6GB in MacBook (Pro); Yes it works. - 8GB... well...

[ayeying]

Just put 8gb of ram in my late '08 2.53ghz macbook pro and it is working great . I am running snow leopard and I am booting in 64bit kernel mode, have not tried 32bit kernel mode. No crashing after 10min or so as other reported, and system is seeing all 8gb of ram.

Try running Parallels or VMWare or some other program that uses 4GB (A single program that use 4GB or more).

Our results were that you can boot and run it but once it hits 4GB, it crashes. We never said it crashes after a xxx amount of time. We said it crashes after 4GB is utilized.

 

[Cave Man]

If anyone wants to be sure their machine can break the 4 gb barrier without bombing the system, send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you the piggy app to test it.

 

[ARK]

This is interesting..

http://store.apple.com/us/memorymodel/ME_15_253_MBP

So will the Oct 08 accept 8Gb or not?

 

[vista.john]

Try running Parallels or VMWare or some other program that uses 4GB (A single program that use 4GB or more).

Our results were that you can boot and run it but once it hits 4GB, it crashes. We never said it crashes after a xxx amount of time. We said it crashes after 4GB is utilized.

Good call! I can't wait to see what's gonna happen to the 8GB in late 2008 model once you hit that barrier...

 

[vista.john]

This is interesting..

http://store.apple.com/us/memorymodel/ME_15_253_MBP

So will the Oct 08 accept 8Gb or not?

I think it is for the newer 2.53 version with SD card reader. I could be wrong, though.

 

[jfs1664]

reply to everyone who asked me a question

No I really do not intend to test in 32bit mode I have no real need to happy with 64bit mode.

Might notice a slight speed bump Safari feels little faster

I have not tried a single app that goes beyond but I did go beyond 4gb used system slowed down apps slowed, but system never crashed and stayed stable.

As far a VMWare or Parallels don't they need snow leopard to run in 32bit kernel, they can run under 64 bit kernel, so they would not be able to address more then 4gb of ram. I think there is no protection there the system sees the ram and trying to give it to the program, but the program can not take the memory and causes a problem and brings down the system. Wait till VMWare or Parallels can run under the 64bit kernel and then try it.

Attached is a screen capture of activity monitor shown I was using more then 4gb of ram, and my system stayed up.

 

[ayeying]

As far a VMWare or Parallels don't they need snow leopard to run in 32bit kernel, they can run under 64 bit kernel, so they would not be able to address more then 4gb of ram. I think there is no protection there the system sees the ram and trying to give it to the program, but the program can not take the memory and causes a problem and brings down the system. Wait till VMWare or Parallels can run under the 64bit kernel and then try it.

It's not a kernel problem nor is it a 32/64 bit problem. Leopard and Snow Leopard can allocate more than 4GB ram to a single program, regardless of the kernel being 32 or 64 bit. We use a PAE based OS, therefore it is really a 36-bit system, or 32GB of ram usable on a 32-bit kernel.

I was able to allocate 5GB of ram to Vista when I had my 17" Unibody MacBook Pro and it didn't "bring" down the system. If there's faults in bringing down the system, then your 8GB is literally failing. It shouldn't bring down the system at all nor should there be a slow down. That doesn't happen on a Mac Pro running 32GB and using more than 4GB on 10.5.x Leopard.

It could be that in Snow Leopard, you wouldn't crash with a kernel panic like we did back in Leopard, but since I don't have the hardware to test it, I can't be sure.

 

[srexy]

I think it is for the newer 2.53 version with SD card reader. I could be wrong, though.

It's pretty cut and dried - "Memory sold by the Apple Online Store is guaranteed to be compatible with your Macintosh." followed by a list of models not differentiated by year or release date which includes the 2.53ghz. It then goes on to say to check your proc speed rather than anything else.

Here's hoping that it does include the late 08 2.53's as I got one at refurb prices rather than the new ones back in June...

 

[vista.john]

It's pretty cut and dried - "Memory sold by the Apple Online Store is guaranteed to be compatible with your Macintosh." followed by a list of models not differentiated by year or release date which includes the 2.53ghz. It then goes on to say to check your proc speed rather than anything else.

Here's hoping that it does include the late 08 2.53's as I got one at refurb prices rather than the new ones back in June...

