Re: Re: RAM upgrades
Originally posted by brian0526
Whoa. Is this true? What do I look for on macintouch.com to find documentation on this? I don't want to pay a premium for this machine and then find the RAM I slapped in it from a third party is causing kernel panics. Or worse yet, have kernel panics and not know the cause. I'll pay the premium for Apple's memory if it is indeed more stable than what I can buy at a reputable third party. I've had good luck with Crucial's RAM. Is there any reason to believe Apple's is better?
Brian
First: Crucial guarantees their memory, so if there is a problem (see below for proving it), you can get your money back (then add in the Apple Premium and a trip to the Apple Store to get Genuine Apple memory).
Second, yes, some memory suppliers make really bad memory. This has a
lot to do with the legendary instability of the Intel PC. Do yourself a favor and look up "Signal 11 GCC" in Google. "Signal 11" (other signals get tripped too, but '11' is the most common) is tripped by inconsistent memory reads/writes. ECC memory helps on the reads but not on the writes. The recommended best test for bad memory, since GCC uncovers so many peoples' bad hardware, is to rebuild the Linux kernel on your computer. It is absolutely amazing how many computers (with the occaisional "expected" crash during day-to-day use, but nothing dramatic) throw up during a Linux kernel build because GCC gets a bad read. Nearly every time, replacing the memory in the computer fixes the problem.
So, if you are a fairly techy person, you can download the Linux kernel source, run "make" (which will make the executables, but won't install Linux on your Mac ...), and be fairly certain, if it all works, that the memory that you have in your machine is good.
Note that there are a good many commercial memory testers out there. They do a good job of testing memory, but the problem is that their tests are mostly redundant with those performed in the factory (linear, predictable access patterns), and so rarely uncover real memory issues after the memory has left the factory. Most factories don't do a kernel build on their memory before shipping it, so doing so (using gcc) finds a lot of bad memory that the factory tests missed.
Now, given that, you at least have a way (techy, but still a way) to verify and provide conclusive proof of bad memory. In my experience (not direct, but via others who've dealt with them) Crucial is really good about refunding/replacing memory even without anything like conclusive proof, but as always quality standards shift in this industry daily, so your mileage may vary.
But, yes, if you just don't want to take the risk, buying all memory from Apple (at 2x cost) is a sure antidote. Then, if
any instability occurs, you've got one vendor to talk to instead of two or more ... which of course is the beauty and the curse of the Apple platform ...
