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8GB RAM in Early 2008 MacBook 4,1

O

ofawx

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2013
12
0
I recently came into possession of two 4GB DDR2 modules (both OWC), originally intended to bring two machines up to 6GB total. In experimenting with them, I found my MacBook 4,1 booting without problems, to the desktop. The machine did suffer a kernel panic, but it looked to be completely unrelated in crash logs and the machine has been stable since, with a variety of tasks.

I am obviously aware of the supposed 6GB limit for these machines (indeed OWC will only sell 6GB sets), however I am wondering what exactly to make of this 8GB oddity.

Not sure if it could be related, but I am running Mountain Lion via MLPF (0.3) so might the extra 64-bittedness have something to do with it?

Cheers

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The early 2008 Macbook, like other Santa Rosa chipset Macs, can see 8GB of memory. However, it does not have enough memory registers to be able to access more than 6GB of it. Using any amount over 6GB results in an extremely slow and very unstable system. Using 8GB in a Santa Rosa Mac is not recommended for these reasons. The kernel panic you got was likely a result of this instability, even though it may not appear to be from the logs. There are a few other threads on this topic.
 
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