iMac Frezzing then beeping

[Dorward]

Hi All,

I've got a i3 late 2010 iMac that has just started to freeze then beep 3 times, I added 8Gb of RAM to the standard 4Gb. I added this RAM about 3 months before I upgraded to Lion and the beeping only started since I upgraded...

On a side note the iMac did locked up once or twice before installing lion but it never beeped and now its doing it all the time but one thing i've noticed it seems to do it when the iMac is accessing items from an external 2Tb drive..

any ideas? I'm running a memtest which currently is ok, going to do a hardware test, and buy a new external drive... what else should i do?

should take the standard ram out?

should i add another 8gb of the same ram?

should i revert back to the standard 4gb ram?

thanks for any help you could give!

Andrew

 

[AcesHigh87]

I would suggest keeping activity monitor open if you can. It should be able to tell how much RAM you are accesing when it crashes. My guess is you have either non-compatible RAM or It's faulty. If that's the case your mac will likely be freezing up when anything above the default 4 is accessed.

 

[Texran]

3 Beeps at startup means Ram not passing memory test.

Try resetting SMC

1.Shut down the computer.
2.Unplug the computer's power cord
3.Press and Hold Power button 5 secs
4.Wait fifteen more seconds.
5.Attach the computer's power cord.
6.Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

if that doesn't solve the problem, I'd run on the OEM ram only [revert back to the standard 4gb ram] and see what happens.

 

[50548]

The RAM you've just added is probably not in good shape...take it back.

 

[pb123996]

I came here to find the answer for the same problem after installing lion and boosting the ram from 4-8gb.
Had noise before the beeps started. Pulled out and replaced the ram with the original 4gb.
Cheers for the advice