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Mac Pro missing 2gb of ram??

B

blarian

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 14, 2008
19
0
So, my Mac Pro is all of a sudden now going really slow even if I'm just doing simple things like opening an email window. I went to About This Mac and it's now got me listed as only have 2gb of RAM as opposed to 4GB. I have 4 1GB sticks, 2 matching sticks in each Riser. I opened up the computer and rechecked that they were all connected securely.

Is it possible 2 of my sticks are not reading all of a sudden? I seem to remember it actually telling me on About This Mac that it recognized 4GB of ram. And, it seems things have drastically slowed down and making that god awful "im working" noise all the time.
 
It could be a bad riser. I'd do a hardware test and make an appointment to see a geniass at the Apple store.
 
I just heard my computer make 2 weird clicking noises about 2-3 seconds apart, that i've never heard before. Related?
 
blarian said:
I just heard my computer make 2 weird clicking noises about 2-3 seconds apart, that i've never heard before. Related?
Click to expand...

ram is SILENT

is the noise from the hard drive? is it the normal data access kind of sound, or is it sharper and more click click sounding?
 
It was sharper and more click click sounding. It only happened once, I haven't heard it again. Is that my harddrive krapping out on me?
 
disk utility should tell you the S.M.A.R.T. status of each drive- the self test pretty much.

Quickest way to disk utility is to just type it in the search bar in the top right of the finger, then click the app when it comes up.


I would do some basic trouble shooting with your ram. Mix and match the steps, but you get the idea.

Step 1, remove the bottom riser,(leaving only 2gb ram in the top riser) boot machine, check system profiler(from about this mac).

If it shows 2gb ram you know those 2 sticks work, remove them, put them aside out of the riser

Step 2, put the 2 sticks from the bottom riser in the known working riser and test.

Step 3, put the 2 known working sticks in the bottom riser in the top bay and test. then test those sticks in that riser in the bottom bay.

you need to eliminate the
- Ram.
- Risers.
- Riser bays.
 
Okay, I switched the risers and now the full amount of RAM is showing. Weird, maybe one of the risers wasn't properly seated??
 
You are not alone. Had a machine with 6G which dropped to 2G. A lot of reseating later and I am up to 4G. All this happened after going out of warranty. V annoying.
 
blarian said:
Okay, I switched the risers and now the full amount of RAM is showing. Weird, maybe one of the risers wasn't properly seated??
Click to expand...

It does sound that way actually but it is hard to tell. I would keep an eye on it for a while ... what kind of warranty do you have left on it?
 
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