Power Mac G5 freezing

[Ryan T.]

anyone?

 

[hcuar]

Okay. I thought I was okay with two brands that Apple recommends (PNY and Crucial). I just find it odd that the PNY worked when it was alone in my machine, but as soon as you get the Crucial in there, probelms spring up. So you're saying if I buy another 1GB of Crucial, it should work fine?

In your opinion, whats the chance this is a logic board failure with the symptons I've described?

I really appreciate your help.

Yes... if you would purchase another 1GB (2x512) or 512MB (2x256) of Crucial, I believe you would be ok. I had the exact same problem. When running the two different sets of memory, I had problems. When each set was ran individually, it didn't work. My guess is the PNY isn't quite correct. Both sets of DIMMS that I had listed the same cache latency on the label, however the SPD chip reported differently between the two. (I was able to tell this in the Apple hardware test) When Apple sent the new set of DIMMS, all four DIMMS reported exactly the same, and my problems went away.

At this point, my opinion is you have two sets of incompatible RAM. If you purchased the RAM from Crucial directly, I would trust their recommendation over the PNY RAM you purchased. I DO NOT think this is a logic board problem.

 

[Ryan T.]

Yes... if you would purchase another 1GB (2x512) or 512MB (2x256) of Crucial, I believe you would be ok. I had the exact same problem. When running the two different sets of memory, I had problems. When each set was ran individually, it didn't work. My guess is the PNY isn't quite correct. Both sets of DIMMS that I had listed the same cache latency on the label, however the SPD chip reported differently between the two. (I was able to tell this in the Apple hardware test) When Apple sent the new set of DIMMS, all four DIMMS reported exactly the same, and my problems went away.

At this point, my opinion is you have two sets of incompatible RAM. If you purchased the RAM from Crucial directly, I would trust their recommendation over the PNY RAM you purchased. I DO NOT think this is a logic board problem.

Thank you, that's a big load off my mind. I don't suppose anyone has a download of this Apple hardware test, do they? (I'm assuming it's okay to ask for this, if not, disregard)

 

[Ryan T.]

Thank you to all that helped. It looks like it was definately just a memory compatibility issue. I appreciate everyone's help.

I think I'll deal with "just" 1GB of memory now, and down the road, I'll pick up another 1GB of crucial, since my Mac doesn't seem to like anything else

 

[Nermal]

I know someone who had weird compatibility problems when mixing Apple and third party memory in his G5. Worked fine with either, but didn't like having a mixture. The reseller he bought it from confirmed that mixing brands can cause problems.

Personally I'm using Kingston (two 1 GB sticks) because it's cheaper than Crucial. But I have a G4, so results may vary.

 

[dornoforpyros]

Sorry, second hand PM, no hardware test.

The only app I think was open everytime was a special G5 build of firefox. I just uninstalled that, and will use Safari for a while. Maybe it was that.

oh yeah I'd say 9 times outta 10 when my powermac freezes it's in firefox