

The monitor's signal instantly died. I started getting a high-pitched roar/whine over the speakers. I sat there in shock for a few seconds, and as I was reaching to try and kill the power on the mini, it turned off. I tried to turn it back on -- nothing. I unhooked all the cables and rehooked the power/KVM -- nothing.

From what I can tell, there's no "PRAM reset" on these Intel Minis -- just a SMC reset, which you perform by unhooking all the cables for 15 seconds, then hooking back in the power cable, then hooking back in the keyboard/mouse. I tried this and nothing worked.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might have happened or how I could fix this? I've worked on PCs for over 10 years, and while I fully understand the whole warranty issue with Apple (more than likely I'm screwed) I'm not exactly sure how the RAM could have fried the Mini. If the RAM was of a weird voltage, shouldn't it have fried the mini from the beginning?

I'm at work now so I can't fix anything on the mini, but I'm hoping y'all can give me some ideas by this evening.

Thanks in advance,
DrHogie

[mduell]

Take out the G.SKILL ( ) and put the stock memory back in.

[PacHead]

Yeah, that one was simple. Just pull the ram out and if it works with the original memory back in there, then you know what the prob was.......

[cla]

As I understood it Hogie's computer went dead. He describes what happens when he turns it on as "nothing". Putting the old memory back in will also produce nothing unless some miracle happens. Sounds more like a power unit problem to me.

[DrHogie]

Thanks for the replies I got home, cleared my head, and put the old RAM in there. And . . . . nothing. So I looked at the SMU reset instructions again, and tried it again (this time just doing the keyboard/mouse -- trying to stay verbatim). Again . . . nothing.

Then, I unhooked all cables for 30 seconds, rehooked the power, and went off to do something. Then, I looked back, and the power light was on! I scrambled to plug in the monitor, and sure enough, I was looking at the ? folder on the screen. Wondering, I put the GSKILL ram back in -- and it fired right up again. Then I properly seated the DVD/HDD cage, and the system booted right up. While I was swapping the RAM back out, the BT antenna became unhooked -- I didn't bother hooking it back up.

Currently my system is running memtestosx, and I'm hitting pageouts with no crashes so far *knocks on wood*. So . . . would the antenna becoming unhooked while the system is running and possibly grounding itself to something else in the case cause the behavior listed above? Something coming unhooked while the systme was running is about the only thing I can think of that would cause this.

At any rate, I'm really REALLY thankful nothing is busted on the machine To be honest, I'm very very afraid to unseat the cage to rehook the BT antenna again . . . But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thanks again for helping the n00b

[chipchen]

G.Skill ram... never heard anything good about them.

I only trust a few brands.... Crucial, Kingston, Samsung, Hynix, Nanya, Mushkin, Corsair....

FRYS.com had (maybe still does) Kingston RAM, 1GB chips for $50 each. Free shipping.

[mfbernstein]

You'd be surprised what bad grounding can do. Had an iBook that would shut down randomly. Removed 2 screws holding in the lower heat-shield. Machine was fine. Replaced them. Machine went haywire again.

G.Skill's not a great brand, but I've had no problems with them, aside from a mislabeling issue.