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Kernel Panics with Late 2008 13" Macbook Unibody

B

brianvendiola

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 27, 2011
7
0
So recently I've upgraded my 13" Macbook Unibody with two 4gig DDR3 Lexar Ram sticks (for a total of 8gigs). And I guess they work fine; I've done Rember and Apple Hardware tests and apparently they're OK (Note: I've yet to try the extended Apple Hardware Test). Even the packaging says that they're Mac compatible. But I'm still getting Kernel Panics whenever I try to play a game or watch a YouTube video. Though it doesn't instantly happen whenever I initially start said tasks, it just arbitrarily happens whenever I'm doing them. So sometimes I can get through watching tons of YouTube/Flash related videos just fine and sometimes I get a Kernel Panic in the middle of watching a YouTube video. Gaming is sort of the same but recently I found out that if I play Bejeweled 3 (A game that really doesn't ask for much in terms of power) for a certain amount of time, I'll get a kernel panic.

I do have all the proper firmwares installed and I'm also currently running Lion. I've also reseted my SMC and PRAM once, that didn't seem to work. I'm sort of at a loss right now. I'd love to be using 8gigs in my Macbook but I'm afraid that I'll have to end up putting back the stock 2 x 1Gig RAM sticks back in. My Macbook is still usable, it isn't completely ****ed up. It's just unfortunate that I have to cautiously watch YouTube videos or play games. I don't have a Panic log available right now though it keeps mentioning "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement (167.0)".

I don't know, what do you y'all think? Is it the RAM? Or is it something else?
 
If you ran the Rember application, it's not good enough. Put Rember in your applications folder, then reboot into single-user mode, and run the following:

Code: 
/Applications/Rember.app/Contents/Resources/memtest all 5

(I think I typed that correctly from memory). That will run five iterations over a significantly larger portion of your RAM, since the OS isn't running. If you get any failures, reseat the RAM and try again. Oh, and it'll probably take several hours.
 
So I started up a Rember test, setting it to "All" and to 5 Loops but halfway through I realized I forgot to boot into single user mode. But the test finished and everything passed the test.

Should I still bother to boot it up in single user mode?

And if I did have a failure, would reseating the RAM even work? I tried that once, previous to this post and still managed to get Panics.

Perhaps I'm doing it wrong? But if I was, I don't think the Macbook would even recognize the RAM.
 
brianvendiola said:
So I started up a Rember test, setting it to "All" and to 5 Loops but halfway through I realized I forgot to boot into single user mode. But the test finished and everything passed the test.

Should I still bother to boot it up in single user mode?

And if I did have a failure, would reseating the RAM even work? I tried that once, previous to this post and still managed to get Panics.

Perhaps I'm doing it wrong? But if I was, I don't think the Macbook would even recognize the RAM.
Click to expand...

If the MacBook wouldn't recognize the RAM it would give a long beep on startup.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547

Therefore I doubt that your MacBook doesnt recognize the RAM.

If you haven't already you should run a maintenance utility such as onyx or tinkertool,
That might help fix the problem.
 
put the original ram back in and see if the problem goes away.

I seem to remember that the 2008 would only support 6gb ram successfully and 8gb would cause panics.

You can try 1x1gb plus 1x4gb.
 
pineapple216: I shall try out these programs and report back.

old-wiz: Yeah I was planning on doing that when there was nothing else working. And about the RAM, I've read somewhere (probably iFixit) saying that Apple secretly released a firmware that allowed 8GIGs. Even iFixit were selling bundles for my model, which suggests that it should work. Do you think its safe if I mixed my Lexar 4gig sticks with the 1gig sticks Apple provided with the Macbook (for a total of 5gigs)? I've read that you shouldn't be mixing.
 
You should still test it in single-user mode. You haven't tested the RAM in which the OS resides, and that's the RAM that will cause the system to KP. Swapping out the RAM is another viable test. If the RAM passes, but swapping it out makes the crashes go away, then the RAM is the problem.

Yes, that machine supports 8GB with the correct optical drive firmware update, and yes, you can mix a 1GB and 4GB.
 
Yeah, I just ended up swapping out one of the 4GB sticks with one of the stock 1GB and...so far so good. No crashes yet (hopefully not yet) during videos/gaming. I guess it was the 8GB combo messing it up.
 
Sorry to ask you anyway, but are you really sure you've got all the correct firmware upgrades?
I'm running the same model MacBook with 8GB, no problems.

copy pasted from the OtherWorldComputing site:
How to you ensure your MacBook/MacBook Pro can address 8GB of RAM

Check the Boot ROM Version in your System Profiler at this link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237
MacBook Pros with a Model ID of MacBookPro5,1 should have a Boot ROM Version of MBP51.007E.B05.
MacBooks with a Model ID of MacBook5,1 should have a Boot ROM version of MB51.007D.B03
Machines with other Model IDs are not affected and don't need an update.
If your Boot ROM version does not match the numbers above, download the appropriate
For MacBook Pros (MacBookPro5,1)
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.8 (Apple.com Download)
For MacBooks (MacBook5,1)
MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.4 (Apple.com Download)
Once you have ensured that the Boot ROM is the correct version,
make sure your Operating System is updated to Mac OS X v10.6.6.
You must be running Snow Leopard to address 8GB on these systems.
Click to expand...
 
Hey guys

Just joined to add to the discussion because I noticed the exactly same behavior brianvendiola is experiencing.

I noticed a few things:
a. All firmware is up to date;
b. OS is Lion, installed from zero (10.7.2), no pending updates;
c. The RAM I'm using is Kingston, 1333MHz, 'generic' (ValueRAM), not the specific model for MacBooks.
No problem about the speed (it should fall back to 1066MHz, even when system profiler tells me the RAM is at 1333MHz), but the CL is 9. AFAIK the original RAM is CL7. Here is my second guess on what might be the problem, as we all know: "Macs are very picky about RAM".

But...

All tests with Rember went OK.

And my last try is to run Windows 7 64. I have a license here.

If it all works OK, I can discard CAS level and blame OS X or the NVIDIA driver for OS X since I also noted that it happens when I'm using video stuff (games are impossible to play) and now ask Apple take a quick look on the problem.

Btw, did anyone experimented 8GB on SL? I'd rather install Win7 using BootCamp than to install SL on a USB disk (which incredibly I don't have).

I'll post an update after the Win7 test.
 
Last edited:
Did you run Rember in the GUI or in single-user mode? There's not much point to run it with the OS fully booted.
 
Yes, in single user mode. But "just" two passes. No errors.

No errors in Windows, also. Could it be when RAM is used for graphic operations in Mac OS X and the nVidia 9400M?
 
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