Mac mini 2010 not booting up after cleaning

[Vedanth10]

Hello, please help me.
I have a Mac mini 2010 which is in mint condition. I got it from my uncle and this is the first time I am using mac os. Whenever I used it the body would become hot after 10 mins. I don't know if that is how it is designed but nonetheless I opened the back plate and removed the motherboard carefully with all the instructions I saw from Ifixit and gave it a good clean. I also added new thermal paste and put everything back together.
I turned it on and it gave the chime and started to load the os. From my past experience it took about two minutes to load but now it loaded till the half way point quickly but started to slow down from there on. It took more that one and a half hour to reach the end but after this much time it just gets stuck there and doesn't go into the login screen. So I went to youtube and searched this problem and saw the video of how to solve it and in all the videos one thing was common which was resetting nvram and going into recovery mode. But in my case resetting nvram didn't work, nor did going into recovery mode because after I press the command+r key it would just start loading again and would take 2 hours to reach the end and get stuck again.

So I thought maybe the hardrive is corrupted so I removed the hardrive and put a blank one in and I had to make a bootable device which was whole another story and was a lot harder because I didn't have another mac so I had to create a virtual machine but eventually I made the bootable disk (macos Sierra which was what the mac originally had). And I tried to boot into the bootable drive and again it takes an absurd amount of time to load and just gets stuck in the ending. Oh and also initially it had 2gb ram (2,1gb ram sticks) so I put a single 4 gb stick in. Right now the mac is still stuck and I ran out of ideas of what I can do.

Please help me.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I’d swap the original RAM back in to see if that makes a difference first.

 

[AZhappyjack]

FWIW, the aluminum Mac Mini line has always been hot to the touch ... the aluminum casing serves as a heatsink to help keep the internals cool.

 

[eyoungren]

Hello, please help me.
I have a Mac mini 2010 which is in mint condition. I got it from my uncle and this is the first time I am using mac os. Whenever I used it the body would become hot after 10 mins. I don't know if that is how it is designed but nonetheless I opened the back plate and removed the motherboard carefully with all the instructions I saw from Ifixit and gave it a good clean. I also added new thermal paste and put everything back together.
I turned it on and it gave the chime and started to load the os. From my past experience it took about two minutes to load but now it loaded till the half way point quickly but started to slow down from there on. It took more that one and a half hour to reach the end but after this much time it just gets stuck there and doesn't go into the login screen. So I went to youtube and searched this problem and saw the video of how to solve it and in all the videos one thing was common which was resetting nvram and going into recovery mode. But in my case resetting nvram didn't work, nor did going into recovery mode because after I press the command+r key it would just start loading again and would take 2 hours to reach the end and get stuck again.

So I thought maybe the hardrive is corrupted so I removed the hardrive and put a blank one in and I had to make a bootable device which was whole another story and was a lot harder because I didn't have another mac so I had to create a virtual machine but eventually I made the bootable disk (macos Sierra which was what the mac originally had). And I tried to boot into the bootable drive and again it takes an absurd amount of time to load and just gets stuck in the ending. Oh and also initially it had 2gb ram (2,1gb ram sticks) so I put a single 4 gb stick in. Right now the mac is still stuck and I ran out of ideas of what I can do.

Please help me.

If putting the old RAM back does not help, then we should see what's happening during boot. You can find out this way: Shut the Mac off, turn it back on then press and hold CMD+V immediately after hearing the boot chime. Keep holding those keys until you start to see code appearing on the screen.

What we're looking for is the code on the screen when the Mac starts to bog down in the boot process. Slow boots like this typically mean the Mac is searching for something that it needs and not finding it. What will usually happen is that the same code repeats over and over again. Once you're in that spot, take a picture and post it here so we can see what the code is saying.

By the way, CMD+V stands for 'Verbose' mode. It's telling the Mac to show all the steps it's taking during the boot process that are normally hidden from the user behind the loading bar.

Final thought - as you are new to Macs, you have to stop dealing with them in Windows/PC terms. You can't just throw any old RAM in and go. Macs tend to be particular about the RAM that they use. Applying proven PC tactics to resolve Mac problems will fail most of the time.

 

[Amethyst1]

Applying proven PC tactics to resolve Mac problems will fail most of the time.

"My Mac won't turn on."
"Check if the power is plugged in."
"That's PC tactics. Macs don't need power."

 

[eyoungren]

"That's PC tactics. Macs don't need power."

Yeah…tell that to my old Quicksilver!

 

[Vedanth10]

Thank you eyoungren for the reply.
Sorry for the late reply as I am in a different Country the timings are different. Anyway as you said that Macs are specific about their ram so I put in the old, original ram sticks and did a pran and nvram reset. That didn't work. I pressed cmd+v as you said and it started giving some codes and there were many error codes and after 2-3 mins the code started slowing down so much like 2 codes every 5-10 mins. I will post all the error codes and also post the codes from where it started to slow down.Currently it is stuck at a code which is the last pic I posted in the bunch. I am still running the verbose mode and if I find the code repeating, will post a pic. Thank you.

 

[Vedanth10]

I’d swap the original RAM back in to see if that makes a difference first.

I did, it didn't make any difference. I also did a pram and nvram reset. It still gets stuck in the loading screen.

 

[Vedanth10]

FWIW, the aluminum Mac Mini line has always been hot to the touch ... the aluminum casing serves as a heatsink to help keep the internals cool.

Oh that's good to know, I cleaned it and it was still getting hot so I thought maybe that's how it is designed.

 

[Vedanth10]

If putting the old RAM back does not help, then we should see what's happening during boot. You can find out this way: Shut the Mac off, turn it back on then press and hold CMD+V immediately after hearing the boot chime. Keep holding those keys until you start to see code appearing on the screen.

What we're looking for is the code on the screen when the Mac starts to bog down in the boot process. Slow boots like this typically mean the Mac is searching for something that it needs and not finding it. What will usually happen is that the same code repeats over and over again. Once you're in that spot, take a picture and post it here so we can see what the code is saying.

By the way, CMD+V stands for 'Verbose' mode. It's telling the Mac to show all the steps it's taking during the boot process that are normally hidden from the user behind the loading bar.

Final thought - as you are new to Macs, you have to stop dealing with them in Windows/PC terms. You can't just throw any old RAM in and go. Macs tend to be particular about the RAM that they use. Applying proven PC tactics to resolve Mac problems will fail most of the time.

Thank you eyoungren, I posted a reply in the thread, please do see it.

 

[Vedanth10]

Okay so I kept the mac in verbose mode for two hours and it stopped at one code which is "IOConsoleUsers: gIOScreenLockState 3, hs0, bs 0, now 0, sm 0x0". I will also post a pic