Chosen Solution
Im 99% sure this is a ram issue and wanted to see if anyone had a second opinion. I have both stock ram sticks and two upgraded sticks that worked fine for a while until it quit due to slowing and possibly my doing years ago trying to fix the problem (years ago and less twch savy). I want to use this mac mini as a nas or media server for my home. Should i simply replace the ram sticks and attempt a clean install or is there a way to repair the components upon the clean install? Thanks for any help.
I would second it being a RAM issue. I would try removing all the sticks and trying putting individual sticks in to see what happens. If by clean install, you mean the OS X, that won’t help.