Same boat here...

 

[jfs1664]

It's not a kernel problem nor is it a 32/64 bit problem. Leopard and Snow Leopard can allocate more than 4GB ram to a single program, regardless of the kernel being 32 or 64 bit. We use a PAE based OS, therefore it is really a 36-bit system, or 32GB of ram usable on a 32-bit kernel.

I was able to allocate 5GB of ram to Vista when I had my 17" Unibody MacBook Pro and it didn't "bring" down the system. If there's faults in bringing down the system, then your 8GB is literally failing. It shouldn't bring down the system at all nor should there be a slow down. That doesn't happen on a Mac Pro running 32GB and using more than 4GB on 10.5.x Leopard.

It could be that in Snow Leopard, you wouldn't crash with a kernel panic like we did back in Leopard, but since I don't have the hardware to test it, I can't be sure.

My system remained stable, it did slow down but I think it was more of a stress on the processor then a memory issue, had lots of apps opening at once and had photoshop cs4 using like 2 to 2.5 gigs of ram and lightroom using a good chunk. It never crashed during the time though.

If the OS allocates say 5 or 6gbs to say VMWare but the app is a 32bit app can it utilizes all 5 or 6gbs of ram? Can it be VMWare having a problem with more ram then it can handle causing a kernel panic? The 5gb you allocated to Vista was it by boot camp or VMWare or Parallel and was vista able to see it all and utilize it all?

The 8gb of ram I have in my system is stable for what I am using the system for. I read others saying that their system was only able to take 6gb of ram max and others say they had 8 but it was unstable after a short period of time. I do not plan on ever having that many apps opening at once, especially while I have photoshop and lightroom open utilizing a good chunk of the ram. I only did it as a test to see if I was able to use more then 4gbs of ram and see if the system crashed if it went over 4gbs. Like I said I think the slow down was more due to taxing the cpu not do to the memory.

Really I only posted due to people saying their system could only see a max of 6gb and if they had 8gb it was unstable after a short time.

 

[ayeying]

My system remained stable, it did slow down but I think it was more of a stress on the processor then a memory issue, had lots of apps opening at once and had photoshop cs4 using like 2 to 2.5 gigs of ram and lightroom using a good chunk. It never crashed during the time though.

We need reliable testing before it's determined that it works correctly. Just having you saying it works is true, however, if its working like its suppose to, its a little skitchy when no one else has the amount of ram with the system to test.

If the OS allocates say 5 or 6gbs to say VMWare but the app is a 32bit app can it utilizes all 5 or 6gbs of ram? Can it be VMWare having a problem with more ram then it can handle causing a kernel panic? The 5gb you allocated to Vista was it by boot camp or VMWare or Parallel and was vista able to see it all and utilize it all?

It is not VMWare or Parallels that caused the kernel panic, it happened because the OS tried to use more than 4GB of ram, and it failed resulting in kernel panic.

Honestly, we're literally just asking you to max out using 8GB of ram and see if the system crashes, slows down, or whatnot. It's not gonna harm your computer and it would help you later on if you get a random kernel panic and have trouble figuring out what is the cause.

Really I only posted due to people saying their system could only see a max of 6gb and if they had 8gb it was unstable after a short time.

No disrespect, but you're not helping here if you're not going to test it for us. The real problem we faced was that any program using more than 4GB crashed with 8GB in these systems. While on a system like the Mac Pro, you can run it without any problems.

 

[jlpoore89]

No I really do not intend to test in 32bit mode I have no real need to happy with 64bit mode.

This is like saying "Hey I figured out the answer to the 8GB RAM question" and only giving us half of the answer.

There are probably quite a few people here, including myself, that would like to know if 8GB works with the 32-bit kernel. Especially since a lot of people still have apps with 32-bit kexts that won't even run in the 64-bit kernel. I understand that you don't care about the 32-bit kernel, but testing the 32-bit wouldn't take much time and it would answer some questions for a lot of people on these forums. And the point of these forums is to help and inform people.

As far a VMWare or Parallels don't they need snow leopard to run in 32bit kernel, they can run under 64 bit kernel, so they would not be able to address more then 4gb of ram. I think there is no protection there the system sees the ram and trying to give it to the program, but the program can not take the memory and causes a problem and brings down the system. Wait till VMWare or Parallels can run under the 64bit kernel and then try it.

