My old iMac has been acting strange and getting worse. At first, it was just slower than usual. After restarting, I lost my internet connection and couldn’t open network settings. It’s gotten so bad that now it takes a day just to get to the login screen, and even longer to boot into macOS.
I suspect either bad RAM or a failing SSD, but I don’t know which one is the problem. I’ve already tried reseating the RAM, but no luck. How do I figure out what to replace first? Does this sound like a specific issue to anyone?
If it was bad RAM, it probably wouldn’t boot at all, and you wouldn’t hear the chime. While that doesn’t completely rule out the RAM, the system sounds more like it’s a drive issue to me.
Piper said:
If it was bad RAM, it probably wouldn’t boot at all, and you wouldn’t hear the chime. While that doesn’t completely rule out the RAM, the system sounds more like it’s a drive issue to me.
I actually don’t hear the chime anymore, which is weird. Does the chime sound no matter the volume setting?
Piper said: @Mal
The chime is a good sign when it’s there, but if the volume was low before rebooting, it could be stored in PRAM/NVRAM. So you might not hear it.
What about losing network connectivity? I thought maybe it was a bad adapter, but I can’t even open the network settings, which seems odd.
If you have another Mac, you could try using Target Disk Mode (hold down T while booting), then use Disk Utility on the other Mac to check the drive’s SMART status and run a disk check.
Not being able to open settings sounds like the SSD might be going bad.
Piper said: @Mal
Have you done an NVRAM or SMC reset yet?
You can connect the Macs with Thunderbolt or USB (or FireWire on older ones) for Target Disk Mode.
I’ll try that, though I’m not too hopeful if I can’t even get into recovery. I might just pull the SSD and put in my old mechanical drive, then hook up the SSD to my MacBook to test it.
If the RAM was bad, it usually wouldn’t even let you boot. I’d lean more toward the SSD, or maybe an issue with the CPU, like the thermal paste losing its effectiveness.
Cal said:
If the RAM was bad, it usually wouldn’t even let you boot. I’d lean more toward the SSD, or maybe an issue with the CPU, like the thermal paste losing its effectiveness.
Even if one of the RAM sticks failed, it would still have 2GB left to boot but run really slow. The SSD is only a few years old, so I didn’t expect it to fail. I didn’t touch the CPU when I swapped the SSD.
