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How to test for bad ram?

JamesGorman

JamesGorman

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 31, 2008
1,123
1
Winnipeg
Well long story short, I had a mid 2010 MBP 2.53ghz i5 that was locking up, freezing, kernel panicking like crazy after I went to Lion from Snow Leopard. On snow leopard using my 3rd party 8 GB Ram I never experienced any sort of lock ups, but as soon as I went to Lion they started happening like crazy, Apple said it was because of my ram, but even when I put the original 4GB in it kept doing it. Still apple said it was possibly the ram. Anyway, they now have given me a replacement Macbook Pro, the late 2011 2.2Ghz i7, I was wondering if I should put in my old 8GB ram, is there any way I can test if this ram is bad?
 
JamesGorman said:
Well long story short, I had a mid 2010 MBP 2.53ghz i5 that was locking up, freezing, kernel panicking like crazy after I went to Lion from Snow Leopard. On snow leopard using my 3rd party 8 GB Ram I never experienced any sort of lock ups, but as soon as I went to Lion they started happening like crazy, Apple said it was because of my ram, but even when I put the original 4GB in it kept doing it. Still apple said it was possibly the ram. Anyway, they now have given me a replacement Macbook Pro, the late 2011 2.2Ghz i7, I was wondering if I should put in my old 8GB ram, is there any way I can test if this ram is bad?
Click to expand...

well im not sure but if your Macs says your have 8GB of ram that i would say all 8 is good
 
While not a fully featured diagnostic tool, the Memory section under System Profiler should tell you if the status of your RAM is "OK", check that with the original RAM and then with the upgrade.
 
iisforiphone said:
well im not sure but if your Macs says your have 8GB of ram that i would say all 8 is good
Click to expand...

Its currently showing that it is recognized and running at 1333MHZ

Zwhaler said:
While not a fully featured diagnostic tool, the Memory section under System Profiler should tell you if the status of your RAM is "OK", check that with the original RAM and then with the upgrade.
Click to expand...

Both slots say ram is "OK"


- As Of right now, Im running iMovie, iCal, iTunes, and safari using youtube, Im periodically getting a beach ball..Is this normal, or am I on the same route I was with my last machine?


EDIT: I have 5.67 GB free according to iStat
 
I don't know of anything on OSX but prime 95 on Windows has some ram testing routines. You run them long enough (like over night) and if nothing happens your crashes aren't related to RAM but something else.
 
Hi James,

You can start in diagnostic mode by holding down the D key after your Mac starts - the comprehensive test will take a few hours but should tell you if the Ram is bad. Other than that, just using the computer for a while with the suspect Ram installed will give you a good idea - no errors will mean the Ram is likely to be okay.

Cheers,
John
 
Just ran Tech Tool, did the 15 minute Ram test. I assume this would mean the ram is 100% ok?
 

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praetorx said:
Memtest86 is the best tool to test for memory errors
Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion But I don't really want to pay for a test. I ran Tech tool and Apple Hardware Test and had nothing come back bad. Hopefully it stays that way, and if not, Ill be upgrading to 16GB soon anyway.
 
JamesGorman said:
Thank you for the suggestion But I don't really want to pay for a test. I ran Tech tool and Apple Hardware Test and had nothing come back bad. Hopefully it stays that way, and if not, Ill be upgrading to 16GB soon anyway.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I wasn't specific. Memtest86+ is a free tool.
 
I might suggest memtest run at least five cycles in single user mode. If either stick spits out an error, replace it. You said 2010 mbp. My impression was only the 2011s could go to 16. I can think of applications where 16 is useful, but may I ask which you needed it for?

So you completely swapped out the ram and it maintained kernel panics? Apple's advice sounds generic here.
 
thekev said:
I might suggest memtest run at least five cycles in single user mode. If either stick spits out an error, replace it. You said 2010 mbp. My impression was only the 2011s could go to 16. I can think of applications where 16 is useful, but may I ask which you needed it for?

So you completely swapped out the ram and it maintained kernel panics? Apple's advice sounds generic here.
Click to expand...

I now have a 2011 MBP, apple replaced my 2010 with a new 2.2GHZ i7 machine. The ram I had in my old machine is now in my new one. In regards to my previous MBP the mid 2010 version, I never had kernel panics or lock ups when using the ram on snow leopard, but as soon as I upgraded to Lion everything started to deteriorate. I didn't think the RAM was bad, as I had been using it with no issues on SL. Apple said that the ram was bad even though it was showing up as ok in there in store tests. I figure the problem with my old computer was the issue due to the NVIDIA gfx card drivers that were causing all sorts of issues.
- Ill try running memtest a few times and see if anything comes back
-And as far as what I need 16GB for, I do a lot of audio production and video editing and Id like to be able to run final cut, logic, garageband, etc, at the same time

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JamesGorman said:
As far as I can tell it looks like it only runs on windows? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

You are missing something, just download a Linux Distro and run it from the LiveCD or Live DVD. I would suggest Ubuntu.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

And yes, it's all free as in freedom and as in free beer.

