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Dumb Question buuutttttt.... MacPro memory

AnimeFunTv

AnimeFunTv

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2009
218
46
San Antonio
I'm sure this question has come up a lot, however doing a search I really couldn't find anything about it. D=

Mac Life just posted an article about upgrading mac's. One thing that caught my eye was the memory category, it mentioned that current MP's can use DDR3 DIMM's but it dose not mention if they have to be ECC. Looking at one of there resources crucial.com, their MP 1,1 memory FAQ page has "Does my computer support ECC memory? A: Yes. Your system supports ECC. You can put non-ECC modules into an ECC system, but be sure not to mix ECC and non-ECC modules within a system. Install the same type of modules that are already in your system." My question is, has anyone tried nothing but Non-ECC memory DDR3's in there MP? and how well as it worked if anyone's tried it?
 
AnimeFunTv said:
I'm sure this question has come up a lot, however doing a search I really couldn't find anything about it. D=

Mac Life just posted an article about upgrading mac's. One thing that caught my eye was the memory category, it mentioned that current MP's can use DDR3 DIMM's but it dose not mention if they have to be ECC. Looking at one of there resources crucial.com, their MP 1,1 memory FAQ page has "Does my computer support ECC memory? A: Yes. Your system supports ECC. You can put non-ECC modules into an ECC system, but be sure not to mix ECC and non-ECC modules within a system. Install the same type of modules that are already in your system." My question is, has anyone tried nothing but Non-ECC memory DDR3's in there MP? and how well as it worked if anyone's tried it?
Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/667399/

in short ... "The 2009 Mac Pro boots and runs perfectly with NON-ECC DDR3 ..." - WonderSausage

if you would like to read up more, here's another thread pertaining to your above queries.
 
my bad. i missed out the Mac Pro 2006 part. :p
thanks for pointing that out.

i'll keep a lookout.
 
Their MP 1,1 page says that you can use non-ECC RAM:confused:

Well, ECC or not, its a FB-DIMM going in there, and I always assumed that they had ECC.
 
Dr.Pants said:
Their MP 1,1 page says that you can use non-ECC RAM:confused:

Well, ECC or not, its a FB-DIMM going in there, and I always assumed that they had ECC.
Click to expand...

This is correct. I tried to put regular desktop non-ecc DDR2 in my 1,1 and it would not fit. The key is different on DIMM vs FB-DIMM. I guess if you could find FB-DIMM in non-ecc than it may work, but why would you?
 
You will not find non-ECC FB DIMMs. They are always ECC cause of presence of AMB chip (AFAIK, correct me if i'm wrong).
MP 2009 could run non ECC RAM, because it uses regular ECC memory, not FB DIMMs.
 
reebzor said:
This is correct. I tried to put regular desktop non-ecc DDR2 in my 1,1 and it would not fit. The key is different on DIMM vs FB-DIMM. I guess if you could find FB-DIMM in non-ecc than it may work, but why would you?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm wrong anyways - non-ECC FB-DIMMS should exist. Nasr wrote in FBSim and the Fully Buffered DIMM memory system architecture that there are separate configurations for ECC and non-ECC RAM; there is a cyclic redundancy check that works sorta like ECC if I read it right.

However, I'm fairly certain that the exact RAM to shove into a MP 1,1 is 667MHz ECC DDR2 FB-DIMM; Mactracker and Wikipedia both say this. I don't have a 2006 user manual on me though...
 
Dr.Pants said:
Well, I'm wrong anyways - non-ECC FB-DIMMS should exist. Nasr wrote in FBSim and the Fully Buffered DIMM memory system architecture that there are separate configurations for ECC and non-ECC RAM; there is a cyclic redundancy check that works sorta like ECC if I read it right.

However, I'm fairly certain that the exact RAM to shove into a MP 1,1 is 667MHz ECC DDR2 FB-DIMM; Mactracker and Wikipedia both say this. I don't have a 2006 user manual on me though...
Click to expand...

For a MP 1,1 it calls for 667MHz ECC DDR2 FB-DIMM, but what my question was has anyone else tried a non-ECC, regular DDR2 thats not FB, on a MP with any luck? Several posts before mentioned that a regular DDR2 will not fit into the MP memory slot, I've been searching if this is true and what are the differences.
 
Ok! I have a new question, as we should all already know, that the MP 1,1 uses 667 MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM's, Now I know they are 'other' memory makers that offer DDR2 ECC FBDIMM's for cheap. However they are what they are, cheap.

I remember a while back there was talk about using cheap generic DDR2 ECC FBDIMM's, however users had problems with over-heating due to cheap heat sinks like these

ECCREG2G667DDR2.jpg


Now my question is, Has anyone actually swapped the heat sinks off the Apple or OWC DDR2's and install them on the cheap generic DDR2's?

If I'm confusing anyone. Here is my game plan.

The MP calls for 240-pin PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM's, there is a place here in-town that has the exact same DDR2 available for cheap, however it has the cheapy heatsink as above.

I'm assuming that regardless of the headsink. The memory 'should' work on the MP.

What I was planning on, was to remove the cheap heatsinks. Take the heatsinks off the old memory modules that originally came with the MP, and install them on the newer DIMM's that had the cheap heatsinks.

Currently I have 8 - 512MB of ram for a total of 4GB

I wanna install 8 - 1GB of ram for a total of 8GB

Any opinion's on this idea?
 
I got 8x1GB with regular (non Apple) heatsinks and no overheating problem. Ofc you can swap heatsinks between Apple and third party FB DIMMs if you want to, it will be only better.
I suggest buying 4x2GB instead 8x1GB (if you can afford it) - further upgrade will be easier and you still have benefit of 256-bit data path. Also 4 modules will generate less heat and draw less power.
 
666sheep said:
I got 8x1GB with regular (non Apple) heatsinks and no overheating problem. Ofc you can swap heatsinks between Apple and third party FB DIMMs if you want to, it will be only better.
I suggest buying 4x2GB instead 8x1GB (if you can afford it) - further upgrade will be easier and you still have benefit of 256-bit data path. Also 4 modules will generate less heat and draw less power.
Click to expand...

I would definitely buy 2GB modules instead of the 1GB, however, all they have is the 1GB. The ones they have are refurbs, and there totally cheap at $40 for a set of 8, so yeah. I'm gonna try it out.
 
Good news, & bad news.

Good news is the 1GB Memory I picked up for my MP worked just fine, I installed Apple's heatsinks with out much trouble. See below.

Bad News, is while taking off the heat sinks off the last pair of 1GB modules, on both modules one of the memory chips broke right off when the heatsink goop acted like glue.

web.jpg


So Now I have a total of 7GB of Ram on my MP, it seems just a bit more snappy, however I wish the two 1GB modules didn't break. Where I could have had a satisfying 8GB of RAM.

I picked up some more memory when I bought the 8 - 1GB modules. It was a lot sale.

You can check out my ebay account Link and see what I have for sale, maybe someone here can benefit from some more memory for laptops or just a home computer.
 
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