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Macbook Screen Feeze with 4gb ram

H

Huked on Fonick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 16, 2002
300
0
1 Loop
Hi.
I have a 2.4ghz glassbook and I recently upgraded the ram to 4gb from OWC. Ever since the upgrade I have been getting complete system freezes where the screen goes black with coloured bars. This occurs seeming randomly under both heavy and light usage. OWC says thats is a logic board problem and to call apple. Apple says its a problem with the memory. What do I do? I reset the PRAM and ran memtest for several hundred cycles with no problems found. I found this thread at apple on the topic: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1757875&tstart=0
Any thoughts? I don't have the original ram anymore.
 
brop52

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
SnowLeopard2008 said:
It's the logic board. Go sent an appointment with a Genius and have them take a look at it.
Click to expand...

How is it the logic board if the machine was fine before the RAM upgrade and after removal. For example, I had the same problem with freezes after OWC RAM. Before or after the RAM upgrade the machine never froze. It's been a week since I took out the OWC RAM waiting for the OWC replacement and it has been fine.
 
H

Huked on Fonick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 16, 2002
300
0
1 Loop
It does not freeze with the original ram but i still believe its a logic/firmware issue when dealing with 4 gigs of ram. The ram passes 200cycles of memtest. According to OWC they have experenced mass returns on this ram and only 1 in 20 is actually bad. OWC said some of there customers have had success with clean installs and reformatting the hard-drive. OWC is unsure if its a firmware issue, or hardware issue or OS issue but they do not believe its there ram. They have been unable to replicate it on any of there computers, and does not effect all new aluminum macbooks, but effect both the macbook and pro.
 
brop52

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
Huked on Fonick said:
It does not freeze with the original ram but i still believe its a logic/firmware issue when dealing with 4 gigs of ram. The ram passes 200cycles of memtest. According to OWC mass returns on this ram and only 1 in 20 is actually bad. OWC said some of there customers have had success with clean installs and reformatting the hard-drive. OWC is unsure of weather its a firmware issue, or hardware issue or OS issue but they do not believe its there ram. They have been unable to replicate it on any of there computers, and does not effect all new aluminum macbooks, but effect both the macbook and pro.
Click to expand...

They said the same thing to me. I ran 5 cycles of Apple Hardware test. I've heard random things on Apple Discussions that OWC RAM fails to use management or something. My installation was a clean install with a brand new HDD.
 
brop52

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
Well all was well for 12 hours with my new OWC RAM replacement until boom. Any ideas? I'm running the Apple Hardware Test and perhaps I'll buy Memtest, but I highly doubt it will find anything.
 

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H

Huked on Fonick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 16, 2002
300
0
1 Loop
brop52 said:
Well all was well for 12 hours with my new OWC RAM replacement until boom. Any ideas? I'm running the Apple Hardware Test and perhaps I'll buy Memtest, but I highly doubt it will find anything.
Click to expand...

No, apple is refusing to acknowledge the problem. I have tried mine with 2 sets of OWC ram and 1 set of apple ram. memtest is part of OSX, you can use the GUI program rember if you are not comfortable with terminal.
 
paj

paj

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2003
211
1
USA
Not much help to you, but I've had the same 4GB OWC kit in my new macbook for a couple of weeks with no issues ... (so far). I use the computer for around 5 hours every day.
 
R

rom

macrumors regular
Jun 7, 2006
101
0
Apple will refuse to replace your Macbook if it fails with third-party RAM and it does not with the original RAM. Getting the RAM upgrade from Apple is no longer as outrageously expensive as before. However, it is still cheaper getting it outside, i.e., third-party, BUT at the risk of having incompatibility issues.

I have a pair of Transcend 2GB ram and had two instances of kernel panic - only to find out that the culprit was VMWare Fusion not being compatible with the new Nvidia chipset of the Macbook.

Anyway, troubleshooting your RAM issues require that you replicate the issue using the original RAM - hope you still have 'em.
 
brop52

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
rom said:
Apple will refuse to replace your Macbook if it fails with third-party RAM and it does not with the original RAM. Getting the RAM upgrade from Apple is no longer as outrageously expensive as before. However, it is still cheaper getting it outside, i.e., third-party, BUT at the risk of having incompatibility issues.

I have a pair of Transcend 2GB ram and had two instances of kernel panic - only to find out that the culprit was VMWare Fusion not being compatible with the new Nvidia chipset of the Macbook.

