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Mac RAM upgrade

2GoldFish

2GoldFish

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 1, 2012
138
134
Hi all.


I have purchased a refurbished iMac from Apple recently. It is the 2011 model, 21" screen with an i5 processor at 2.5GHz. Because i purchased it in the refurbished section, apple did not allow me to use the upgrade option by adding more RAM. Hence i did not know the maximum amount of RAM that it can support.

I have had a look at the brand new iMac section and found that Apple would only allow purchaser to upgrade up to 8GB of RAM for this particular model, so is this an indication that it can only support 8GB?

However, i have had a look on the 'RAM upgrade guide' on the apple website. It somehow states that 2011 21" iMac can support up to 16GB? (see here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423?viewlocale=en_US#1)

So my question is, can my iMac only support 8GB or 16GB?


Thanks in advance.
 
Apple only offers 8GB on your model so that people who need more upgrade to the more expensive model.
Your iMac can actually though support up to 32GB (4x8GB)
 
Thanks for the advise.

I have had a look at the print out of the spec at the time of purchase. Somehow, Apple did stated that it can 'support up to 8GB' not, 16GB as suggested.

Do you think it is because this is a refurbished Mac? :confused:
 
2GoldFish said:
Thanks for the advise.

I have had a look at the print out of the spec at the time of purchase. Somehow, Apple did stated that it can 'support up to 8GB' not, 16GB as suggested.

Do you think it is because this is a refurbished Mac? :confused:
Click to expand...

Apple does not always stated the maximum RAM their Macs can have.
It supports up to 32 GB RAM, as repeatedly mentioned here and in that thread I linked to.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Apple does not always stated the maximum RAM their Macs can have.
It supports up to 32 GB RAM, as repeatedly mentioned here and in that thread I linked to.
Click to expand...

I have also noticed that another member in that thread said that educational mac has a limitation of reading only up to 8GB of RAM. Do you think it is possible that my mac (being refurbish) was previously an educational mac? Which explains why the spec stated that this can only support up to 8GB?
 
2GoldFish said:
I have also noticed that another member in that thread said that educational mac has a limitation of reading only up to 8GB of RAM. Do you think it is possible that my mac (being refurbish) was previously an educational mac? Which explains why the spec stated that this can only support up to 8GB?
Click to expand...

Unlikely.
 
You could always go to Crucual.com and use their scanner which would tell you all about the RAM your specific machine will take.
 
2GoldFish said:
I have also noticed that another member in that thread said that educational mac has a limitation of reading only up to 8GB of RAM. Do you think it is possible that my mac (being refurbish) was previously an educational mac? Which explains why the spec stated that this can only support up to 8GB?
Click to expand...

The educational iMac had an i3 processor, not the i5 you have.
 
2GoldFish said:
I have also noticed that another member in that thread said that educational mac has a limitation of reading only up to 8GB of RAM. Do you think it is possible that my mac (being refurbish) was previously an educational mac? Which explains why the spec stated that this can only support up to 8GB?
Click to expand...

It says that even for the normal ones on the Apple Store site. The way Apple works is that since it has the same CPU, it'll have the same other components, so supported RAM is the same. As someone else stated, 32 GB (4X8 GB) is the actual maximum.

If you're ever curious about max RAM for a certain Mac product, check out:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/
 
Cheers everyone.

My next question i guess, is whether all slots have to have the equal amount of RAM installed?

e.g. Current the Mac has S1-2GB, S2-2GB, S3-Free, S4-Free. Can i just go out and buy two 4GB RAM and install it on S3 and S4, thus makes it 12GB RAM? Or do they all have to be 2GB or 4GB.

If so is there any particular preference which slot they should be in? e.g. Larger RAM goes in first two slots and smeller RAM goes on 3rd and 4th?
 
Is the ram always going to be the same in future imacs? That is to say if I bought say corsair or crucial ram for the iMac of today would I be able to use it for a future iMac 2012? Even if its redesigned? There are some great deals online for ram.
 
onthecouchagain said:
Is the ram always going to be the same in future imacs? That is to say if I bought say corsair or crucial ram for the iMac of today would I be able to use it for a future iMac 2012? Even if its redesigned? There are some great deals online for ram.
Click to expand...