By the way, what I mean by "run it from the LiveCD/DVD" is you choose the "Memory Test" instead of the "Install" or "Try" option, just right after you restart your MBP while holding the "C" key or the Option key and choose to boot from the Superdrive.
 
Ok, so I've tried running memtest, but every time it gets to 4% the computer closes memtest and boots into Lion. Any ideas why?
 
JamesGorman said:
Ok, so I've tried running memtest, but every time it gets to 4% the computer closes memtest and boots into Lion. Any ideas why?
Click to expand...

Ive found out why, Memtest isn't working on Macbook Pro 8,2 models according to there forums. I guess Im out of luck, going to try a few other things and see how it goes.
 
Oh that makes complete sense regarding the ram. For some people it's photoshop and I tell them if their machine won't take it go the SSD as scratch disk route (even though ram is better), but yeah audio work needs a ton of ram. 2010 MBPs don't seem to take over 8. You might be right on the card drivers. Apple is so weird with their assessments at times, and it sucks that just how many individual components can brick the entire logic board. Memtest should really be run in single user mode. This allows it to test more ram than with the OS loaded. I'd set it for a few cycles and run it overnight if necessary.

Edit: bleh didn't realize memtest didn't work on that one:( it's really a great little application
 
I don't understand all this discussion when OP answered his own question in the first post...

8 GB RAM (3rd party) and lots of crashes and kernel panics. 4 GB RAM (OEM) and lots of crashes and kernel panics. It's easy to see that the RAM isn't the issue, unless both sets are bad, and that's extremely unlikely.

OP, is the RAM currently working fine? If so, why are you still worrying about it?
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
I don't understand all this discussion when OP answered his own question in the first post...

8 GB RAM (3rd party) and lots of crashes and kernel panics. 4 GB RAM (OEM) and lots of crashes and kernel panics. It's easy to see that the RAM isn't the issue, unless both sets are bad, and that's extremely unlikely.

OP, is the RAM currently working fine? If so, why are you still worrying about it?
Click to expand...

I figured the ram wasn't the issue in the first machine. I clearly say that, so no need to be condescending, And secondly, I have the 8GB in my new machine, and while running all the programs I mentioned above, with sometimes more than 2GB free, I am getting a beach ball.


EDIT : Im really noticing it to be laggy on youtube only, Beachballs, and not very smooth scrolling. Could this be attributed to flash? I do have the latest version
 
JamesGorman said:
I figured the ram wasn't the issue in the first machine. I clearly say that, so no need to be condescending, And secondly, I have the 8GB in my new machine, and while running all the programs I mentioned above, with sometimes more than 2GB free, I am getting a beach ball.


EDIT : Im really noticing it to be laggy on youtube only, Beachballs, and not very smooth scrolling. Could this be attributed to flash? I do have the latest version
Click to expand...

My apologies if I came across as condescending, that was the furthest thing from my intent.

If you have a 5400 rpm HDD, that could easily explain your lagging issues with things that write intensely to the HDD.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
My apologies if I came across as condescending, that was the furthest thing from my intent.

If you have a 5400 rpm HDD, that could easily explain your lagging issues with things that write intensely to the HDD.
Click to expand...

No worries, I may have interpreted it wrong as well.

Anywho, I didn't even think of the HDD, it is in fact a 5400 RPM drive, and with all those programs running it very well could be due to that. I have switched back to my stock ram, and the lag has minimized but is not entirely gone. When I open a new webpage it lags for less than half a second before I can scroll , especially sites with flash, but it has intermittently done it even on this site. Im sure I'm just being over anal, but I don't recall my last machine lagging on simple webpages such as this. Im going to continue to monitor it and see what happens. If anything, Ill maybe just buy a new 8GB set, Ive seen them around in stores here for under $40.00

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You know, Im really thinking that it just has to too with youtube and/or flash. Im on my OEM 4GB right now and I just had a pretty big lock up trying to watch a video, My cpu started to rev up, and fans started to go as well. I forced quit safari and everything went back to normal..For the most part Im not having issues on any other websites. I think both sets of my ram are fine, now I just need to figure out why youtube is giving me an issue.
 
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