Anyway, troubleshooting your RAM issues require that you replicate the issue using the original RAM - hope you still have 'em.
Click to expand...

It works perfectly fine with the original Apple RAM (Hynix). Is Apple selling the 2X2GB of RAM if not bought with the machine and not within the first two weeks?

All I see for sale online is the 4GB chips for $300. Do they have the 2GB chips in the Apple stores for sale or how am I supposed to buy it?
 
H

Huked on Fonick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 16, 2002
300
0
1 Loop
rom said:
Apple will refuse to replace your Macbook if it fails with third-party RAM and it does not with the original RAM. Getting the RAM upgrade from Apple is no longer as outrageously expensive as before. However, it is still cheaper getting it outside, i.e., third-party, BUT at the risk of having incompatibility issues.

I have a pair of Transcend 2GB ram and had two instances of kernel panic - only to find out that the culprit was VMWare Fusion not being compatible with the new Nvidia chipset of the Macbook.

Anyway, troubleshooting your RAM issues require that you replicate the issue using the original RAM - hope you still have 'em.
Click to expand...

It is fine with a 2gb or ram, it appears to be an isolated issue with the Nvidia graphics addressing 4gb the ram on certain new macbooks. It has exibited the same problem with 2 different set of chips from OWC and with an APPLE 4gb chipset. Apple has finally agreed to take the computer in for repair. My 4gb chips causes no problem on other alu macbooks.....and other peoples ram causes my computer to freeze.
 
brop52

brop52

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2007
1,620
3
Michigan
Huked on Fonick said:
It is fine with a 2gb or ram, it appears to be an isolated issue with the Nvidia graphics addressing 4gb the ram on certain new macbooks. It has exibited the same problem with 2 different set of chips from OWC and with an APPLE 4gb chipset. Apple has finally agreed to take the computer in for repair. My 4gb chips causes no problem on other alu macbooks.....and other peoples ram causes my computer to freeze.
Click to expand...

What are they going to do with it? Try to replace the logic board? Also, did you return your OWC RAM for a refund or are you waiting it out? If I want to return my OWC replacement chips for a refund they have to be received by October 15th (30 days). Probably not possible, but would they be understanding due to the MB issue?
 
M

mmike70

macrumors newbie
Nov 8, 2008
13
0
I went through 2 sets of memory from owc and both caused lockups between 7 and 40 hours of use. Memory passed all tests and I never saw a kernel panic or anything else other than the freeze that normally suggested bad memory (random apps crashing, etc...).

I ordered a set from crucial and it's been working for about 11 days now with up times of over 100 hours. Perfectly stable. Some have reported problems with crucial memory as well though.

Fusion has been perfectly stable on my setup too. I almost always have it open with 1gb allocated and the 4gb makes a huge difference.
 
M

MGLXP

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2005
271
26
mmike70 said:
I went through 2 sets of memory from owc and both caused lockups between 7 and 40 hours of use. Memory passed all tests and I never saw a kernel panic or anything else other than the freeze that normally suggested bad memory (random apps crashing, etc...).

I ordered a set from crucial and it's been working for about 11 days now with up times of over 100 hours. Perfectly stable. Some have reported problems with crucial memory as well though.

Fusion has been perfectly stable on my setup too. I almost always have it open with 1gb allocated and the 4gb makes a huge difference.
Click to expand...

Do you remember the brand of RAM that OWC sent to you? So far (cross fingers), the 4GB of RAM that I ordered for my Aluminum MacBook has been fine and I leave my computer on for days.
 
M

MGLXP

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2005
271
26
mmike70 said:
Both were Elpida brand.
Click to expand...

Hmm...mine are Nanya. I guess the Nvidia MCP79 chipset is more sensitive to ram brand than the previous Intel chipsets (reminds me of previous Apple laptops before they switched to Intel chipsets), which tend to be more robust to differing ram brands.
 
M

mmike70

macrumors newbie
Nov 8, 2008
13
0
That's what I'm thinking too. I wonder though if there is some other component internal to the macbook with different tolerances or something else involved here. There are reports of memory failing in one macbook while the same works fine in another and vice versa.
 
H

hmai18

macrumors 6502
Mar 26, 2008
270
0
How is OWC responding to this scenario? I'm considering their trade-in of the stock 2x1Gb sticks for their 2x2Gb sticks, but if they ship memory that causes lockups, are they willing to send you another pair to test?

How long do you have to send in your old memory after you receive the new memory?
 
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