John, thanks. I ran the Apple Hardware Test, and the memory tested fine. The three beeps at start up has not returned since the original restart after the software update, so who knows what it was...
John Galt wrote:
Run Apple Hardware Test. Run the extended tests. If it fails OWC will replace it at no charge. A failure could be temperature related but in any event OWC memory is guaranteed for life. Remove and re-seat each of the modules to verify they are properly installed.
Rember, the free GUI front end for memtest is another memory test utility to consider.
The display may or may not be related to anything. It will be difficult to draw any conclusion without another display to substitute.
Tommy Boyo wrote:
And concerning RAM, I've noticed I can't get the Mac to ever utilize even half of it... so I don't understand what the benefit is.
Correct, there is no benefit of additional RAM unless and until your system and what you do with it requires more than you have. OS X manages its resources efficiently, and there is no way to change how it does that.
I'm still getting snow when starting or awakening the Mac when the monitor has not been recently on, so there may be some interaction between the monitor and the Mac mini. (MultiSync LCD2470 monitor.) Because when the monitor has been running for a while I can restart the Mac without getting snow, usually. Turning the monitor off and on about three or four times usually gets rid of the snowy image and I get a picture. Every now and then it will abruptly turn to complete snow after having been on for hours, so who knows... I understood the snow problems were a common problem with the Intel integrated graphics and the recent software update(s) were meant to address it. It didn't help in my case.
At least I'm back to the original functionality from before the software update... 🙂