2008 octo MP started to freeze

Hey guys,

yesterday I got my 2nd kernel panic in almost 3 years. The first one I had was about 2 years ago when I had wrong version of handbrake and for some reason that application was causing kernel panic so I updated it and all fine till yesterday. I was browsing the internet, had itunes, skype, adium and suddenly got it again.
Today, my computer froze 2x without any warnings or anything. Just frozen screen and nothing worked not even force application close etc.
Had to do hard restart.

Now, 1 kernel panic and 2 freezes in 2 days is something I have not seen since I got this computer. In fact until yesterday I only had one Kernel Panic with the handbrake thing and that was about it. No freezing or anything.

So, I did Onyx maintenance and cleaning etc. and now waiting whether or not it will happen again but what else can I do to either find the issue (ram,hdd,gpu.....?) or avoid it?

I still have Apple Care but that will be hard to prove without an actual warning message or anything. (for those freezes)

Any ideas?
Thank you

 

Ok, now I'm even more worried. I went to check the ram and noticed that 4!!! slots are empty!! I have 8x1GB so all slots are full and now only 4!
2gb is from Apple and 6gb from OWC. I've had the extra ram from nearly the beginning so I don't want to believe that 4 slots got fried or something.

riser B 1&2 now empty
riser A 3&4 now empty

what to do?

 

ok, switched the computer off. opened it, removed the risers and blew some air to get rid off the dust. put it carefully back in and now it says 2GB ram.

only riser A Dimm 1&2 has memory in system profiler. Rest shows empty.

What to do and what is going on? Please help, I'm getting really worried here

 

OK, tried quite a lot and I'm a bit confused. Here is what I tried

Lets label the ram first to make it clearer

Apple ram - APL1 APL2
OWC ram - OWC1 OWC2 OWC3 OWC4 OWC5 OWC6

Ok, tried all the ram in pairs on dimm1

everything worked except OWC5 and OWC6 (computer didn't even boot) I tried OWC5 with another ram like APL1 or OWC2 and didn't work so OWC5&6 diagnosed as faulty

now, I thought cool, I have 6gb so it should now be fine. I put all in and didn't work. I had DIMM1 red light on which was working ram

Ok, so another elimination. Tried to put APL1 and APL2 in dimm 2 on both risers but computer didn't boot - I guess I can't have ram starting from different dimm then 1, correct?

So, tried dimm1&2 on both risers - worked fine => 4gb system memory

tried dimm1 & 3 and that didn't work - I guess I can't jump dimms, can i?

So, I think one of the dimm3 ones is faulty too. I tried 5x ram and that didn't work either - is it because everything has to be in pairs and you can't have odd number of ram modules installed?

So, is it really possible to get two faulty ramms and dimm3 faulty too? Or have I overlooked something?

What to do next? Send faulty OWC5&6 to OWC for replacement and take MP to Apple? Is there another check I could do as this thing weights 20kg and I really would prefer not to carry it 600m from the car park to the shopping mall with a box that has not got handles

Any suggestion please? I still have apple care btw

 

well, I am using the computer right now with only 4gb of ram (4 sticks)
If I put Apple ram in in those two slots it will boot fine so how would I find out whether or not it is the dimm 3 slot that is faulty?

If i put the ram (even apple) in different slots than dimm1 and dimm1 is empty then it doesn't boot.

Also, can you install odd number of ram modules? like 3x 1gb? I thought that I can only do it in pairs and nehalem is in triple channels

 

no more tips? Is there another way how to test ram?

 

Ok, I found the problem.

The fact that I have 2 bad ram modules was one thing but I thought I could just have rest of the ram in and have 6gb but couldn't get that to work. Thought that dimm3 is faulty but its not.
The problem was that I thought that ram has to be in pairs and the setup is dimm1 dimm1 dimm2 dimm2 dimm3 dimm3 but that was wrong and thats why it didn't work.
I found a good chart from someone here on macforums and it worked. Now running on 6gb

I have it dimm 1-4 on riser A filled and dimm 1-2 on riser B

Here is the chart so next time someone needs this help