I have a late 2012 mini that just died. It is the quad core I7 with 16 gigs of ram. It was running when I left for work this morning and when I got home it was dead. I tried rebooting it and it chimes but goes no further. Pressing te option key makes no difference. I am using a Samsung 250 gig SSD as the boot drive but it also has the original hard drive installed so I should be able to boot from there, but there is no screen to be able to change this. Any ideas as to how to proceed. I am not a particularly techie guy. If it needs to be repaired I would appreciate opinions as to whether it is worth fixing. I'm not too worried about losing anything on the computer. Thanks for any help
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My Mac Mini just died
- Thread starter vandrv
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
[doublepost=1506169102][/doublepost]I left the computer unplugged for a couple of hours and it booted up normally. I wonder do minis have something in them that causes them to shutdown if they overheat? It was quite warm to the touch when I got home.
Buy DiskWarrior.....best for Mac ever...you must buy on line they send you a thumb drive with the software inside to boot from.
Same for my first Mac Mini, the 2005 original. I figured it might be the power supply, but put up with it for several months. I had been in the habit of shutting down at the end of the day, but then took to putting it to sleep instead, which incidentally is recommended practice by Apple. Eventually, when the HDD failed, I took it in to the shop to get checked. They confirmed the power supply was the problem.
A new power supply, new HDD, and a legit copy of Microsoft Office (they had cracked the preinstalled copy so I didn't have to pay to licence it) was going to set me back nearly half the price of a new Mac Mini….. I decide replacement was more cost effective than repair, even though it was only four years old.
I haven't had the issue with the 2009 model I have been using since then, but its power supply has had an easier time than the first one. An upgrade to the line to the neighbourhood makes for less fluctuation in the mains supply. I replaced the UPS that got knocked out by a surge that left several provinces without power, with a better quality one with AVR (auto voltage regulation). I also whacked a 2 metre copper peg into the ground and changed to three pin earthed sockets in my apartment.
[doublepost=1506179254][/doublepost]I guess it could be a power supply issue, I just don't know. I have had a few problems with it just freezing and having to be restarted, but this was the first time it has shut itself off and refused to reboot. I will just live with it for now and see what happens. It would ordinarily be a no brainer if it needs some sort of hardware repair, but it looks like this mini is the holy grail of Mac minis. They seem to sell for way more than I paid for this one.
What kind of cable are you using to connect to your monitor?
Might be able to boot from internal drive:
http://www.ninjastik.com/support/how-to-choose-a-startup-disk-on-your-mac/
You could get an estimate to look at it and see if it's worth it to repair.
Might be able to boot from internal drive:
http://www.ninjastik.com/support/how-to-choose-a-startup-disk-on-your-mac/
You could get an estimate to look at it and see if it's worth it to repair.
I have an Apple cinema monitor and am using the cable supplied with it connected to an hdmi adapter.
I was unable to change startup disks to boot it up. I got no further than a black screen no matter what I did.
I have an external boot drive but I couldn't get beyond a black screen to boot from it. I guess I need to change my title as the computer isn't really dead anymore. After unplugging it, letting it sit and cool off for a couple of hours, it booted up normally and seemed good to go. So I don't think the cable is the issue. If it does it again I will have it looked at and go from there.
I generally don't leave it running all the time. I had signed up for Backblaze and was uploading to it so it had been running for quite a while. When I got home from work it had shut down but was still quite warm. My guess is that it is an overheating issue, as well.
Once in a while I've seen my own Mini "unwilling to wake" from a period of sleep.
Sometimes, just holding the power-on button in until it shuts down, and then rebooting, "cures it".
I think it might have something to do with having my display connected via HDMI, with "synch between" the display and the Mac being lost at some point while it's sleeping.
No matter.
Runs fine again after a reboot.
Sometimes, just holding the power-on button in until it shuts down, and then rebooting, "cures it".
I think it might have something to do with having my display connected via HDMI, with "synch between" the display and the Mac being lost at some point while it's sleeping.
No matter.
Runs fine again after a reboot.
Mine will do something like that occasionally but this was different.It wasn't sleeping it was off. When I restarted it, it would chime but the screen stayed black and would go no further.
Have you tried resetting your pram (Power on, Option+Command+P+R, release after you hear the chime again)?