Could ram go bad in a PB after a year?

[EasyB]

I have a 15" 1.25ghz Powerbook. About a year ago I bought two 512mb ram boards from circuit city. I thought it was kingston, but one piece has kti on it and the other has some other name on it. Anyway everything was fine until today, the computer always recognized the ram and worked properly. Now it is only recognizing 512mbs. I pulled out the ram and put it back in and it showed up at 1gig ram. Then ten minutes later every thing freezes, reboot and 512mb is showing again.

Its got to be the ram right? Or could it be some other thing like a controller or something?

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

 

[varmit]

I have a 15" 1.25ghz Powerbook. About a year ago I bought two 512mb ram boards from circuit city. I thought it was kingston, but one piece has kti on it and the other has some other name on it. Anyway everything was fine until today, the computer always recognized the ram and worked properly. Now it is only recognizing 512mbs. I pulled out the ram and put it back in and it showed up at 1gig ram. Then ten minutes later every thing freezes, reboot and 512mb is showing again.

Its got to be the ram right? Or could it be some other thing like a controller or something?

Thanks for your thoughts in advance

Brian

RAM can go bad over time, so yes, its most likely bad RAM.

 

[EasyB]

Not the ram

I did several test. Swapped one ram in and out, changed to top and bottom. It seems that the bottom ram holder only recognized the ram about 25% of the time. So I figured I had generic ram, maybe I should try some factory samsung. I ordered it from Other World computing and I get the same problem. Ram works fine when installed in the upper holder, but there is a problem with the bottom.

I really don't feel like sending in the powerbook for two weeks. Not to mention there might be a larger than stock drive in the machine now that I installed. What do you think is the problem? Is the ram holder on the mother board or logic board? Do you think it could get worst? (i.e. the top one going bad.

During the hardware test this was the Error Code

POST/0/2048 SODIMM0/J25LOWER

 

[MoparShaha]

Obviously, something is wrong with the PB. I'd take it in and get it fixed while you still have your warranty left. It's a pain, but it's best to get it taken care of as quickly as possible.

 

[CanadaRAM]

There is one other possibility: that you're not inserting the SODIMMs all the way into the socket. Some machines require a moderate amount of pressure to get the pins to click all the way in. There should be no or very little of the gold contacts visible once the SODIMM is in the socket - no more than about 1/32" (1mm)

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

Also Search for and download Rember from Versiontracker.com

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

interestingly enough, alot of people seem to be having issues with their power books right around the same time period (9 to 12 months).

My powerbook was working PERFECTLY fine the other night, I set it on sleep mode, went to eat dinner, come back, and the computer had had a melt down...honestly.

I did everything you could possibly think of to try and fix it, even though you couldn't read the screen, you could see enough to run hardware tests n permissions and disk checks off the boot disk. Anyways, I brought it in to the apple genius bar and the guy declared it fried upon powering it up.

Man I wish I had a screen cap of the screen...it was nuts.

 

[Norouzi]

The only problem I could forsee in taking it in is that Apple may consider your warranty voided if they notice that your hard drive was upgraded by you. If I read Apple's site correctly, a Hard Drive is not a User Replaceable part. However if you take it in for service, they may not notice the hard drive and just service it under warranty as usual.
From what you describe though, it sounds like it's some sort of Logic board issue, could be the SODIMM, or a problem with another part of the board. If you take it in for service they'll probabily replace the logic board.