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Bypassing 2GB RAM limit

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yjchua95

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 23, 2011
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GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
Hello.
How do I install Lion on a Mac that only has 1GB RAM? It's a school computer and I was asked to install Lion on it, but they point blank won't upgrade the RAM. How do I bypass the 2GB RAM requirement?
Thanks.
 
Tell whoever asked you to install Lion that the computer doesn't meet the specified requirements. Anything else is asking for trouble down the line.
 
You don't want to do that. It will be very slow.

Tell them it is not possible. There has to be at least 2GB RAM.
 
Are they worried about voiding the warranty? If so, the RAM is user-upgradeable.
 
r.j.s said:
Are they worried about voiding the warranty? If so, the RAM is user-upgradeable.
Click to expand...

The warranty has expired already, and they don't want to upgrade the RAM for certain reasons. Yes, I know it'll be slow, but is there any way to bypass it? On my MBP, I originally assigned 2GB (VMware) to a virtual Lion, and then cut it to 1.5GB. So far, it hasn't really slowed down ;)
I'm sure they're aware that it'll be slower, but well, they just want Lion without having to upgrade the RAM
 
I use Lion on 8GB of ram, which I specifically upgraded just so that I would not incur any sort of performance issues. Running it on a 1GB of ram - ouch, it will be painful to be sure.

As they say, just because you do it [with a work around], doesn't mean you should ;)
 
yjchua95 said:
Hello.
How do I install Lion on a Mac that only has 1GB RAM? It's a school computer and I was asked to install Lion on it, but they point blank won't upgrade the RAM. How do I bypass the 2GB RAM requirement?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
I agree that telling them the system doesn't meet the requirements is the best way to go.

Also, since it is clearly an older iMac, if it isn't supported under Mountain Lion, I'd let them know that as well.
 
As they said, you don't.

"Lion doesn't support this machine"


Even if you could bypass it, you wouldn't want to. 2gb is pretty much the minimum you'd want to try lion with, its slow enough with less than 4gb as it is.


And point blank refusing to upgrade the RAM is probably a sensible idea for them. If the machine is that old it is off-lease, out of warranty, and about time to be replaced. If you look after a lot of machines, keeping stuff that old around is just asking for hardware failure soon.
 
throAU said:
As they said, you don't.

"Lion doesn't support this machine"


Even if you could bypass it, you wouldn't want to. 2gb is pretty much the minimum you'd want to try lion with, its slow enough with less than 4gb as it is.


And point blank refusing to upgrade the RAM is probably a sensible idea for them. If the machine is that old it is off-lease, out of warranty, and about time to be replaced. If you look after a lot of machines, keeping stuff that old around is just asking for hardware failure soon.
Click to expand...

It's a '08 iMac, which I think it does support Lion, albeit after a RAM upgrade. Anyway, no point talking sense into a bunch of academic bureaucrats who are so tight with a buck ;)
 
yjchua95 said:
It's a '08 iMac, which I think it does support Lion, albeit after a RAM upgrade. Anyway, no point talking sense into a bunch of academic bureaucrats who are so tight with a buck ;)
Click to expand...


As an experiment... I took an old black MacBook (2.1ghz core 2) and upgraded the RAM to 2GB.
After installing Lion and all the updates, I then downgraded the RAM back to 1GB and now I've been running it for about an hour... I don't see what the big deal is... It runs slow just like it did on Snow Leopard. :cool:
 
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