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New MacBook Pro Does Not Support 8GB RAM (for now)

Cave Man said:
Here's what it says:


HTML: 
          total     used       free  shared   buffers
Mem:    4048612    45856   4002756     0         0
Swap:         0        0         0
Total:  4048612    45866   4002756
Click to expand...

So it did not see the full 8Gb, just 4Gb. Can you post the out put of 2 other commands -

a) dmesg -s 100000 | grep e820
b) cat /proc/meminfo

That will tell us why the rest of the 4Gb wasn't usable. P.S. - Top 5 lines of the meminfo output are sufficient.
 
Cave Man said:
Is there a way to copy all this info to a flash drive? It would sure be a lot easier and mistake-free if I can get them onto my Mac.
Click to expand...

Yes - it's a tiny bit complicated but here it is -

a) attach the flash drive - it should be FAT32 format
b) type dmesg and look at the end of the out put - it will say something like the following -
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdi] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 6804.476644] sdi: sdi1
[ 6804.548315] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdi] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 6804.548315] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg9 type 0
c) Note the sdi part - the portion of interest above is sdi1
d) Type mkdir /tmp/somedir
e) Type mount /dev/sdi1 /tmp/somedir

IF the command in e) returns without error - you can copy the files to /tmp/somedir/ and then press Fn+Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot the system.
 
parapup said:
Yes - it's a tiny bit complicated but here it is -

a) attach the flash drive - it should be FAT32 format
b) type dmesg and look at the end of the out put - it will say something like the following -
sd 8:0:0:0: [sdi] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 6804.476644] sdi: sdi1
[ 6804.548315] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdi] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 6804.548315] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg9 type 0
c) Note the sdi part - the portion of interest above is sdi1
d) Type mkdir /tmp/somedir
e) Type mount /dev/sdi1 /tmp/somedir

IF the command in e) returns without error - you can copy the files to /tmp/somedir/ and then press Fn+Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot the system.
Click to expand...

I so love Linux....
 
AidenShaw said:
I so love Linux....
Click to expand...

Hey to be fair - he was purposefully booting to command line and so had to do it the hard way. If he were to boot into any recent KDE/Gnome desktop - the key would appear automagically on the desktop. Heck even if he had booted into the Ubuntu graphical installer, the key would be right there! :)
 
8GB in MBP Santa Rosa

I run 6GB with no issues in my MBP 2.6GHz. When I experimented today with 2x 4GB SO-DIMMS, the whole system came crashing down with terrible, terrible performance so I have gone back to 6 GB. Unfortunate given that my work Thinkpad T61p can handle and address all 8 GB using Windows 7 64-bit or Vista Business 64-bit.
Hurry up Snow Leopard!
 
There has been no posting on this subject since 10.5.7 was released and since the new Mbps were announced last week. Has anything changed? Are we any closer to knowing if first gen uMBPs can exceed 4gb?
 
10.5.7 and 8 GB

I'd LOVE to know if my Late-2008 Unibody 15" now supports 8 GB of RAM. Has anyone tested this model with 10.5.7? Do people know if the latest unibodies have the same chipset as the Late-2008 models?
 
dizastor said:
Unfortunately, I think all of these little tidbits are building to become the 'value' in snow leopard.

The dual video cards, the max ram... possible only available if you shell out $129 for snow leopard. :(
Click to expand...

Sorry, you must have missed the news on MacRumors. Snow Leopard will be $29 for a single user if you upgrade from Leopard.
 
DesignerOnMac said:
Sorry, you must have missed the news on MacRumors. Snow Leopard will be $29 for a single user if you upgrade from Leopard.
Click to expand...

No, he didn't miss it. It wasn't known back in October when he posted that it would only by $29 for the upgrade.

akutz said:
According to http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4680648&CatId=3984 the T9400 (Intel 2.53 GHz) does support 8GB. So the 8GB limitation is either software-restricted or it has to do with the NVidia chipset on the Late-2008 uMBPs.
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with the processor and it's unlikely that it's the chipset. Most likely it's the EFI.
 
Efi

I wonder if they can upgrade the EFI to support 8 GB then, can't they? And a processor does have to support a certain RAM limit since it needs to be able to address it, so I was just clarifying that the T9400 should be able to address 8 GB. Also, it could very well be the chipset since that is where the memory controller resides. The T9400 does not use an on-board MC and therefore the chipset's MC would have to able to address 8GB of RAM as well. At least I think so. I'm a newb.
 
akutz said:
I wonder if they can upgrade the EFI to support 8 GB then, can't they?
Click to expand...

Sure, they could. But I'd fall over if they did. After all, they didn't do it for the Core Duo/Solo iMacs, Minis, MacBooks or MacBook Pros.

And a processor does have to support a certain RAM limit since it needs to be able to address it, so I was just clarifying that the T9400 should be able to address 8 GB.
Click to expand...

All 64-bit cpus can address 8 gb (and more).

Also, it could very well be the chipset since that is where the memory controller resides. The T9400 does not use an on-board MC and therefore the chipset's MC would have to able to address 8GB of RAM as well. At least I think so. I'm a newb.
Click to expand...

The 9400m and the Santa Rosa chipsets both support 8 gb of memory addressing. It's in their product data sheets from nVidia and Intel.
 
Cave Man said:
Sure, they could. But I'd fall over if they did. After all, they didn't do it for the Core Duo/Solo iMacs, Minis, MacBooks or MacBook Pros.
Click to expand...

Didn't they? I recall that they upgraded EFI to support booting Windows. I think there have been other EFI patches as well.

Cave Man said:
The 9400m and the Santa Rosa chipsets both support 8 gb of memory addressing. It's in their product data sheets from nVidia and Intel.
Click to expand...

Cool. I couldn't find the chipset data sheet (I was looking). Now, nVidia did produce a special chipset for the uMBPs, so I suppose there could be something to do with it there, but like you said, I doubt it.

Question for you then. What reason do you think exists for Apple to NOT update the EFI? It's more money for their partners if the uMBPs support 8 GB.
 
akutz said:
Didn't they? I recall that they upgraded EFI to support booting Windows. I think there have been other EFI patches as well.
Click to expand...

If you put more than 2 gb into Calistoga-based Macs, they won't boot, even though the memory controller can address 4 gb (~3.2 gb useable).

Cool. I couldn't find the chipset data sheet (I was looking). Now, nVidia did produce a special chipset for the uMBPs, so I suppose there could be something to do with it there, but like you said, I doubt it.
Click to expand...

Well, since the 9400m MBP can address 8 gb I'm sure it's not a problem. Except for those with the 9400m Minis - which are handicapped at 4 gb. It's an Apple thing.

Question for you then. What reason do you think exists for Apple to NOT update the EFI? It's more money for their partners if the uMBPs support 8 GB.
Click to expand...

No one really knows, just how Apple does things. It's stupid that the Minis are restricted to 4 gb of RAM.
 
Have you tried putting 8 GB of RAM in your MBP since 10.5.7 came out? Just curious.
 
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