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6gb in IMac SR- Confirmed working!!!!

yes you absolutely need more memory

SomeSwede said:
I have 3 gigs today in my iMac, and my page ins are 4.34 GBs and page outs are 6.30 GBs. Sounds like a clear cut case of needing extra RAM, doesn't it?
Click to expand...

yes - i find that 4GB is the minimum these days if you are doing imovie and iphoto and itunes with large libraries. i run 6GB on my mbp as i run vmware. i really could use 8 as VMware is a pig.
 
Page outs/Page ins are created when a block of memory (page) is copied from the RAM to the hard disk (pagefile) or vice versa.

When you have plenty of RAM, nearly all allocated memory is kept in the RAM, so only few page in/outs occur. If your system uses more memory than the installed RAM, it needs to swap the excess memory between RAM and pagefile, creating lots of page in/outs in the process.
 
Thanks for the explanation. I have iStat menu to monitor my RAM useage (among other things) - I guess it always updates the Page Ins/Outs stat that it displays. It's currently showing 115,587 Ins and 15 Outs. It also says Swap : 2Mb (64Mb). Does that tell you anything?
 
it tells you that you have very little bad paging. Page out is bad. page in is fine.
i prefer Activity monitor for this measurement.


wolfe17 said:
Thanks for the explanation. I have iStat menu to monitor my RAM useage (among other things) - I guess it always updates the Page Ins/Outs stat that it displays. It's currently showing 115,587 Ins and 15 Outs. It also says Swap : 2Mb (64Mb). Does that tell you anything?
Click to expand...
 
6GB is working in 24in mid 2007 imac - yes is used alloc tool

wolfe17 said:
Hi all

Thanks for all the research and info here - another reason why being a Mac user is so cool - all the support from like-minded Mac freaks! I've been using Apple since days of the IIe - so we go WAY back.

I now have a 24" 2.8 iMac Extreme - it has the 256Mb ADI Radeon HD2600 Pro card. Model identifier (from System Profiler) is iMac7,1. Bus speed is 800Mhz and RAM speed is 667Mhz. I don't know how to identify if it's a Santa Rosa chipset - could someone please tell me?

It currently has 2x 1Gb RAM and I want to upgrade to the max possible - which I thought was 4Gb. Indeed that is what the Apple site says. However, according to the OWC website, I can put a 2Gb and a 4Gb module in - giving 6Gb total. However, when I contacted OW, they said that I can only do 2 x 2Gb.

This thread seems to suggest that my iMac can handle and use 6Gb.

Just wanting to make sure before I order this as I live in New Zealand so returning it would be a big hassle!

Thanks in advance!

Regards

Matthew
Click to expand...

I have 6GB - 2GB Apple Card and 4GB OWC 667 card and its all working fine
completely stable with 10.6.1!!!!! I used the allocation tool and added 5G and it shows 5.98 allocated. goes to show you a lot of these systems will take more than advertised as i dont think apple wants to test/QA and support all of the configurations.
 

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Thanks!

Hi Alan

Thanks so much for posting that result. Looks like I'll have to get myself a 4Gb and a 2Gb....cool!

Regards

Matthew
 
i have had great results with OWC memory. poor with others

wolfe17 said:
Hi Alan

Thanks so much for posting that result. Looks like I'll have to get myself a 4Gb and a 2Gb....cool!

Regards

Matthew
Click to expand...

I have had great results with OWC memory for the macs. I have had very poor results with other vendors.
 
update after running 6GB for a while

100% stable. The best thing is that its actually noticeable in that the machine is more interactive when heavily loaded.
I have an issue where MOZY uses like 1.5GB of real memory at points during the backup and really cause interativity issues. Thats 100% gone. I dont like it taking that much but now i dont care.
 
Im very interested on this subject, but i would like to know if anyone had successfully tried 6gb ddr2 800 mhz on an iMac 8,1 2008 stable.

Anybody knows if 8gb is possible right now with snow leopard ?
 
gonzaload1987 said:
Im very interested on this subject, but i would like to know if anyone had successfully tried 6gb ddr2 800 mhz on an iMac 8,1 2008 stable.
Click to expand...

That should be a Santa Rosa iMac, which means it will take 6 gb, but not 8 gb.

Anybody knows if 8gb is possible right now with snow leopard ?
Click to expand...

SL can handle 8 gb or more, depending on the computer. Unfortunately, yours isn't one of them.
 
Cave Man said:
That should be a Santa Rosa iMac, which means it will take 6 gb, but not 8 gb.



SL can handle 8 gb or more, depending on the computer. Unfortunately, yours isn't one of them.
Click to expand...

Thx for answering Cave Man, its sad to know that i can't use 8gb of ram in my imac, but i will give the shot for 6gb :D

BTW: It would be interesting if someone tries again with SL now, maybe something has changed from the past...
 
6GB from OWC 800MHz works

Just installed the 4GB + 2GB kit from OWC - $199.

