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Confused with Penryn MacBook Pro RAM

heffeque

heffeque

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 15, 2007
127
4
Salamanca (ES-Europe), Lancaster (PA-USA) and Fort
I bought a MacBook Pro with 2 GB of RAM a year ago. It's a MacBook Pro 4.1 with a 2,4 GHz CPU (Penryn) and the memory is 667 MHz even if the bus is 800 MHz (I know the difference and why it's like that).

I've tried buying some RAM, as I see in the "Understanding Intel Mac RAM" guide (here), choosing Kingston ValueRAM wasn't a good idea, now I know, but... reading the guide I see that my computer DOES accept 4 GB, but going to Apple's support page (here) I see THIS:

"Although these notebooks will accept up to a 2 GB SO-DIMM in each of the two memory slots, the MacBook Pro will only support 3 GB total memory. If you want to maximize the amount of SDRAM in your computer, install a 2 GB SO-DIMM in one slot and a 1GB SO-DIMM in the other."

Is this true? Is there a workaround? Is it better that I just upgrade to 3 GB then?

Thanks in advance for your input.
 
Just curious - what are you doing to use more than 2Gb of RAM? I've tried really hard but the only thing I can get to do that is VMWare/Parallels. And I'm not buying RAM just for that! :confused:
 
tibi08 said:
Just curious - what are you doing to use more than 2Gb of RAM? I've tried really hard but the only thing I can get to do that is VMWare/Parallels. And I'm not buying RAM just for that! :confused:
Click to expand...

I usually hover around 200MB free and inactive, and right now I have only 50MB free and inactive.

I could use more RAM, but I've already maxed it out.
 
tibi08 said:
Just curious - what are you doing to use more than 2Gb of RAM? I've tried really hard but the only thing I can get to do that is VMWare/Parallels. And I'm not buying RAM just for that! :confused:
Click to expand...

Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign at the same is enough to max my 2GBs (~14MB free at times)
 
Sometimes only with Mac OS apps I get some swapping. Sometimes I get more than 2 GB of swap. I'm pretty sure that it has to do more with crappy programming than with too many programs opened at the same time, but the thing is that I do use those crappy programed applications and I can't really change the ones I use, so... even if I didn't use Fusion (witch I barely use because then heavy swapping occurs) I'd still feel a lot more comfortable with 4 GB than with 2. Or maybe it means that I need to format the HD and reinstall Leopard but... that sounds so... Windows... that I feed that even if I do a clean install it won't get much better.
 
Dang! I read this late! I just got 2 sticks of Kingston value RAM, 2x2GB 667MHz. To my surpirse, I can only make my Macbook Pro to work with 3GB.

If I put one 2GB Kingston stick on either slot, the computer won't boot. If I put both 2GB sticks, also won't boot. If I put one 2GB stick on either slot and 1GB of the original RAM on the other slot, the computer would boot and use 3GB.

I own a Macbook Pro 4.1 with Penryn T9300 and 512MB of VRAM, so what's wrong? BTW, the computer did come with only 2GB, and the sticker below the battery says exactly the characteristics. I'm wondering if it's a refurbished computer from late 2006... :S

Or is it normal on the Penryn plataform with these crappy value Kingston RAM?

I wonder how would be with other RAM... I don't wan't to keep spending money in vain.
 
Update: So a light came to my head... if the computer is booting with at least one of those sticks of cheap kingston, maybe if I take one 2GB stick from other laptop at home it could work. I took the only 2GB stick that my father's laptop had (from a total of 3GB, and also PC2 5300) and tried with one 2GB kingston and one 2GB of hynix on the Mac, voila! It worked! Now the Macbook Pro works with 4GB!

Then, I put the other 2GB of cheap kingston on my father's laptop and it's working as it should. I don't know why a pair of these value sticks are not working together and I don't wan't to try both on my father's laptop, everything is nice as it is by now.
 
Gauss1777 said:
Update: So a light came to my head... if the computer is booting with at least one of those sticks of cheap kingston, maybe if I take one 2GB stick from other laptop at home it could work. I took the only 2GB stick that my father's laptop had (from a total of 3GB, and also PC2 5300) and tried with one 2GB kingston and one 2GB of hynix on the Mac, voila! It worked! Now the Macbook Pro works with 4GB!

Then, I put the other 2GB of cheap kingston on my father's laptop and it's working as it should. I don't know why a pair of these value sticks are not working together and I don't wan't to try both on my father's laptop, everything is nice as it is by now.
Click to expand...

because your mbp can't run dual channel from 2x2gb SAME memory.
 
DAMNiatx said:
because your mbp can't run dual channel from 2x2gb SAME memory.
Click to expand...

I don't understand. What do you mean by same memory?

I've had matched pairs run dual channel with the following:

2x2GB Samsung
2x2GB Corsair
2x2GB G.Skill

All three combos run fine.

There's can be an error in testing the RAM over 3.5GB that shows up but its all their.

As for Gauss1777, I think the problem is simple. In all probability, one of those sticks of Kingston RAM is bad. You should comprehensively test both sticks of RAM and think about returning it if there's a bad one.

What's the RAM speed?

If it's not, it could be what DAMNiatics is talking about.
 
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