This was formerly a 1.5ghz core duo that had been upgraded to a 1.83ghz c2d running Lion. I recently partitioned the hdd to run Win 7 Ultimate (64bit) thru BootCamp. I upgraded the memory from 2 to 4gb and it was initially showing as 4gb on both sides. Now each side only shows 2gb (and Win 7 is running slow - as it should with only 2gb ram). I've swapped the modules in the slots and with another pair, tried just 1 in each slot, and went back to 2 1gb sticks (just to verify that both slots were actually working). Any other ideas? Not sure what caused it to stop recognizing the 2x 2gb chips together. Very frustrating!

SCSI voodoo? (if you ever had a 68030 machine in the house, SCSI voodoo remains in the curtains for decades...)
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It's some kind of voodoo, indeed! Im wondering if the issue will go away if I just nuke & pave? I guess only one way to find out - just hoping for a solution before I do.

I assume you updated the firmware when going from CD to C2D. The first only supports 2GB of RAM the latter will use 3GB of RAM (and show 4GB of RAM in the memory thing).

I did

Will the C2D boot from a flash drive? If so, put a clean OS on a flash drive and see if that fixes it.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Great idea! I'll give that a shot

zap PRAM

Good idea, but already tried that
Also reset SMU - to no avail :-(

So how did this happen? all of a sudden? or there was some software/firmware/vaporware update that triggered this?

It happened at some point when I was installing Windows updates. Now that I recall, when I replaced the hard drive with a larger one (before installing Windows), I forgot to plug one of the fans up. It would have been some time after plugging it back up (and installing updates) that I realized the ram issues. Maybe it had something to do with the fan?

That Mac mini is an early 2006 model. Considering the computer is now 12 years old - it may be a hardware failure.

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Forrest
That Mac mini is an early 2006 model. Considering the computer is now 12 years old - it may be a hardware failure.

anything is possible, but what a strange failure to only see half the RAM, on both sides.

to the original poster: have you tried booting from an external drive?

Any clues if you open System Information?

I would think hardware failure, but both slots are recognized with 1gb modules in each.
I'm planning to try an external drive on it this weekend (may need to install an OS on it first).

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Buzz
SCSI voodoo? (if you ever had a 68030 machine in the house, SCSI voodoo remains in the curtains for decades...)
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This was very funny.

I have the exact same machine, upgraded the exact same way, RAM, PRAM, SSD, CPU, all to the top of the line and the end of the line, and I loved it. Even kludged it up to 10.8 Mountain Lion. But that is all past tense. That machine had a wonderful, productive life, many years beyond its designer's intentions, and it is time for it to spend the rest of its days on a shelf until even its sentimental value has depreciated.

According to Apple Boot Camp you'll need a Mac Mini (Mid 2010) or newer to run Windows 7 64 bit. A Mac Mini (Mid 2007) is needed to run Windows 7 32 bit.

It looks like your Mac Mini is not new enough.

I tried Boot Camp briefly on my Mac Mini C2Duo 1.83 GHz (Mid 2007) and had difficulty running Windows XP. VirtualBox ran Windows XP better, so I stuck with VirtualBox. My info is at least 5 years old.

Forrest - I had to (sort-of) slip-stream a copy of x64 Windows 7 to get it to work, but I can verify that it does work. Each of my boys has a 2006 Mac Pro that they're running x64 Windows 7 via BootCamp from the disk I made. I'm having trouble locating the exact article that detailed how to do this, but this was one [arstechnica.com] . Part way down is a link to an article at jowie.com that I think was what I actually used. Unfortunately, that link is now bad. In hindsight, I wish I had downloaded that article. Oh well...

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rouderon
Part way down is a link to an article at jowie.com that I think was what I actually used. Unfortunately, that link is now bad. In hindsight, I wish I had downloaded that article. Oh well...

The Wayback machine can help you with that, here's the last update of that page from Oct 10, 2016.

[web.archive.org]

Thanks - that's awesome!!