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any update on Macbook DDR3 ram upgrade issues?

Jollins

Jollins

macrumors regular
Original poster
I remember a few months back (before 10.5.6 was released) a number of people were having problems with their aluminum MacBooks when they upgraded their RAM themselves. Some non-apple-provided RAM was causing kernel panics, lockups, and other serious issues (issues which would disappear as soon as the RAM was removed). People were speculating that it was because the nvidia chipset in the MacBook is very picky, so any differences in latency or other tiny differences from Apple-provided RAM would cause issues.

I haven't heard anything new about this issue lately. Has a system update fixed it? I'm asking because 4gb RAM is now cheap enough that I am getting very tempted, and the upgrade would really help me out.
 
I have the 2.4 model (10.5.6) and upgraded to 4GB (crucial) about two weeks ago I have not encountered any crashes at all.
 
I ran all the updates, SMC firmware, EFI firmware and I'm still having issues. I will have Crucial replace the RAM and see if the problems go away.
 
10.5.6 + EFI updates fixed the issue (afaik, OWC ram works great and is $77 for 4GB).

The EFI updates alone did NOT fix the issue.

So it's a combination of everything.
 
Well, the 2nd kit from Crucial was even worse, my Macbook wouldn't come back from sleep at all with it installed. 🙁

I'm checking out the different reviews on newegg for different kits and it seems people aren't having much luck with the Corsair and Kingston kits either. Most people I see without issues are running the OWC ram.

This is getting really annoying, do the RAM manufacturers even test out their stuff ?
 
KnightWRX said:
Well, the 2nd kit from Crucial was even worse, my Macbook wouldn't come back from sleep at all with it installed. 🙁

I'm checking out the different reviews on newegg for different kits and it seems people aren't having much luck with the Corsair and Kingston kits either. Most people I see without issues are running the OWC ram.

This is getting really annoying, do the RAM manufacturers even test out their stuff ?
Click to expand...

A couple of weeks ago I bought the Crucial 4GB kit from Newegg and I would get Kernel panics about once or twice a day. They sent me a new kit, and so far, (5 days), no problems.
 
im running 4gb kingston ram and so far i havent the problems that people are mentioning and my computer is up to date according to the software update.
 
I bought me the OWC 4gb updgrade kit and my MacBook 5,1 won't wake from sleep now.

Took the new ram out, and voila, the system works as expected again. Requesting a swap or refund from OWC now.

Hopefully I can just swap and all will be good.
 
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