Mac mini sleep LED fades on once and won't boot

Question

I've got Mac mini (late 2011), it stopped working recently.

Here are the symptoms: Sleep LED fades on once for a second(a fan makes a spin or two), then Mac mini goes down. No booting sound.

Any reasonable suggestion is much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.s. Power cord is in perfect condition. RAM, and HDD are on their places and working fine. All the cables inside are connected accordingly. NVRAM battery is checked (reinserted on it's place), resetting NVRAM didn't fix the problem. I'm out of ideas how to fix it. The latest try will be bringing it to repair shop.

Answer 1

Based on what you described, you most likely have a logic board issue.

The SIL (Sleep Indicator Light) will normally come on and stay on until the GPU is initialized at which point the display turns on.

From Apple Support:

When you press the power button to turn on the computer, the SIL will also turn on. As the computer starts up, the SIL stays on until the processor (GPU) has initialized and the display turns on. When the GPU initializes properly, the display will turn on and the SIL will turn off simultaneously.

If you have a problem, the SIL will blink out a "code" which you can use for diagnostics. Since it's shutting down, prior to an error code or a boot, the most likely cause is your logic board.

It's time to take it in for service.

Answer 2

The symptoms looks like either Power Supply Unit failure or some sort of motherboard associated problem (e.g CPU failure). Make sure you are not having anything attached to your Mac, but the power cord and try replacing the battery with the new one.

Answer 3

I have had the exact same symptoms on a Macmini mid 2011 a couple of months ago. I went to a authorized Apple Reseller. As far as know they did a PRAM SMC Reset, and also replaced the bios battery. Than they ran the Mac Resource Inspector to check for any errors. I hope this helps