mid 2010 macbook; possible damage from new RAM?

[Visionblue]

I recently purchased 8GB of RAM off of eBay *I know, I know* for a great price (about $65). I did my research and made sure it met all of my macbook's specs (ddr3, 1067 mhz, 204 pin, etc). The first batch arrived and one stick was bad. In the time it took to get a replacement for the second stick I was running my computer on 2GB of the original ram and 4GB of the new RAM which was working fine. Today I received the replacement, popped it in and everything seemed to be working fine. After about 10 min of using the computer, the screen turned green and the computer stopped responding. The apple logo & back light stayed on. Totally green, like a green screen. Not even a shadow of what had just been on the screen. I turned the computer of manually and restarted it, reset the PRAM and SMC settings. It restarted as normal but the same thing happened again, this time the screen went black (but still with the back light on and the apple logo lit up). I opened up the computer, popped out the "new" stick, replaced it with the original 2GB and I'm posting from the computer now. Not even an indication of anything wrong.

When I opened the computer, I did notice there was some lint/hair on the logic board. I got it off of there but I don't really think that was the problem.

I'm going to attempt to work with the RAM to make sure its bad; swap seating, make sure its in securely, etc; but I'm concerned I could damage the logic board with such extreme symptoms.

Are these indicative of kernel panics or something more? I tried to google it but nothing really came up for those particular symptoms. Should I continue to work with it or should I just return it?

 

[BrettApple]

Unless it's doing some crazy things with the electrical paths, I doubt it would damage anything. That's how you test RAM. One stick at a time, one slot at a time, then start combining them.

That being said, I don't think I'd trust that RAM from eBay. I've gotten RAM from just about every manufacturer out there, but I've finally settled on just one brand for everything. OWC. They're the only ones I've had that have worked 100% of the time in all our Mac's. I also use it in a production environment in everything from MacBook's and Mini's for lighting, to the Mac Pro's for streaming and editing. And believe me, a dual processor Mac Pro with 8 RAM slots can be a total pain to troubleshoot :roll eyes:

If you can, I'd try returning the RAM and getting some that's new and you know where it's coming from. I've got 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 from OWC that I had in my 2008 MacBook (Alu) and moved to my current Mid 2010 15" MacBook Pro. It's about four years old now, and I think I got it for about $60 at the time. Of course it's gone up now, but still. Quality is worth it IMO.