Freezing Mac Mini

Hey guys, hopefully some of you can help me since the "geniuses" couldn't.

I purchased my Mac Mini(specks at the end of the post) in the end of February, and since I bought it its been acting in the weirdest way. For no specific reason it will freeze for about 5 seconds and then unfreeze. Theres no real pattern, it freezes when I'm reading emails, watching Youtube vids, listening to music, watching DVD rips; it'll even freeze with no applications running.
Whenever it freezes, one of the CPU cores will spike up to 100% and then go back down to normal. I've taken it to the Genius bar a couple of times and every time they say theres no hardware or software issue with it. You can imagine how disappointing this is being my first Mac. Hopefully someone here can help out out.

Mac Mini 2012 model

Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6630M 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4
Display Monitor Asus VE247

Download the free MemTest for Mac and run the extended test. You could have an intermittent memory module. The freezing symptom you're experiencing is usually associated with bad memory. It could also be the graphics chipset or its memory that's acting up. The Apple Hardware Test should be able to catch that.

The Apple Hardware Test should be able to catch that.

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Yeah, but why can't the "Geniuses" detect it?

To the OP, I assume you're using "Activity Monitor" to detect the CPU usage. See what process or processes are causing the problem and whether or not they're consistent. Click on the "% CPU" column and see if this is tied to a specific application. As chsag said, it could be memory, but it could be a lot of things. The fact that it's fairly new system tends to make me think it's not a hardware issue...but bad luck happens.

If the problem can be tied to a specific application, it's probably bad, buggy, or corrupt (Lion has been called "Apple's Vista Moment" FWIW). I doubt the core OS would cause that type of problem, but maybe something you've added on could have something like a library mismatch occurring.

If it looks like it's hardware, try and document it with some type of proof as best you can and then give it to Apple. I bought a Mac Mini years ago that had some seriously bizarre problems. I couldn't open it myself because it was brand new (and I'm certainly no "Genius") and if I did it would trash the warranty. After 3 visits they finally accepted my problem was real (erratic start up, as in it would sometimes start, and sometimes not when the power button was pressed) and gave me a new unit. Odds are the power button was bad.

Hope this helps.

Experiencing same issue

I have the same specs as you and the same type of issue happening.... I'm at the point of reformatting the HD and restore the OS for a second time. This type of issue has never happened to me and it's just very fustrating.

I had an iMac replaced for pretty much identical issues.

How did you go about it dysfunction?

tavikano said:

How did you go about it dysfunction?

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Called Apple support, walked through the rebuild procedure.. had a genius bar appointment, it was swapped out there.