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Bad Memory?

D

deadfrog

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 5, 2004
115
0
UK / Bournemouth
Hi,

I have just been give a Kingston KVR133X64C3/256 module by a mate. Thing is, i think he kept it in a draw just loose without any anti static protection, which leads me to think it could be slightly buggered now.

Am having issues about putting it into my mac cos i dont really want anything to go wrong. Am i being silly? should i just put it in and see what happens or is there some way to test it so that it wont be able to crash and ruin any files etc.

My system at present without the memory mentioned above is G4 dual 533 digital aduio powermac with 768MB Ram and 160GB HDD.

Any info or advice on this would be cool.

Cheers
 
"Bad Memories" huh, yah, I have quite a few of those. It all starts back when I was growing up and wasn't allowed to go to DisneyLand... Oh wait, that's not what you meant.... :cool:

There are ways to check RAM, but most people don't have the necessary equipment. The chances are next to nothing that it would actually damage your system if it was a little buggered, and in all likelihood it would simply cause your system to behave erratically or not recognize the RAM at all. So, you may have some system problems, but that would just prove to you that the RAM is indeed faulty. I don't think any harm would be done in simply putting it in though, unless by "buggered" you mean the chips and pins are physically bent, as that could create some shorting in your machine. But if all you figure is that the RAM might be corrupted, you should be able to tell once you install it if it is indeed flaky, as your system might hang, there might be periodic crashes, etc.

Not sure if there's a software utility built in to OS X to check something like that, haven't come across one (or ever had the need to....)

You need to find more careful friends... ;)
 
Provided the RAM doesn't look to be physically damaged (as Shard was mentioning with bent pins,etc) you should be fine with putting it in your machine. Before I would do a full boot though, I would run the Apple Hardware Test from CD. It will check out the RAM and give you a warning if anything is out of the usual. If that shows up clean, then probably the RAM is alright.
 
dvdh said:
Provided the RAM doesn't look to be physically damaged (as Shard was mentioning with bent pins,etc) you should be fine with putting it in your machine. Before I would do a full boot though, I would run the Apple Hardware Test from CD. It will check out the RAM and give you a warning if anything is out of the usual. If that shows up clean, then probably the RAM is alright.
Click to expand...

How do you bend a pin on a stick of ram?
 
jared_kipe said:
How do you bend a pin on a stick of ram?
Click to expand...

Ya, should have been a little more specific. More so an issue of foreign material (especially metallic) bridging between pins, or pins on the actual RAM modules being broken / bent.

In terms of bending, I saw a machine that had been dropped and the pins under the CPU were all bent by the rapid deceleration of hitting the ground. It can happen, but would be indicative of something pretty catastrophic.
 
ok, thanks for all your help.. reckon ill give it a go in a bit...

dont suppose you know if you can download apples hardware test cd from anywhere as im at my student house at the moement and all the packaging and stuff like that is at home.

Cheers

rich
 
They are downloadable from apple, but only through the pro support section of the site. You would have to be registered.

While the CDs are hardware specific, they often cover a wide range of machines, so if you can fins someone with a similar machine, their Hardware Test CD should also work.
 
Heres a trick an admin showed me once.

Take a pencil eraser and *gently* erase the pins on both sides. This will remove any corrosion that may have developed over time from sitting outside a machine.
 
Thanks for all your help, especialy to CanadaRam. That worked a treat.

Basically i have found out that it is cl3 ram which slowed down the rest of the memory as they are cl2. I ran Xbench to see and it got a slightly lower score 95.24 with the memory, 95.93....

I know there isn't much difference but i was wondering if anyone could tell me if the extra memory is worth it?

Cheers
 
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