Quicksilver Memory Incompatibilities?

[MacRumors]

There was a post to xlr8yourmac.com late last week (their archive link is broken at the moment) by a user who had recently received a Quicksilver G4 and had three 256MB PC133 CL2 (2-2-2) DIMMs, each containing 16 memory chips, to install. He encountered a memory error on boot (3 beeps) and found that if he took any one of the DIMMs out of the machine, even replacing it with the bundled Apple 128MB DIMM (comprised of 8 memory chips), all was fine. We have seen no other reports of problems with 3x 256MB (16 chip/ea) CL2 memory, but just today a user posted this to the message thread at MacNN forums:

i ordered the 256 CL2 from OWC and had a very odd experience. installed it in the 2nd slot and my qs 867 sounded 3 tones and failed to boot - installed it in the 3rd slot and all was fine. tested the second slot by moving the preinstalled 128 DIMM there and it was fine. anyway i'm returning the 256 CL2 and upgrading to the 512 CL3 in the process.
...which is concerning. I have three 256MB PC133 CL2 DIMMs with 16 chips each on-hand, waiting to install in my dual-800 when it arrives. I hope there's no need to return any of this memory.
Is anyone seeing these sorts of issues with your new Quicksilver G4's?

 

[blakespot]

I spoke with OWC ( http://www.macsales.com ) today about this and, as expected, they were very friendly and helpful. (OWC is a very highly respected retailer in the Mac community, and with good reason.) The tech person I spoke to told me they would be getting a Quicksilver unit in-house sometime next week and would be able to look into this issue--they had, to their credit, seen the original posting on xlr8yourmac.com and that prompted them to get hold of a QS machine.

If this does turn out to be widespread (and there is no reason to assume that it is OWC memory only with an issue), then OWC's gracious return policy can be used to remedy the situation.

I'd like to hear some other user reports though.


blakespot

 

[Robot]

512MB

I'd also like to see if the problem exists with the OWC 512MB modules as well.

When OWC says (32x8 based) that means eight 32MB chips right???

 

[Robot]

whoops

my bad i mean sixteen 32MB chips...?

http://dealchat.com/mac/read.html?id=486177&thread=485655

 

[Luckster]

Does anyone know if a CL2 512MB PC133 module is made. I have only seen CL3 and was wondering if this were simply a technical limitation.

 

[zebedee]

Quantity of *chips* matters

Thinking back to the Beige G3, there was an issue there that one could encounter the limit of the number of chips that the memory interface chip on the logic board could drive.
Its not the amount of RAM, its the number of individual chips (in parallel) that you are dividing the signal across. Just like a phone line - if you hang too many extensions directly on it, you'll reach a point when the ring signal won't be strong enough to ring them all.
On Beige G3 Towers, although you could fit two-chip-high (tall) DIMMs, you couldn't count on them working in every system - though you could almost always get away with two 1-high and one 2-high DIMM.
I wonder if this is what folk are seeing?

 

[MacRumors]

Story updated (with links and followup)


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