A diagnostics mode while booting ?

[John Emmas]

I have a Mac Mini (about 8 years old). It works fine as long as I never switch it off. However, if I do switch it off it's near enough impossible to get it running again. What happens is that the initial (white) screen comes up - but before it gets to displaying the Apple logo, something inside starts making a loud, regular ticking noise. It sounds like it might be coming from the built-in disc drive - but if I put a disc into the drive and then re-boot, it makes no difference. The ticking sound continues for about 20 seconds, then everything goes silent (no fan noise or anything...)

Sometimes, if I heat up the Mac Mini using a hair dryer, that'll be enough to make it start again - and once it's running it's then okay.

Is there any kind of diagnostics mode (e.g. so I could maybe see some messages which might give me a clue as to what's wrong) ?

 

[honestone]

Need some additional information:

1. What exact Mac Mini model do you have?

2. What Mac OS are you running?

3. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, from a software perspective? You actually can do a good amount of disk cleanup on your own, and there are some excellent programs out there (both free and not free) that can help you.

4. Are you making backups to an external device? That is critical.

Regarding "It sounds like it might be coming from the built-in disc drive - but if I put a disc into the drive and then re-boot, it makes no difference.", I assume there is an internal drive inside the machine, but unsure what you mean by "if I put a disc into the drive and then re-boot, it makes no difference.". We need clarification on that.

 

[John Emmas]

honestone wrote:

" Regarding "It sounds like it might be coming from the built-in disc drive - but if I put a disc into the drive and then re-boot, it makes no difference.", I assume there is an internal drive inside the machine, but unsure what you mean by "if I put a disc into the drive and then re-boot, it makes no difference.". We need clarification on that. "

Oops, sorry... I was referring to the CD writer. The Mac Mini houses a built-in CD writer. When I hear the clicking sound, it seems as if the CD writer maybe thinks there's a CD in the drive and is trying to access it. But if I actually do put a CD into the drive and then re-start, the ticking sound is exactly the same. So maybe something else is making the sound? It's a loud, regular tick (roughly once per second) and it lasts for about 20 seconds. There's no reliable way to stop it from happening - except that sometimes, warming the Mac Mini (with a hair dryer) will make it boot up successfully (I'm not in a cold environment BTW - just a normal house).

Regarding your other questions:-

1. What exact Mac Mini model do you have?
It's the older model (about 40 mm tall - before they introduced the slimline version)

2. What Mac OS are you running?
10.6.8 IIRC (it's the one that came with the machine).

3. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, from a software perspective? You actually can do a good amount of disk cleanup on your own, and there are some excellent programs out there (both free and not free) that can help you.
To be honest, I hardly ever use this machine. I empty the wastebin from time to time but I've never used any kind of defragger. The ticking sound occurs during startup (way before the OS starts loading) and I'm pretty sure it's hardware related. Heating the Mac Mini can often help - so I doubt if it's a fragmentation issue.

4. Are you making backups to an external device? That is critical.
Yes, everything is backed up to an external drive.

 

[John Emmas]

I managed to get the casing off. With the casing removed I could hear that the ticking sound is coming from the hard drive. I know the drive is replaceable (I did it once before) but it was a nightmare IIRC. Not sure if I should attempt it again or just buy something newer...

 

[honestone]

I am not sure which is your machine, as it seems to be a 2009 model. Is this your Mini?

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-2-duo-2.53-late-2009-specs.html

If it is, it looks like the instructions for replacing the hard drive are somewhat complex (especially compared to mine). Here they are:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+mini+Model+A1283+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1063

Now, how big of an internal drive do you need, in terms of storage space? It seems like your machine came with a 320 Gig HDD. It looks like you could put an SSD inside it, and the speed of an SSD will be dramatically faster than a HDD.

If instead you decide to get a newer Mac Mini, if you buy it brand new, it will have a much newer Mac OS than Snow Leopard, OS 10.6.8. If you are using any third party software, you will need to take that into consideration, as some (maybe all?) of that software will need to be upgraded to be compatible with the new Mac OS.

One other thing is that a newer Mac Mini, if you just get one with a HDD, will have a slow, 1 TB 5400 rpm HDD inside. That is what I had when I purchased mine, but after 4 months, ZI replaced the HDD with a fast Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD, and the performance improvement was nothing short of dramatic. The 1 TB HDD went inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure, and that drive served me well for backups, storage, etc. (I am now "all SSD", as I have 2 external 512 gig Samsung 850 Pro SSDs inside nice, slim Orico cases).

 

[John Emmas]

Yes, they all look like the right links, thanks. And that's a brilliant idea about fitting a SSD. Just looking on ebay, for what I'd pay for a second-hand Mac Mini I could probably afford a 512GB SSD. In fact I've a retired work colleague who loves upgrading PCs and Macs. I'm sure he'd do the upgrade if I bought him some nice bottles of wine!

 

[John Emmas]

Popped into a local computer store yesterday to enquire about buying a SSD. The guy in the shop was keen to point out that I'll need to disable defragging if I fit one. Apparently, Windows10 will do this for me automatically. For earlier Windows, it can be turned off using Control Panel. What about OS-X though? A quick Google search implied that defragging isn't necessary for Macs. So does OS-X even support defragging? And if so, how do I go about disabling it?

 

[honestone]

Yes, it is true that defragging files on an SSD is not needed, nor is it recommended (in fact, just the opposite, ie, it is not to be done). And as far as I know, it is not done via the Mac OS. Here is a quote from the link http://osxdaily.com/2014/01/13/defrag-mac-hard-drive-necessary-or-not/:

"On the other hand, Mac OS X includes no such defragging tools or general drive optimizations (no, Repair Disk is not the same thing). One would assume that if Apple felt defragmenting a Mac drive was important enough, it would have included such a feature in the Disk Utility app of OS X, right? But it didn’t, and no such defrag option exists, which should give a pretty clear indicator that for the vast majority of Mac users, defragging an OS X drive simply isn’t a necessary task. There are several reasons for this, one being that the Mac OS X HFS Plus file system automatically defragments files on its own, in a process known as Hot File Adaptive Clustering (HFC). Additionally, many modern Macs ship with SSD, or Flash Storage drives, which don’t ever need to be defragged in general because they have their own maintenance process known as TRIM."

I use TechTool Pro as part of my weekly disk cleanup/maintenance/repair tasks, and it actually has routines for Volume and File Optimization (fancy name for defragging). I was using them when I still had HDDs, but now that I am "all SSD", I no longer run them at all. (There are some other routines in TechTool Pro, and also in Onyx, that I do not run, again due to my exclusive use of SSDs).

So, long story short, don't woryy about that when you install an SSD with the Mac OS on it.