Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

DDR400 in a 1.6 G5

adamfilip

adamfilip

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Im looking to ad more ram to my 1.6 g5.

I was thinking of buying ddr 400 memory even tho my g5 only supports ddr 333

will there be any problems with buying the faster memory.

in case i upgrade to something faster i would like to have the option of carrying over the memory.

(of course by that time.. QDR or something else will be standard in macs)
 
Putting faster memory in a Mac is a waste of money and chances are it'll cause problems. Kernel Panic comes to mind. G5 uses the slow PC2700 CAS3 memory, so stick with that.
 
yes well i know its setup for pc2700

but will pc3200 work.. it should.. shouldn it..

it will just work slower
and since its working slower then it can it shouldnt make any error
infact it should be more stable
 
FuzzyBallz said:
Kernel Panic comes to mind.
Click to expand...

No, shouldn't be a problem. If, however, you buy RAM slower than required, you better believe you'll encounter a problem or two (well, it's more prone to happen, I've personally never had problems overclocking my RAM in the past, but I've been lucky)
 
rice_web said:
No, shouldn't be a problem. If, however, you buy RAM slower than required, you better believe you'll encounter a problem or two (well, it's more prone to happen, I've personally never had problems overclocking my RAM in the past, but I've been lucky)
Click to expand...

I know it SHOULD work. But in my case it didn't. I received 2x128MB PC3200 DIMMs from a new Dual 1.8 G5 and stuck them into my G5 1.6, thinking it should work with no problem. Kernel panic city I tell you. The RAM was fine in the Dual 1.8, and it was the stock RAM, so I am pretty sure it's not bad. I'm curious if someone out there knows something I don't... 😕

My G5 1.6 hated it until I yanked it... now it is plugging away with no problems...other then having just 256MB RAM 🙄
 
Get the right speed memory chips.

Quick story: The d****ebags from MacConnection shipped us the wrong memory for my graphite iBook twice: 100MHz and 133MHz. We needed the 66MHz kind. Using the wrong memory didn't allow the machine to boot up, but instead make a tone, I think also flash a light several times from where the iBook's light is that pulses green in sleep, and wouldn't boot up.
 
FuzzyBallz said:
Putting faster memory in a Mac is a waste of money and chances are it'll cause problems. Kernel Panic comes to mind. G5 uses the slow PC2700 CAS3 memory, so stick with that.
Click to expand...

keysersoze said:
I know it SHOULD work. But in my case it didn't. I received 2x128MB PC3200 DIMMs from a new Dual 1.8 G5 and stuck them into my G5 1.6, thinking it should work with no problem. Kernel panic city I tell you. The RAM was fine in the Dual 1.8, and it was the stock RAM, so I am pretty sure it's not bad. I'm curious if someone out there knows something I don't... 😕

My G5 1.6 hated it until I yanked it... now it is plugging away with no problems...other then having just 256MB RAM 🙄
Click to expand...

I'm sorry that you had that problem, but blaming it on the fact that it was PC3200 speed as incorrect. I am 100% sure that DDR and SDR Ram is backwards compatible and just clocks itself down.

It is a good idea to buy the faster RAM sometimes, for example if your computer uses DDR2100 but you are going to upgrade in the near future, buy PC3200 if its just a little bit more expensive so you can use it in the future, I wish I would have done that on my PC.
 
King Cobra said:
We needed the 66MHz kind. Using the wrong memory didn't allow the machine to boot up, but instead make a tone
Click to expand...
Well that's pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, RAM these days is designed to be backwards compatible.

The reason 100/133MHz SD-RAM didn't work in your 66MHz iBook slot is because they were quite different technologies. The move from 66 to 100MHz involved a voltage decrease in RAM specs which made them incompatible.
 
Finiksa said:
Well that's pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, RAM these days is designed to be backwards compatible.

The reason 100/133MHz SD-RAM didn't work in your 66MHz iBook slot is because they were quite different technologies. The move from 66 to 100MHz involved a voltage decrease in RAM specs which made them incompatible.
Click to expand...
Bingo, and I think there is a similar drop in voltage between SDR and DDR -- don't want to check developer docs right now.

We had somebody come by here after they tried to use their older memory (higher voltage) in a newer computer and save $20 -- it killed the computer, no booting after the memory was removed.
 
it works ok. we put 400 on the 1.6Ghz's we sold. it brought down costs because we didn't have to order two different types of memory.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back