Comments on: Aluminum MacBooks don’t like memory upgrades

By: sai kumar

sai kumar — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:49:27 +0000

Could you guys please a right opinion about the upgrade of 4GB ram in snowleopord Macbook. I had same issues earlier and i have upgraded to snowleopord now. I would like to install 2 x 2GB ram now. Is that fine for snow leopord?

By: Ari

Ari — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:59:06 +0000

One more guy with troubles. I have alu-MB with pre-installed 4gb (2+2). This mac crashes about 3-5 times per month and there are 2 crashing styles:
A) screen goes full of really small vertical lines, especially near lines (like window borders etc)
B) terrible sound, (i guess) from speakers.. it sounds something like hard drive with small stones inside (still my hdd seems to be OK)

Style A is more commond and it can be recovered by honlding power button down 4-5 sec. Style B needs battery removal.
– Ari

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:00:15 +0000

Over a month ago I upgraded the MacBook to Snow Leopard and tried the same memory that was failing in this article. It’s been working fine for all that time, the only difference being Snow Leopard.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:10:50 +0000

Curious if you’re running Leopard or Snow Leopard. I did the upgrade after Snow Leopard and haven’t had a single problem.

By: JonnyDyer

JonnyDyer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:03:07 +0000

I have just installed 2 x 2GB Kingston RAM into my MacBook Pro 15″ – and I have exactly the same symptoms as JK had right at the top. It works for a bit then everything crashes completely. The problem hasn’t gone away – that’s for sure

By: mike

mike — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:45:04 +0000

actually, you are not voiding your warrenty by installing new ram, even if it is third party. if you read the macbook instruction guide it tells you how to do it

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:22:24 +0000

I think these problems have been going on for long before the recent macbooks. My old powerbook 15″ had the same problem back in 2005, random freezes, after I installed new memory.

In that case, I had added a 1gb chip to go along with the 1gb factory chip to give me 2gb.

But here’s the catch: The problem, as I discovered, WASTN’T entirely that the new ram was bad. I know that because when I replaced the factory chip with another new 1gb chip exactly the same make as the other new one, the powerbook ran fine forever after.

So my conclusion was that the powerbook was rejecting the ram because the two chips weren’t the SAME MAKE, and NOT because one of the chips in and of themselves, was bad.

Rather odd indeed.

By: Tery

Tery — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:04:59 +0000

Always, always, zap the PRAM after installing memory. I’m using Crucial 4GB with no issues. I’ve been buying Macs since 1984 and i do not agree at all that Macs have any more issues with memory than any other type of computer. As an IT architect with 18 years experience I have seen countless desktop and server boxes have issues with memory including memory supplied directly by the vendor.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Thu, 07 May 2009 02:15:58 +0000

No.

By: paulo larini

paulo larini — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:46:17 +0000

Can I put ddr2 in this macbook ??