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Do I have Dodgy RAM?!

stevehaslip

stevehaslip

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 30, 2004
657
0
The Ocean Floor
Got some ram over Christmas, ddr400 2x256mb for my 18Ghz (single rev a) Powermac G5. Only got back to my puter in london to install it yesterdayday. It went fine and everything seemed fine until yesterday evening.

Symptoms
iTunes crashed numerous times when just trying to rename song tags or import songs, when i re-opened it my library had been lost or the library file corrupted.

Safari unexpectedly quit and again when i re-opened it it had lost its pref's. It was like it had been reset. If it weren't for my powerbook i would have lost all my bookmarks.

Azureus quit in the middle of a download, much to my annoyance.

Illustrator told me that it didn't have enough memory to open the file...(a blank page)

And photoshop crashed on opening.

So to recap i had multiple kernal panics and it pissed me off no end, i was just hoping it wasn't the ram. Now i did install the 10.3.7 update yesterday too but i have just taken out the RAM and now everything is back to being super stable.

Just one thing to note, when i installed the ram the g5 wouldn't boot with it in slots 2 and 3. I had to swop over the original ram in order to get it to even boot. i thought it was weird but maybe just a quirk? i'd never installed ram in a mac before, just my pc. I thought maybe it was being fussy. I searched the threads and found some similar probs but just wanted someone to confirm my suspisions.

So my question is has anyone else bought RAM from crucial and had it utterly piss around with your mac? will they just swop it? i should have known it was bad when it wouldn't work in the slots the first time i tried right?

I drew a quick diagram incase i was being to cryptic, showing the combinations i tried when installing the RAM.
 

Attachments

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You definitely bought bad RAM. Either defective or the wrong type. Also, the order you put the RAM in is important. Figures 1 and 4 appear to be right.
 
stevehaslip said:
Got some ram over Christmas, ddr400 2x256mb for my 18Ghz (single rev a) Powermac G5...

So my question is has anyone else bought RAM from crucial and had it utterly piss around with your mac? will they just swop it? i should have known it was bad when it wouldn't work in the slots the first time i tried right?
Click to expand...

I have never had a problem with RAM from Crucial but I always, always use their memory selector. That way you put the onus on them to give you something that matches your Mac...

If you choose it yourself, you only have yourself to blame if it's the wrong type.

We had some sticks from them for our work G5s that were the wrong type & didn't work – but we demonstrated that we used the selector and their recommendations. They swapped them the next day... no fuss.
 
thats the thing, i don't have the hardware cd's here. I read in another post that people reccomended to do that but i can't. i used the memory selector on crucials website to choose the RAM and the sticker on the actual RAM says its the right stuff pc3200 ddr400. It just won't behave itself!

i have 30 days to return it and get a refund or i can just swap it for some new stuff anytime. So i shall be doing that i think.

But just to clear up with anyone who has a G5, you shouldn't need to switch any of the existing ram over, the new stuff should be happy in the next slots? (3 and 4 on my diagram)
 
It should work if you put it in the next two empty slots on either side - if you're not very experienced with this, are you sure you didn't cause damage to the machine when installing the RAM? I'd have expected it to at least work with kern panics when you had the apple ram in the first slots.
 
MentalFabric said:
It should work if you put it in the next two empty slots on either side - if you're not very experienced with this, are you sure you didn't cause damage to the machine when installing the RAM? I'd have expected it to at least work with kern panics when you had the apple ram in the first slots.
Click to expand...

Na i don't think i broke the motherboard or the main board (US?) I was careful about static and stuff and have worked inside the G5 before. I've been around computers my whole life, my dad and bro build their pee cees from scratch so i kinda knew what i was doing, or should be doing. I was just surprised when it wouldn't work in the first slots i tried. I even checked the manual to be sure that i didn't do something obvious wrong. I followed the instructions to the letter and i don't think the slots are broken because the apple ram worked in the 2 outer slots. It showed up as 1gb in the "about this mac" window. I thought everything had gone smoothly til my puter started freaking out. crazy RAM i tells ya!
 
k, i got the replacement RAM today and guess what? i installed it and it still won't boot. WHY!!?? its not that i'm not putting it in right or anything as i've taken the stock ram out and put that back in and it works fine. So what could it be? I have checked both ram. They are all 256mb pc 3200 ddr 400 cl3 so why is it not working??

Please please someone bail me out its driving me nuts!! :mad:
 
PLEASE I am desperate to try and figure this out does anyone have any other suggestions that might help? i really don't know who to turn to. If i go to apple they will most likely say its the ram and just to replace it or buy ram from them.

How likely is it that crucial sent me 2 lots of bad ram?
what can i do to fix this, what can i try? :( :confused: :(
 
Crucial sent me bad sticks before. The most important thing to do right now is to run these sticks through memtest. That will prove that these sticks are indeed faulty, in which a quick RMA will either get you new sticks (or a refund if you so desire).

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

The problem is, as far as I know, this a PC-only test (you boot right into after you POST). If you got a PC guy nearby to test you sticks, then it'd nice.
 
i managed to boot into osx with one configuration of ram. just swopping them over. first time i did it i got a kernal panic. The second time i thought everythign was ok so i ran an app called "rember" which checks ram. It threw up loads of errors and then i got another kernal panic.

