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Bypassing 2GB RAM limit

Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
Hello.
How do I install Lion on a Mac that only has 1GB RAM? It's a school computer and I was asked to install Lion on it, but they point blank won't upgrade the RAM. How do I bypass the 2GB RAM requirement?
Thanks.
 
KnightWRX

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
Tell whoever asked you to install Lion that the computer doesn't meet the specified requirements. Anything else is asking for trouble down the line.
 
r.j.s

r.j.s

Moderator emeritus
Mar 7, 2007
15,026
52
Texas
You don't want to do that. It will be very slow.

Tell them it is not possible. There has to be at least 2GB RAM.
 
r.j.s

r.j.s

Moderator emeritus
Mar 7, 2007
15,026
52
Texas
Are they worried about voiding the warranty? If so, the RAM is user-upgradeable.
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
r.j.s said:
Are they worried about voiding the warranty? If so, the RAM is user-upgradeable.
Click to expand...

The warranty has expired already, and they don't want to upgrade the RAM for certain reasons. Yes, I know it'll be slow, but is there any way to bypass it? On my MBP, I originally assigned 2GB (VMware) to a virtual Lion, and then cut it to 1.5GB. So far, it hasn't really slowed down ;)
I'm sure they're aware that it'll be slower, but well, they just want Lion without having to upgrade the RAM
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,404
I use Lion on 8GB of ram, which I specifically upgraded just so that I would not incur any sort of performance issues. Running it on a 1GB of ram - ouch, it will be painful to be sure.

As they say, just because you do it [with a work around], doesn't mean you should ;)
 
B

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
yjchua95 said:
Hello.
How do I install Lion on a Mac that only has 1GB RAM? It's a school computer and I was asked to install Lion on it, but they point blank won't upgrade the RAM. How do I bypass the 2GB RAM requirement?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
I agree that telling them the system doesn't meet the requirements is the best way to go.

Also, since it is clearly an older iMac, if it isn't supported under Mountain Lion, I'd let them know that as well.
 
throAU

throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,819
6,986
Perth, Western Australia
As they said, you don't.

"Lion doesn't support this machine"


Even if you could bypass it, you wouldn't want to. 2gb is pretty much the minimum you'd want to try lion with, its slow enough with less than 4gb as it is.


And point blank refusing to upgrade the RAM is probably a sensible idea for them. If the machine is that old it is off-lease, out of warranty, and about time to be replaced. If you look after a lot of machines, keeping stuff that old around is just asking for hardware failure soon.
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
throAU said:
As they said, you don't.

"Lion doesn't support this machine"


Even if you could bypass it, you wouldn't want to. 2gb is pretty much the minimum you'd want to try lion with, its slow enough with less than 4gb as it is.


And point blank refusing to upgrade the RAM is probably a sensible idea for them. If the machine is that old it is off-lease, out of warranty, and about time to be replaced. If you look after a lot of machines, keeping stuff that old around is just asking for hardware failure soon.
Click to expand...

It's a '08 iMac, which I think it does support Lion, albeit after a RAM upgrade. Anyway, no point talking sense into a bunch of academic bureaucrats who are so tight with a buck ;)
 
H

h4lp m3

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2011
500
45
New Orleans
yjchua95 said:
It's a '08 iMac, which I think it does support Lion, albeit after a RAM upgrade. Anyway, no point talking sense into a bunch of academic bureaucrats who are so tight with a buck ;)
Click to expand...


As an experiment... I took an old black MacBook (2.1ghz core 2) and upgraded the RAM to 2GB.
After installing Lion and all the updates, I then downgraded the RAM back to 1GB and now I've been running it for about an hour... I don't see what the big deal is... It runs slow just like it did on Snow Leopard. :cool:
 
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