Constant crashes of all types! HELP!

[yoyo5280]

Hey all,

Recently I have been having a few problems with my mac mini. Specs in the picture.

Problem one, probably the most annoying, is that my mini will lag so much it is deemed unusable for around five minuets. It happens most often when in Adium, Mail, or Safari and one program lags, all three of those show up as unresponsive in Force Quit (when I can get force quit open that it). I think that is just because they are the programs I have running almost all that time. Are there 'light weight' replacements to safari and maybe mail alternatives for daily use?

Problem two, I get Kernal Panicks when changing avatars in adium at least half the time.

I have installed Google Desktop, Yahoo Gadgets, and a few other menu bar items. Also some Safari Plugins.

Problem three, also very annoying, is that my mini started TODAY, just completely freezing with no warning or anything for no particular reason.

Any particular reason why this is happening recently? HOW DO I FIX IT?

 

[yoyo5280]

Anybody?

 

[hiddenpremise]

With the extremely limited information I see here (no system version, no hardware data, etc), my best guess would be ram that is going bad. These problems are classic defective ram, which is the second most likely part to fail (first is HD).

Getting to RAM on the mini is kind of a pain. You will need a putty knife, a phillips screw driver, and a jewelers flat head. The putty knife goes in around the edges and separates the base from the metal case. There are 4 screws around the perimeter of the upper assembly at the edges of the logic board and two connectors (one tape on the back side near the ports that connects sound, one small fan power cable on front, use the jewelers driver on these). You then lift the upper assembly up and can see the two ram SO-DIMM's. Probably best look up a take apart diagram before attempting.

 

[yoyo5280]

About 3 years ago I think my dad and I have installed 1gig of RAM into the mini by hand. I have had no problems since recently.

I have installed iStats Menu Bar. I will monitor my CPU and RAM from there...


Right now just using safari with 4 tabs, and having Adium and Mail open but not using it, 56% MEM steady

 

[hiddenpremise]

Your iStat and about this mac won't tell you if its your ram going bad. I still think that RAM is the most likely candidate. Up to you if you want to take 1 stick out at a time and test it.

 

[yoyo5280]

I installed an app called Rember, and in the short while I let it run it said everything was okay. I never let it finish though. Took a very long time.

 

[emt1]

I installed an app called Rember, and in the short while I let it run it said everything was okay. I never let it finish though. Took a very long time.

So basically... you didn't test to see if it is your RAM that is failing...

 

[Gray-Wolf]

It might be worth a bench fee to take it to an apple store or reseller and have it looked at.

 

[yoyo5280]

So basically... you didn't test to see if it is your RAM that is failing...

No. Rember is MEMTEST just minus the Single User Mode and PLus GUI.

I just never let it finish

Do you really think it is failing memory?

I have noticed that my CPU usage skyrockets for the tinyest thing and my memory usage is almost always at 70% with just three apps open.

 

[emt1]

No. Rember is MEMTEST just minus the Single User Mode and PLus GUI.

I just never let it finish

Do you really think it is failing memory?

I have noticed that my CPU usage skyrockets for the tinyest thing and my memory usage is almost always at 70% with just three apps open.

Why don't you just run the test so we can rule out or determine that it is RAM.

 

[yoyo5280]

I ran the test and everything seems to be fine in the memory. Shall I post the results?

 

[EchoElite]

Hmmmmm...
thats interesting, ive really never seen a mac mini do that before....
i have no idea what to do, sorry