The crucial box has a bit of a damaged corner, indicating to me that either pressure was put on the box or it was dropped, could a drop screw up the ram enough for it to stop working?

unfortunately i don't know anyone with a pc that uses ddr400.
 
Well i just ran rember with just the crucial ram in. Which means that its not the ram and that it must be my precious g5:(

I read earlier today that one person had a problem with their g5 and new ram, someone on the forum thought that it would most likely be the ram controller chip. Is it likely that its the logic board?

Luckily i got applecare when i bought it, so it should be free to fix but i will have to go without my computer for a while.

Is there any other possible cause?

Do you think that i should return the ram or keep it til i get it fixed?
 
Hrmm. W/o the proof of memtest, it makes it considerably harder to pinpoint whether:

Its the RAM?

Its the chipset (motherboard)? Certain RAM slots? The memory controller?

All of these are still open-ended questions. If you could prove/test that the RAM was good or bad, it would at least take it down to 3/4 possibilities.
 
Mav451 said:
Hrmm. W/o the proof of memtest, it makes it considerably harder to pinpoint whether:

Its the RAM?

Its the chipset (motherboard)? Certain RAM slots? The memory controller?

All of these are still open-ended questions. If you could prove/test that the RAM was good or bad, it would at least take it down to 3/4 possibilities.
Click to expand...

i ran "rember" to check the ram, it passed all the tests. Is there nothing as good as memtest on the mac? it seems as stable as before with just the apple ram. i don't know what to doo now, my poor puter :(
 
Ah, i didn't realize rember was a RAM testing app. Ok, then the next step is get another stick of DDR 400 RAM (only one, you don't want to introduce more variables by having 2 sticks at once).

1) Does it work (doesn't matter which slot)? No Kernal Panics, freeze, etc.?

2) Change location of the RAM. If it still does fine then you know that it was the Crucial RAM all along. If it starts having problems, then you know that it is a certain slot that is faulty.

This should be a start then.
 
Mav451 said:
Ah, i didn't realize rember was a RAM testing app. Ok, then the next step is get another stick of DDR 400 RAM (only one, you don't want to introduce more variables by having 2 sticks at once).

1) Does it work (doesn't matter which slot)? No Kernal Panics, freeze, etc.?

2) Change location of the RAM. If it still does fine then you know that it was the Crucial RAM all along. If it starts having problems, then you know that it is a certain slot that is faulty.

This should be a start then.
Click to expand...

i can't put just one in as the memory needs to be installed in pairs, or are you saying that i can just try adding them one by one? that they won't register but as long as it doesn't cause a problem then at least i would be narrowing it down?
 
i reset the pmu upon someones advice in the apple forum but to no avail. I think it must be the motherboard or the onboard memory controller.

I think i'm gonna have a whole load of backing up to do:(
 
arggh! now i've just got my stock ram in and illustrator cs won't open!? i repaired permissions, done sudo daily, weekly and monthly tasks and updated prebinding but it still won't open. It bounces on the dock and then stops. I never get the little black arrow underneath.

I need to get work done and now i'm stuck :( this just gets worse and worse. How much bad luck can i have?
 
stevehaslip said:
i can't put just one in as the memory needs to be installed in pairs, or are you saying that i can just try adding them one by one? that they won't register but as long as it doesn't cause a problem then at least i would be narrowing it down?
Click to expand...

You can have only one in there, who told you have to put it in pairs? That's just marketing BS there. Yes, you lose dual channel (if you have a 128-bit memory controller), but we need to get stability first. You can worry about your dual channel later.
 
k thanks i will try it:)

tried putting one 256 stick in the next lower bank, doesn't register as being there in osx. Same when i took the stick out and tried it in the next free slot in the upper bank. But it booted fine and everything.

Same with the other stick in the lower bank, nice and stable but it isn't recognising that its there. Again same with the top bank and that stick.

So its stable but it doesn't recognise that its there. Thanks for your suggestion though.
 
right,

After some more advice in the Apple Discussions Forum someone suggested trying the same brand of ram, so i ordered another 512 from crucial safe in the knowledge that if it didn't work then i could return it within 30 days and get a refund.

Got my new ram from crucial, slightly different looking. they must have trimmed the boards down a tiny bit more. Anyway it wouldn't work with the apple ram again, worth a try i spose but it works with all crucial ram.

So i now have 1gb of crucial ram, the apple ram is being given to a friend who has the same g5 as me but it was bought about 3 months later. I'm gonna install it in her computer tomorrow as she doesn't know that much about computers. I'm hoping it will play nicely with her apple ram but i'm not deffinately sure after my episode!
If it doesn't work then i'll just ebay it.

Bit of a pain just for more ram, i figure that if i buy more ram then it will be from crucial so it made more sense to buy more crucial than more apple ram (especially when you consider that the apple ram is DOUBLE the price of the crucial stuff and i'm a poor student!)

Thanks for everyones contributions in trying to help me resolve this matter, if you are having the same problem and are reading through this and want to know what steps i went through then just email me.
Thanks again all!
 
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