Alternatives to AHT? Need a Hardware Diagnostic Tool

[Tempest2084]

So through some investigation I've learned that Apple has disabled AHT on some models of Mac including the Late 2012 Mac Mini. Is there a free alternative to the AHT that I can use to detect hardware issues? My Mini seems to randomly crash and I'd like to know what the cause is. It's not RAM, I've already run MemTest and it passed that. It also doesn't appear to be temperature related as the temp stays around 41-45 C.

 

[rm5]

After doing a search on this GitHub page, I found this in the bundle which I've circled. The Late 2012 Mac mini has model identifiers Macmini6,1 and Macmini6,2, which corresponds to the circled bundle. I have no idea if this will work, but it's worth a shot. I think there is a very specific way you have to flash the AHT image. I haven't done this in years, so you'll have to read through the instructions. Again, I have no idea if this will work or not, so I apologize if this is a waste of time.

 

[Tempest2084]

I tried that one too. The problem is is that Apple has completely disabled AHT on older Macs it would seem. Something to do with Firmware updates.

 

[rm5]

Just out of curiosity, what happens when you try to boot the image?

 

[Tempest2084]

Just out of curiosity, what happens when you try to boot the image?

I get two error messages and it then reboots into MacOS:

Cannot Load 'EFI/Drivers/TestSupport.efi

 

[Bigwaff]

After doing a search on this GitHub page, I found this in the bundle which I've circled. The Late 2012 Mac mini has model identifiers Macmini6,1 and Macmini6,2, which corresponds to the circled bundle. I have no idea if this will work, but it's worth a shot. I think there is a very specific way you have to flash the AHT image. I haven't done this in years, so you'll have to read through the instructions. Again, I have no idea if this will work or not, so I apologize if this is a waste of time.

GitHub - jonelo/ahtfix: Restore the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) on your vintage/retro Mac

Restore the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) on your vintage/retro Mac - jonelo/ahtfix

github.com

 

[Tempest2084]

GitHub - jonelo/ahtfix: Restore the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) on your vintage/retro Mac

Restore the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) on your vintage/retro Mac - jonelo/ahtfix

github.com

I tried that and it gives me the same error. The problem is that since Mojave Apple has removed things from the firmware that the AHT needs to run. I think my only choice would be to try and install a very old version of MacOS (High Sierra maybe) and then try and run the AHT. I'm really not keen on doing that though since I'm not sure that it would work even then.

 

[robertosh]

Don't put too much hope on AHT. I was debugging for some time a problem with my old iMac were AHT was telling me that everything was in order but it was not booting. Finally, I fix the problem replacing the graphic card. Mini is relatively easy to open, so i would try to remove non essential parts and see if the problems goes away like wifi/bluetooth card, single ram slot, etc.
Have you check mac console to see if there is any suspicious/recurrent log signature prior to the crashes?

 

[Tempest2084]

Don't put too much hope on AHT. I was debugging for some time a problem with my old iMac were AHT was telling me that everything was in order but it was not booting. Finally, I fix the problem replacing the graphic card. Mini is relatively easy to open, so i would try to remove non essential parts and see if the problems goes away like wifi/bluetooth card, single ram slot, etc.
Have you check mac console to see if there is any suspicious/recurrent signature prior to the crashes?

Yeah I have the console open constantly but I haven't seen anything that forms a pattern yet. Next time I get a crash report I'll post it and see if someone here can make sense of it. Like I said, the crashing it very random. Sometimes it will run 24 hours without a crash and sometimes it will crash after only a few minutes after boot.

 

[Fishrrman]

Take the bottom off the Mini.
Swap the RAM around between slots.
Try again.

 

[Tempest2084]

Take the bottom off the Mini.
Swap the RAM around between slots.
Try again.

I can try that, but it passed all four passes of MemTest