Most probably, since there is no new RAM out there to use, except with a faster speed, but it will be DDR3 204-pin SO-DIMM RAM, which Apple uses since 2008.
 
Does anyone know i3 iMac mid late 2010 support maximum how many ram? I have 4Gb right now. After 1 year my mac run so extremely slow right now. Is there other reason than lack of ram?
 
bombertaylor said:
Does anyone know i3 iMac mid late 2010 support maximum how many ram? I have 4Gb right now. After 1 year my mac run so extremely slow right now. Is there other reason than lack of ram?
Click to expand...

Use this site to figure out max RAM:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/

Looks like 32 GB is your max. But it shouldn't be running that slow.. open up Activity Monitor and look at the percentage of your CPU being used, and look at the Page Outs on the System Memory tab. Let us know what it says and we can help figure out what the issue is. What are you doing when you're finding your iMac slow?
 
@laserbeam273 Thank you for your reply,

http://imgur.com/VdYLu

This is my activities, that's make me wonder why the com so slow. I have to restart after "heavy activities" like playing starcraft 2.

Why Firefox take up to 30% CPU usage sometimes?.Even when I just surfing web it's really laggy.
 
2GoldFish said:
Hi all.


I have purchased a refurbished iMac from Apple recently. It is the 2011 model, 21" screen with an i5 processor at 2.5GHz. Because i purchased it in the refurbished section, apple did not allow me to use the upgrade option by adding more RAM. Hence i did not know the maximum amount of RAM that it can support.

I have had a look at the brand new iMac section and found that Apple would only allow purchaser to upgrade up to 8GB of RAM for this particular model, so is this an indication that it can only support 8GB?

However, i have had a look on the 'RAM upgrade guide' on the apple website. It somehow states that 2011 21" iMac can support up to 16GB? (see here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423?viewlocale=en_US#1)

So my question is, can my iMac only support 8GB or 16GB?


Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Your iMac can support up to 32GB of RAM. Don't buy it off the Apple website either it is WAY overpriced. Buy it from OWC its way cheaper

----------
bombertaylor said:
@laserbeam273 Thank you for your reply,

http://imgur.com/VdYLu

This is my activities, that's make me wonder why the com so slow. I have to restart after "heavy activities" like playing starcraft 2.

Why Firefox take up to 30% CPU usage sometimes?.Even when I just surfing web it's really laggy.
Click to expand...
Yes big games like that will do that. When playing games the more RAM the better. Don't use Firefox, use Google Chrome, it will load much faster.
 
2GoldFish said:
Thanks for the advise.

I have had a look at the print out of the spec at the time of purchase. Somehow, Apple did stated that it can 'support up to 8GB' not, 16GB as suggested.

Do you think it is because this is a refurbished Mac? :confused:
Click to expand...


It probably means that the individual memory stick maximum is 8 GB-- use 4 of them and you are up to 32GB.
 
bombertaylor said:
@laserbeam273 Thank you for your reply,

http://imgur.com/VdYLu

This is my activities, that's make me wonder why the com so slow. I have to restart after "heavy activities" like playing starcraft 2.

Why Firefox take up to 30% CPU usage sometimes?.Even when I just surfing web it's really laggy.
Click to expand...

More RAM would definitely help with gaming, but as for normal surfing it's not going to make a difference. The i3 isn't going to be a great performer at SC2 particularly if you have decent settings on, but it should be more than enough for browsing. It's hard to say without actually using your computer.

How full is your hard drive? Anything much above 80% will probably cause noticeable slowdowns. And is it actually that slow for just browsing the internet, before playing SC2? If it isn't, then it is after playing SC2, try get a good RAM clearing app from the app store - that might help.
 
laserbeam273 said:
More RAM would definitely help with gaming, but as for normal surfing it's not going to make a difference. The i3 isn't going to be a great performer at SC2 particularly if you have decent settings on, but it should be more than enough for browsing. It's hard to say without actually using your computer.

How full is your hard drive? Anything much above 80% will probably cause noticeable slowdowns. And is it actually that slow for just browsing the internet, before playing SC2? If it isn't, then it is after playing SC2, try get a good RAM clearing app from the app store - that might help.
Click to expand...

The i3 is more than enough for SC2 on high settings. I know this because I play it all the time on the same machine.
 
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