Mac Mini Memory Upgrade

After the hard drive in my iMac died, I moved the Ubuntu Linux VMware image that runs my websites to the Mac Mini I have hooked up to my TV. Since it only had 1GB of RAM, I shut off some apps and extra services (both on OS X and inside the VM itself) to save on memory. It performed fine and I decided to let it host my websites permanently, rather than move it back to the iMac or to a dedicated PC I was building. The Mini is quieter, smaller and more power efficient than any PC I could put together. The Mini did need more RAM, so before I took my iMac out to be repaired, I removed its two 1GB sticks of RAM and put in two 512MB sticks I had leftover from previous upgrades. Last night I finally attempted to install the extra RAM into the Mini. I found some Mac Mini disassembly videos and photos online. After upgrading the RAM but before putting the case back on, I booted up the Mini. It booted fine and saw the full two gigs, so I shut it down, snapped the case back on and hooked it back up to the TV. I powered it on, watched it start to boot and walked over to the kitchen to start dinner, then I heard a second start-up chime. Umm, that's probably not good. The Mini finished booting up fine and I tried to pretend that reboot didn't happen. While dinner was in the oven, I fired up Front Row and started watching an HD TV show when the Mini suddenly rebooted again. There was no kernel panic, just a spontaneous reboot. Crap. I figured it was most likely a memory problem, but it could have also been an overheated CPU. I took it back upstairs and ran the hardware diagnostic CD. No problems found. Grrr. I pried open the Mini again. (Luckily the Mini was much easier to pry open the second time.) The RAM looked like it was seated in its slots just fine, but I took it out and put it back in again. Booted the Mini (without case) and tried playing the same video I tried before. It played fine. Started up two HD videos together and still no reboots. Excellent. As I started to put everything back together, the wire for the Airport antenna disconnected from the Airport card. Had to remove the carrier for the optical drive and hard drive again and plug it back in. I did a test boot of the Mini and it couldn't find my wireless network. Since I had run an ethernet cable down to the living room, I really didn't need Airport at the moment and considered leaving it as-is, but I didn't want to have to open this thing again later on if I did need wireless, so I removed the carrier again and disconnected then reconnected the antenna wire. This time Airport worked so I put the cover back on and hooked it back up in my living room. Powered it on and the fan started blasting at full volume. Arggh! I didn't think a little box could make that much noise. Took the Mini apart again and immediately noticed that another small cable had come disconnected from the motherboard. I reconnected it and did some tests without the case. Everything worked fine, so I put the case back on and tried another succesfull test before taking the Mini downstairs. The whole mess took about two hours, and the Mini has been working fine so far. Apps are performing better now with the extra gig of RAM. I will have to go buy two more gigs of RAM to put back in the iMac after the hard drive is replaced, but I will finally be able to use it for photo editing again. Upgrading the Mini wasn't as scarry as replacing the LCD screen on my MacBook, but definitely not something I would recommend the average computer user ever attempt.