And last I checked VMWare Fusion DOESN'T run under the 64-bit kernel...

EDIT-Now that I looked at you contradicted yourself in that statement

 

[jfs1664]

We need reliable testing before it's determined that it works correctly. Just having you saying it works is true, however, if its working like its suppose to, its a little skitchy when no one else has the amount of ram with the system to test.



It is not VMWare or Parallels that caused the kernel panic, it happened because the OS tried to use more than 4GB of ram, and it failed resulting in kernel panic.

Honestly, we're literally just asking you to max out using 8GB of ram and see if the system crashes, slows down, or whatnot. It's not gonna harm your computer and it would help you later on if you get a random kernel panic and have trouble figuring out what is the cause.



No disrespect, but you're not helping here if you're not going to test it for us. The real problem we faced was that any program using more than 4GB crashed with 8GB in these systems. While on a system like the Mac Pro, you can run it without any problems.

No disrespect taken, I think we are all trying to learn about this and from this. I do not have Parallel or VMWare, nor need it since I do not want or need windows or linux or any other os. If you can give me another way to test it out that would max the ram then I would consider it. I am trying to be helpful, I am as curious about it as many others here are too. From my experience so far the system is running fine, true I am not maxing out the ram though. There are many variables and things going on here, more then just memory, that need to be taken into account and I agree that some further testing would be useful. So if you or others can give me ideas how to test it and max out the ram would be useful and I can post my results. I might try a large res image and do many photoshop actions and try to max out the ram that way.

 

[ayeying]

No disrespect taken, I think we are all trying to learn about this and from this. I do not have Parallel or VMWare, nor need it since I do not want or need windows or linux or any other os. If you can give me another way to test it out that would max the ram then I would consider it. I am trying to be helpful, I am as curious about it as many others here are too. From my experience so far the system is running fine, true I am not maxing out the ram though. There are many variables and things going on here, more then just memory, that need to be taken into account and I agree that some further testing would be useful. So if you or others can give me ideas how to test it and max out the ram would be useful and I can post my results. I might try a large res image and do many photoshop actions and try to max out the ram that way.

Refer to this post. Piggy is a small terminal command that runs within OSX.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8407932/

 

[jfs1664]

Update

I found a app called rember, http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/, which runs memtest which is a app that runs a bunch of test to test and find problems with your memory. Thought I would download and try it out and see what it does. So I ran it and opened activity monitor to see how much ram it was using. Activity Monitor reported 7.98gb of ram being used, memtest using 6.05gb. System stayed very stable and very responsive. Below is a screen capture of Activity Monitor from grab showing 7.98gb ram being used.


I would like more info on piggy app please before I ask someone to send it to me and run it on my system.

 

[jfs1664]

This is like saying "Hey I figured out the answer to the 8GB RAM question" and only giving us half of the answer.

There are probably quite a few people here, including myself, that would like to know if 8GB works with the 32-bit kernel. Especially since a lot of people still have apps with 32-bit kexts that won't even run in the 64-bit kernel. I understand that you don't care about the 32-bit kernel, but testing the 32-bit wouldn't take much time and it would answer some questions for a lot of people on these forums. And the point of these forums is to help and inform people.



And last I checked VMWare Fusion DOESN'T run under the 64-bit kernel...

EDIT-Now that I looked at you contradicted yourself in that statement

yeah meant to type can not sorry.

 

[LedCop]

Wow.

I found a app called rember, http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/, which runs memtest which is a app that runs a bunch of test to test and find problems with your memory. Thought I would download and try it out and see what it does. So I ran it and opened activity monitor to see how much ram it was using. Activity Monitor reported 7.98gb of ram being used, memtest using 6.05gb. System stayed very stable and very responsive. Below is a screen capture of Activity Monitor from grab showing 7.98gb ram being used.


I would like more info on piggy app please before I ask someone to send it to me and run it on my system.

Wow. So the 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard does allow 8GB of RAM to be used in late 2008 MacBook Pros. Thanks for the testing and good news for those curious and with the hardware in question, jfs1664.

 

[DAMNiatx]

wow, its WORKS. thanks jfs1664.

