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Macbook 2,1 Kernel Panic

D

davenz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2008
102
1
I have a Macbook from 2006 (i think). It was one of the first core 2 duo models. Currently running Snow Leopard with 3gb Ram.

Anyway, until recently I had never had an issue in the 5 years i've had it. However recently, my web brower has been crashing and i get the screen saying "you must restart your computer". Does this with chrome, firefox and safari. Shockwave player also crashes quite a bit.

Usually I can restart it fine and it works, but if i do anything like loading lots of tabs, it will often crash again. Usually the browser just exits, no screen telling me to restart though. That doesn't happen that often. Well not since i erased everything and installed osx again. Before that it happened a bit which makes me think it might be software related -or ram (see below)

Before I did a clean install, i would also sometimes get the 3 beeps on startup after the kernel panic. If i shock it around a bit and took the ram out and put it back in it seemed to fix it. I have not experienced this since I did a clean install though.

I read that having faulty ram can cause a kernel panic- and the 3 beeps on startup is to do with ram.

Do you think my ram is the issue here? I will probably be replacing the computer with a MBA soon, but would like to hold out another year if I can. Other than this it works flawlessly and is fine for everything i do.

Ideas?
 
RAM is definitely your issue.

Ive always had problems running RAM in odd numbers. I'm assuming you have 2 DIM slots. I would suggest installing 2 (2GB) modules. That should fix your issue...atleast until you get the MBA! :)
 
austinglutz said:
RAM is definitely your issue.

Ive always had problems running RAM in odd numbers. I'm assuming you have 2 DIM slots. I would suggest installing 2 (2GB) modules. That should fix your issue...atleast until you get the MBA! :)
Click to expand...

I have been using macs with ram in odd numbers for years and years. I have an imac and a macbook that can't make use of more than 3GB. Never ever had any issues. His macbook also tops at 3GB. Why should he put 2 x 2GB modules in his machine since there's no visible performance gain in that?

The first thing you might wanna try is to test your mac with only one of the modules you have. That way you may find out which one of them is causing problems. It's unlikely to have problems with both of them at the same time. It may also be a problem related to dust gathered on the memory slots. Clean it properly and you may still be able to use both modules.
Let us know how it goes.
 
2x2GB always works better as RAM works in pairs. I have the 2,1 BlackBook and I use 2x2GB even though 3GB is only supported. Seems to work well!
 
jamesjingyi said:
2x2GB always works better as RAM works in pairs. I have the 2,1 BlackBook and I use 2x2GB even though 3GB is only supported. Seems to work well!
Click to expand...

It always works better if you use it in pairs in a dual channel capable system. But the performance gain is very low. Also, the mac can make use of odd pairs of modules in async mode dual channel. So there's no real reason to spend money on something you won't benefit from.

Let's see if we were able to help the OP with our answers.
 
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