Hi everyone, why is it our hardware always runs fine until you go away for a few days? It's like it knows!
Setup:
2012 Mac Mini
Samsung 16GB RAM kit (installed June 2019)
Crucial MX300 SSD (installed September 2017)
Running Catalina, probably one or two updates back
So I was away and noticed I couldn't connect to some services I was running, so I used Jump Connect on my phone to see it stuck at a login screen and with a Something Failed dialog on my screen. I proceed as normal and find out a minutes later that the same thing has happened. System stability is just shot, I can keep it up and running for a little while but at some point it'll KP and reboot. The KP reason and app blamed each time appears to be different. I reduce everything running to as bare little as I can, as I'm trying to complete a Time Machine backup which hasn't run since May for some reason (I remember having disk space issues that I resolved and maybe forgot to turn back on? Not sure). I'm not able to get it stable enough to complete this.
I boot into recovery (finally, my non-Apple keyboard needs very specific timing!) and into Disk Util and it tells me the partition table needs to be repaired, and I do so. This does not resolve the issue. Also interestingly Internet Recovery gives me a common 5010f error, but with a (11) code next to it which I can't find the meaning of. Useful!
I boot into Safe Boot and I am stable it seems. I can complete the Time Machine backup I failed at many times previous. I launch Plex server to see if I can get away with the audacity of watching a TV show in bed, and I can. It's now the next morning and I checked on playing a song on my phone which worked as I didn't have chance to turn the TV on, but I'm now thinking it was just cached as Plex isn't connecting from my work desktop.
So I'm trying to get to the bottom of the culprit and would appreciate any tips.
RAM - I have the original 2x4GB still, so I can switch out to test with these. Is there anything I can do to establish whether this is the issue?
SSD - I ordered a new Samsung EVO from Amazon on Monday while away because gut instinct was this. It arrives today. If it's not the SSD I'd rather not have to open the packaging so I can return easily, but at worst I'll upgrade to this as it's nearly 2x capacity anyway.
Graphics - I don't use the machine locally that much, but when I did I noticed sometimes the screen would blackout briefly sometimes. Not super often, and I put it down to an HDMI cable being a bit glitchy and I didn't bother replacing it. During Safe Boot use yesterday, I did notice a few graphical corruptions in Finder etc so this is now on my radar. If it's the graphics chip then I'm guessing the machine is essentially dead, as a logic board swapout is just not financially worthwhile on a 2012 machine.
Software - presumably the easiest fix if the case. I can try Internet Recovery again and see if that error reoccurs (I'll do a PRAM reset etc prior and see if that clears it) otherwise regular Recovery reckons it can get me to Mountain Lion and I presume I'll then just use Software Update to bring myself back to latest.
Anything I'm not considering? Any words of wisdom are welcome!
Setup:
2012 Mac Mini
Samsung 16GB RAM kit (installed June 2019)
Crucial MX300 SSD (installed September 2017)
Running Catalina, probably one or two updates back
So I was away and noticed I couldn't connect to some services I was running, so I used Jump Connect on my phone to see it stuck at a login screen and with a Something Failed dialog on my screen. I proceed as normal and find out a minutes later that the same thing has happened. System stability is just shot, I can keep it up and running for a little while but at some point it'll KP and reboot. The KP reason and app blamed each time appears to be different. I reduce everything running to as bare little as I can, as I'm trying to complete a Time Machine backup which hasn't run since May for some reason (I remember having disk space issues that I resolved and maybe forgot to turn back on? Not sure). I'm not able to get it stable enough to complete this.
I boot into recovery (finally, my non-Apple keyboard needs very specific timing!) and into Disk Util and it tells me the partition table needs to be repaired, and I do so. This does not resolve the issue. Also interestingly Internet Recovery gives me a common 5010f error, but with a (11) code next to it which I can't find the meaning of. Useful!
I boot into Safe Boot and I am stable it seems. I can complete the Time Machine backup I failed at many times previous. I launch Plex server to see if I can get away with the audacity of watching a TV show in bed, and I can. It's now the next morning and I checked on playing a song on my phone which worked as I didn't have chance to turn the TV on, but I'm now thinking it was just cached as Plex isn't connecting from my work desktop.
So I'm trying to get to the bottom of the culprit and would appreciate any tips.
RAM - I have the original 2x4GB still, so I can switch out to test with these. Is there anything I can do to establish whether this is the issue?
SSD - I ordered a new Samsung EVO from Amazon on Monday while away because gut instinct was this. It arrives today. If it's not the SSD I'd rather not have to open the packaging so I can return easily, but at worst I'll upgrade to this as it's nearly 2x capacity anyway.
Graphics - I don't use the machine locally that much, but when I did I noticed sometimes the screen would blackout briefly sometimes. Not super often, and I put it down to an HDMI cable being a bit glitchy and I didn't bother replacing it. During Safe Boot use yesterday, I did notice a few graphical corruptions in Finder etc so this is now on my radar. If it's the graphics chip then I'm guessing the machine is essentially dead, as a logic board swapout is just not financially worthwhile on a 2012 machine.
Software - presumably the easiest fix if the case. I can try Internet Recovery again and see if that error reoccurs (I'll do a PRAM reset etc prior and see if that clears it) otherwise regular Recovery reckons it can get me to Mountain Lion and I presume I'll then just use Software Update to bring myself back to latest.
Anything I'm not considering? Any words of wisdom are welcome!