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missing half of ram?!?!

E

expergo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 21, 2004
213
0
hi,

i got my ibook in nov and installed 512mb ram a few days later. it registered fine...until now. i don't know how long this has been but when i checked system profile and the "about apple" it only sees a 256ram in DIMM1 slot.

i ran an extended hardware test (via apple cd) and it said the ram passed it but at the bottom, it had this..

****ERROR*CODE******ERROR*CODE***
post/o/2048 DIMM1/J7
****ERROR*CODE****

does anyone havea clue what happened? did one of the ram chips fry?

i'm using a kingmax 266ddr ram... i'm gonna try it on a pc laptop in a sec...
 
Looks like you got a bad stick. Even if it works on a PC, it may give errors. Sometimes you get a stick that will show up, but give you Kernal Panics, but sometimes it doesn't show up at all. I'd check to make sure it was in all the way, and check it in another computer to see what happens. If it's still under warranty, send it back if it's bad.
 
yeah...it was working when i got it. its' weird cause when i do the hardware test, it shows up as a 512mb stick but the font is in red.

guess i'll return it.. :(
 
i checkd it on a pc laptop and it shows a 512mb stick. then stuck it back into my ibook and it was still 256. :S

what's happening?? :(
 
update...i exchanged the ram for another stick and it works now. i dont' get why though?
 
PCs are more forgiving with bad RAM, but often at a cost of less stability. Apples are usually pretty picky. You probaby had a stick with bad RAM modules on it. The Mac saw it was there, but realized it was bad and was not using it. The PC saw it, and might have used it, but you would had issues.

It's a little bit more technical than that, but that's the gist.
 
thanks..that makes sense.

do the modules get bad over time though?

like when i first had that stick...it read as 512 so it was fine.
 
expergo said:
thanks..that makes sense.

do the modules get bad over time though?

like when i first had that stick...it read as 512 so it was fine.
Click to expand...
no general they dont go bad over time (there is a reason ram stick almost always have a lifetime warrenty on them). Now since it is a laptop one of the sticks may of come loose so you computer is no longer seeing it
 
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