weird bugs after adding more RAM to intel mac mini

daviestar · #1 February 10th, 2009, 05:38 PM

Hey

I recently had to take my mac mini to pieces to install upgrade its RAM to 2GB. I initially had problems with booting up - it would get to the white screen with the apple logo and think for about 2 minutes then restart and repeat the process indefinitely. I managed to fix this by removing the clock battery for a while (and also pushing and prodding the hardware in desperation trying to fix a broken circuit... who knows it may have helped!). I also zapped the PRAM after installing.

But now, the strange problem is that OS X wont boot up if my firewire devices are connected. In case this helps, I have two HDDs and a DVD burner connected in daisychain to the firewire port. It definitely boots up fine with any other peripherals.

Aside from the horrible idea that I have damaged some hardware, does anyone have any clues as to how I can mend this?

A wise colleage of mine said that if it was a windows machine, he would look at the BIOS settings as he thinks my computer is trying to boot from one of the HDDs, and that I should try to find a list of boot drives and remove the firewire HDDs if they're on it.

I know macs don't run BIOS, but is there anything similar I could check?

Thanks for any help,

Dave

Satcomer · #2 February 11th, 2009, 02:36 AM

Take a look at the program MemTest & Rember (a GUI for MemTest) to test your new RAM to see if it is the problem.

**fryke** · #3 February 11th, 2009, 04:38 AM

Use the original installation disk and boot it holding down the "d" key. Use the long test. It takes very long, but might be worth it.

ElDiabloConCaca · #4 February 11th, 2009, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daviestar

...and also pushing and prodding the hardware in desperation trying to fix a broken circuit...

Could the fact that your computer is physically damaged (i.e., a "broken circuit") have anything to do with the boot problems? Did you correctly "fix" this "broken circuit," or is it still broken?

**fryke** · #5 February 11th, 2009, 09:15 AM

Oh. I kinda read over that.

daviestar · #6 February 11th, 2009, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

Could the fact that your computer is physically damaged (i.e., a "broken circuit") have anything to do with the boot problems? Did you correctly "fix" this "broken circuit," or is it still broken?

Sorry, I wasn't clear there.. I was pushing and prodding random hardware components in desperation just in case the problem was a loose connection.. as the mini boots up fine now (apart from the issue in hand) I can hopefully assume it is a software problem.

Thanks for all your helpful replies.. I have never heard of MemTest or Rember so I will give them a shot tonight.

I have also been looking into EFI, the (apparently much better) BIOS for mac. It seems Apple hasn't made any official way to access it yet, but I have found this:

http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/ch...fiprogramming/

which scares me quite alot! I might need to get one of the developers from my work involved in this one..

Cheers!

daviestar · #7 March 8th, 2009, 03:28 PM

Hi All

My strange Firewire problem is still around.. I thought I could live with it but its really bothering me now!

I have tested my new RAM with memtest and rember and everything seems fine.

After upgrading my RAM, I would also get two alerts on start up -

"Do you want the application "configd" to accept incoming network connections"

and

"Do you want the application "mdnsresponder" to accept incoming network connections ".

I have fixed this problem with the help of this post:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=406592

which seems to indicate the root of the problem is removing the battery (which fixed my other problems).

If anyone has any idea why these issues would affect my firewire devices, please help me!

Cheers,

Dave*