Imac RAM issue

[duce2777]

Lets start this by letting you know I have next to no technical knowledge. I bought a 27 inch Imac in 2015 and with the advice from these forums I bought and installed 3rd party RAM x2 (Cruical 4GB DDR3L-1600 SODIMM MAC). Fast forward to December of this year - while installing Catlina my Imac crashed and I took it to the apple store. They told me my hard drive was bad and it needed to be replaced. After $290 or so I picked up the CPU and it still wouldn't load Catalina so back I went to the apple store. Now they said my 3rd party RAM was bad so they removed it and loaded Catalina. So I assume I want to replace the 3rd party RAM but not sure what to get. Do I buy the same Cruical RAM or is there something better on the market now? If I do buy new RAM will there be any issues with Catalina? Just looking for advice and some help. Thank you all very much.
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Apple iMac 27" LED All-in-One Desktop Computer, Intel Core i5 Quad-Core 3.4GHz, 8GB RAM, 3TB Fusion Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M, Mac OS X Mavericks 64-bit. This is the info from when I ordered the original Imac. If this helps.

 

[barbu]

welcome, good question and thanks for the detail.
It certainly sounds like the RAM is causing the issue. I have seen this first-hand when using the OS installers. The MBP I was working on would boot and run fine with the the memory chips I put in as an upgrade, but when I went to wipe/reinstall, the installer would continuously kernel panic until I put the old memory back in. The chips I was using were even Apple chips, just from a newer machine. No matter, it kept panicking.
So I would try your RAM chips again, now that you got through the installer. You may find them to be stable.

 

[lizurd]

Lets start this by letting you know I have next to no technical knowledge. I bought a 27 inch Imac in 2015 and with the advice from these forums I bought and installed 3rd party RAM x2 (Cruical 4GB DDR3L-1600 SODIMM MAC). Fast forward to December of this year - while installing Catlina my Imac crashed and I took it to the apple store. They told me my hard drive was bad and it needed to be replaced. After $290 or so I picked up the CPU and it still wouldn't load Catalina so back I went to the apple store. Now they said my 3rd party RAM was bad so they removed it and loaded Catalina. So I assume I want to replace the 3rd party RAM but not sure what to get. Do I buy the same Cruical RAM or is there something better on the market now? If I do buy new RAM will there be any issues with Catalina? Just looking for advice and some help. Thank you all very much.
[automerge]1579288341[/automerge]

Apple iMac 27" LED All-in-One Desktop Computer, Intel Core i5 Quad-Core 3.4GHz, 8GB RAM, 3TB Fusion Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M, Mac OS X Mavericks 64-bit. This is the info from when I ordered the original Imac. If this helps.

Crucial memory has a lifetime warranty if you are the original purchaser. I have used their warranty before. It has been a while, but as I recall it was no hassle.

 

[duce2777]

welcome, good question and thanks for the detail.
It certainly sounds like the RAM is causing the issue. I have seen this first-hand when using the OS installers. The MBP I was working on would boot and run fine with the the memory chips I put in as an upgrade, but when I went to wipe/reinstall, the installer would continuously kernel panic until I put the old memory back in. The chips I was using were even Apple chips, just from a newer machine. No matter, it kept panicking.
So I would try your RAM chips again, now that you got through the installer. You may find them to be stable.

So me not knowing much didn't question the apple employee that gave me back my Imac but she did say don't put this RAM back in your computer. Do you think she was just being cautious or do you think they actually tested it and determined it to be bad?
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Crucial memory has a lifetime warranty if you are the original purchaser. I have used their warranty before. It has been a while, but as I recall it was no hassle.

I do have the confirmation email from them. It was bought it January of 2015. Do you think i could send it to them and they would test it or just take Apples word that is faulty?
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Also back to part of the first question, is there something better out there now? Or is what I have basically the same thing I would buy today?

 

[Daniel Marchant]

Never take Apple Genius word for certain, they are just normal technicians and i have heard a lot of their assumptions being incorrect, you can even get different opinion from 2 different Apple technicians.

There is a particular video of Rossman group when they open a macbook that was declared battery defective by apple technician and all it was just the connector not plugged in properly.

I encourage you to just try one ram at a time because maybe just one of them is bad, or maybe you just put it wrong in the first place, also try to swap them from slot.

Cheers

 

[lizurd]

I do have the confirmation email from them. It was bought it January of 2015. Do you think i could send it to them and they would test it or just take Apples word that is faulty?
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Also back to part of the first question, is there something better out there now? Or is what I have basically the same thing I would buy today?
[/QUOTE]

Crucial has an RMA procedure - https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/returns (assuming the USA)

Or if you have questions give them a call.

As for something better, Crucial and other reputable manufacturers will sell you RAM with the same specs as the OEM RAM, so you aren't going to find anything appreciably better. You could buy 16GB RAM which would arguably be "better."

 

[kschendel]

You aren't going to hurt anything by trying the Crucial RAM again. If it's really defective, the system simply won't boot, or will crash.