No I really do not intend to test in 32bit mode I have no real need to happy with 64bit mode.

Might notice a slight speed bump Safari feels little faster

+1 for 64bit mode more snappier

 

[jlpoore89]

I found a app called rember, http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/, which runs memtest which is a app that runs a bunch of test to test and find problems with your memory. Thought I would download and try it out and see what it does. So I ran it and opened activity monitor to see how much ram it was using. Activity Monitor reported 7.98gb of ram being used, memtest using 6.05gb. System stayed very stable and very responsive. Below is a screen capture of Activity Monitor from grab showing 7.98gb ram being used.


I would like more info on piggy app please before I ask someone to send it to me and run it on my system.

This is amazing to know!!! Especially since I have the same laptop as you and had felt like I had been shafted by Apple with the lack of support for 8GB. But I would greatly appreciate it if you could take some of your time to boot into the 32-bit kernel and run this Rember program. That would absolutely confirm the 8GB compatibility on the 2.53GHz models with SL. I'm pretty sure it will work (as 64-bit only makes a difference with really large amounts of ram), but would like to know for sure before I sink a large amount of money into 8GB of ram. I only care because I do have VMWare (Windows is required for some of my engineering programs for school) and need the 32-bit kernel for that and 8GB of ram to use with VMWare would be amazing.

yeah meant to type can not sorry.

Oh ok. Sorry if I came off as an ass earlier, I wasn't trying to be.

Thanks for everything so far!!!

 

[LedCop]

...
But I would greatly appreciate it if you could take some of your time to boot into the 32-bit kernel and run this Rember program. That would absolutely confirm the 8GB compatibility on the 2.53GHz models with SL. I'm pretty sure it will work (as 64-bit only makes a difference with really large amounts of ram), but would like to know for sure before I sink a large amount of money into 8GB of ram.
...

It shouldn't necessarily work with 32-bit. For example, 32-bit Windows Vista won't see more than 4GB of RAM. Because 32-bit only allows a maximum of 4GB to be addressed.

 

[jfs1664]

This is amazing to know!!! Especially since I have the same laptop as you and had felt like I had been shafted by Apple with the lack of support for 8GB. But I would greatly appreciate it if you could take some of your time to boot into the 32-bit kernel and run this Rember program. That would absolutely confirm the 8GB compatibility on the 2.53GHz models with SL. I'm pretty sure it will work (as 64-bit only makes a difference with really large amounts of ram), but would like to know for sure before I sink a large amount of money into 8GB of ram. I only care because I do have VMWare (Windows is required for some of my engineering programs for school) and need the 32-bit kernel for that and 8GB of ram to use with VMWare would be amazing.



Oh ok. Sorry if I came off as an ass earlier, I wasn't trying to be.

Thanks for everything so far!!!

I'll try to test it in 32bit mode later today when I get home from work and post my results.

 

[G.T.]

Wow. So the 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard does allow 8GB of RAM to be used in late 2008 MacBook Pros. Thanks for the testing and good news for those curious and with the hardware in question, jfs1664.

Does that still include 2.4ghz one

 

[LedCop]

This is interesting..

http://store.apple.com/us/memorymodel/ME_15_253_MBP

So will the Oct 08 accept 8Gb or not?

I believe that is the June '09 15" 2.53GHz MBP being referred to there. Notice that the list of 13", 15" and 17" MBPs have CPU speeds of the June 09 revision. The late '08 15" 2.4GHz and early '09 17" 2.66GHz aren't listed. So I doubt it is the late '08 15" 2.53GHz that is being mentioned there.

 

[LedCop]

Does that still include 2.4ghz one

I honestly don't see why not. Apple specified an official limit of 4GB for both the 2.4 and 2.53; and they were both released at the exact same time. The only differences are the CPU speed, GPU memory, installed RAM and hard disk size and none of those should have any impact on supported RAM. And I don't see why Apple would bother to keep the firmware for the two logic boards different.

So assuming this is indeed a late '08 MBP that has 8GB of RAM working and is working well, I'd say that theoretically, 2.4GHz owners should have reason to celebrate too.

 

[chrix]

Does that still include 2.4ghz one

Same question here...
Does anyone who have 2.4G Late 2008 MBP and 8G RAM could have a try?