Initially wasn't working - apparently either didn't push the RAM chip all the way in or had them switched around. So pulled them out and switched them and then pushed in until click. With face of monitor down and facing the RAM slots, I have the 4GB in the right slot, 2GB in left.

Now recognizes 6GB. Have April 2008 7,1 iMac 24" 3.06Ghz. Chips are PC6400 DDR2 800MHz. Used activity monitor and ran every program I have installed at the same time. Was able to get up to 4.77 GB used. No drop in speed of programs.

Hope that helps!

Rafael
 
just bought the 6gb package

Just want to thank everyone who has posted their results.

I am running a 3.06 April 2008 iMac and bought the 6gb package from OWC -I will also report how it works once I install it.

I have been running Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and music making programs non-stop on this computer (with a only 2gb of memory for the past year!!!), so I am sooo freaking excited to see what happens with the performance. I will let you all know how much of a difference I see.
 
Just checking a couple of things on this

I'm currently running 2x2GB 800MHz chips from Crucial, do I add a 4GB 800MHz chip? (I only see references to 600MHz OWC kits)

Also, might Lion increase the ability for the machine to address 8GB or not?

Thanks,
matt
 
iMac 8.1 (2008) works perfectly with 8GB RAM

msephton said:
Just checking a couple of things on this

I'm currently running 2x2GB 800MHz chips from Crucial, do I add a 4GB 800MHz chip? (I only see references to 600MHz OWC kits)

Also, might Lion increase the ability for the machine to address 8GB or not?

Thanks,
matt
Click to expand...


Well, I don't believe that the max amount of addressable RAM is Mac OS independent...

I tested it with 8GB DDR2 RAM and MAC OS X (10.6.8) works perfectly.

BUT, to all Boot Camp users, BE AWARE, that doesn't belongs to any Windows 7 x64 Installation!!! :mad: It almost killed my Win 7 x64, therefore DO NOT INSTALL more than 4GB at such iMac's (2007/2008). :mad:

With 8GB installed, Win 7 x64 won't boot, it will just corrupt your installation most likely!

With 6GB Win 7 x64 may boot, but Windows may reacting very strange / mysterious. The Marvell Yukon chip will not work, several Windows services will not start. Worse than that is that a switch back to 4GB will not fix these issues fully. :mad:

Interestingly, recently I installed 8GB (SO-DDR3) RAM at an iMac 9,1 (2009) and it worked perfectly UNDER BOTH OS's!

It seems that Apple simply do not make here the "Bios emulation" (Compatibility Support Modul, CSM) ready for 8GB RAM. Therefore these problems may affect every other 64bit OS like Linux (except Mac OS X which is "native EFI").

In Win 7 x64 I try to reduce the max RAM with some system parameters, but that also don't help anything.

This problematic will affect almost likely Win 7 x86, - but I don't test this.

Last note, it is strongly recommend to use CL6 4GB SO-DDR2 DIMM's. I try it with Corsair VS8GSDSKIT800D2. Please note, these are, under the same part number, also available as CL5, but according to some reports in the web these may work instable. Kingston is the only vendor who sells (has selld) a clearly CL6-only version (KVR800D2S6K2/8G), every other vendor offers a CL5/CL6 mix. Very frustrating....
 

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Cave Man said:
6GB is the max for the Santa Rosa chipset iMacs. If you exceed 4GB of used RAM the system will come to a crawl with 8GB installed.
Click to expand...

On the contrary, - out of my feeling everything runs FAST, faster then with 4GB... Well, that may be a subjective impression, - whatever.

But I absolutely do not observe under Mac OS X any slowdowns or anything like this. Everything run's normal, Firefox, the different Apps, etc, etc. Well I do not run Prime 95, - I should run it to verify the real stability. Currently I have no time for it, the iMac is used (under Windows) at my business...

Every problem described above I had with Win 7 x64!!!

I read somewhere the Santa Rosa chipset is able to address 8GB RAM... Probably the 2007 iMac line will react here different than the 2008 iMac models.
 
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I've just fitted my memory, no problem. 6GB working great so far.

I don't suppose it matters which bank I put the 4GB in?

Currently I have:
BANK0 = 2GB
BANK1 = 4GB
 
Here's something odd...

Whilst my iMac 8,1 ran with the above layout, after reset or shutdown I could only get it to boot by resetting PRAM (Cmd+Opt+P+R) during boot. Every time. Otherwise, it would stay at the grey screen before the Apple logo.

But after switching the layout to:
BANK0 = 4GB
BANK1 = 2GB

It now boots by itself, without fail.

Whether this means my chips are not matched exactly, I don't know. But that's my findings...

My new 4GB chip: Samsung 4GB PC2-6400S DDR2 800Mhz DRAM (M470T5267AZ3-CF7)

Best,
matt
 
As far as I know they are both CL6

The chip that was replaced is: Crucial Technology 2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800MHz non-ECC Unbuffered CL=6 200-Pin SODDIMM Memory Module (CT25664AC800.16FE)
 
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