Diagnose a hardware issue

[AusS2000]

I have a Mac Mini that has been sitting on shelf as a server for about 6 years.

It is a MacMini5,2 with 2.7Ghz Intel Core i7 and 8Gb of RAM, 500Gb HD running Sierra.

Recently is has been slowing down. Every action takes an interminable long time and I end up just restarting. More recently it has been just restarting (well, crashing) by itself. I have just finished moving all it's services (DNS, Confluence, Jira) off to another server and thought I would look into the issue.

It's not a hard drive or system issue. I've rebuilt a fresh system from scratch on a new external hard drive (internal removed). It's not RAM as I've swapped it out. I have run Memtest and it comes up clear.

I'm thinking heat, and have Martin Bresink's Hardware Monitor running on it. Not seeing anything drastic (although it also hasn't crashed since I began monitoring). I checked the fans and heat sinks for dust when I pulled the hard drive.

Any other suggestions or possibilities?

 

[ActionableMango]

recently it has been just restarting (well, crashing) by itself.

What do the system logs state? The kernel panic text might be revealing.

Unfortunately the MM isn't a very user-serviceable computer when it comes to hardware problems.

 

[AusS2000]

Sorry Mango, I didn't get notification of your response.

I'll have a look at those logs when I get this XServe off my desk.

 

[Agent47]

I have a Mac Mini that has been sitting on shelf as a server for about 6 years.

It is a MacMini5,2 with 2.7Ghz Intel Core i7 and 8Gb of RAM, 500Gb HD running Sierra.

Recently is has been slowing down. Every action takes an interminable long time and I end up just restarting. More recently it has been just restarting (well, crashing) by itself. I have just finished moving all it's services (DNS, Confluence, Jira) off to another server and thought I would look into the issue.

It's not a hard drive or system issue. I've rebuilt a fresh system from scratch on a new external hard drive (internal removed). It's not RAM as I've swapped it out. I have run Memtest and it comes up clear.

I'm thinking heat, and have Martin Bresink's Hardware Monitor running on it. Not seeing anything drastic (although it also hasn't crashed since I began monitoring). I checked the fans and heat sinks for dust when I pulled the hard drive.

Any other suggestions or possibilities?

That CPU runs hot, and if its been running continuously for 6 years heat might be the issue in two ways. My suspicion is the CPU is thermal throttling.

Contrary to the above opinion I don't think the mini is that difficult to work on.

First, open the case and check the fan and heatsink. Blow out the dust, check for fan rotation.

The other thing, which is what I suspect given the age and CPU in question, is the thermal interface material (heatsink grease) may not be doing its job. Apple is known for sloppy TIM application in the past. Removing the heatsink and application of a quality TIM (heatsink grease) might be worthwhile. Use something that won't dry out, like Shin Etsu G751.