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RAM upgrade freezes Mac Pro - RAM faulty?

ascender

ascender

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 8, 2005
5,062
2,934
I know that's a still thing to say as it seems pretty cut and dry to me, but am I missing anything else?

I bought a 4Gb upgrade kit from Crucial and have installed the two new 2Gb sticks in the top riser with the original two * 1Gb sticks in the bottom now. Within 5 minutes of booting the machine totally hangs, so I'm guessing I've got faulty RAM as the machine works fine without them?

Thanks,

Mike.
 
Have you tested the RAM? Either use the Tech Tool that came with Applecare or Apple Hardware Test (hold D key when booting I think). I would run the extensive tests on the memory. If it fails, RMA it.

Could be the way you have it paired also... I am not sure about that... I have no time right now to look up, off to work, but it cam with the users guide.
 
ascender said:
I know that's a still thing to say as it seems pretty cut and dry to me, but am I missing anything else?

I bought a 4Gb upgrade kit from Crucial and have installed the two new 2Gb sticks in the top riser with the original two * 1Gb sticks in the bottom now. Within 5 minutes of booting the machine totally hangs, so I'm guessing I've got faulty RAM as the machine works fine without them?
Click to expand...

Might be worth checking that the risers are seated properly.
 
Thanks guys. Couldn't get these to work at all so have got a return organised with Crucial.
 
New RAM and that's solved the problem. Shame that the machine is still having random freezes. What happens is that a program like Safari will terminate unexpectedly. I'll reload the program but it almost immediately crashes. Repeat a few times and then the Mac Pro hangs, only a reboot will recover it.

Looks like I'll be arranging a return for the Mac Pro next.
 
ascender said:
New RAM and that's solved the problem. Shame that the machine is still having random freezes. What happens is that a program like Safari will terminate unexpectedly. I'll reload the program but it almost immediately crashes. Repeat a few times and then the Mac Pro hangs, only a reboot will recover it.
Looks like I'll be arranging a return for the Mac Pro next.
Click to expand...


Before you return the MP, try one more thing. In Safari's preferences, in the Security window, uncheck the top line "warn when visiting a fraudulent site". Quit and restart Safari. Leaving this box checked has given many people all kinds of problems. Report back.
 
ascender said:
I know that's a still thing to say as it seems pretty cut and dry to me, but am I missing anything else?

I bought a 4Gb upgrade kit from Crucial and have installed the two new 2Gb sticks in the top riser with the original two * 1Gb sticks in the bottom now. Within 5 minutes of booting the machine totally hangs, so I'm guessing I've got faulty RAM as the machine works fine without them?

Thanks,

Mike.
Click to expand...

Curious. Which generation of the MacPro do you have? Cause the way memory goes in them are different. You might like to place all four sticks on the Upper riser instead of two plus two.
 
Its the latest gen of Mac Pro. I've tried taking the RAM out and its still having problems. It crashed 3 or 4 times while trying to run Software Update followed by the inevitable freezing, so isn't just limited to Safari.
 
i personally havent had a good experience at all with crucial. from their fb-dimms to their camera SD cards. theyve all crapped out on me.
i found 2gb sticks on newegg for 44$ (transcend brand) each for Early-08 MP's and they work perfectly fine.


it sounds like more of a internal issue, when in doubt reinstall the ram and do a complete OS reinstall start from the ground up and see if that works.
reset PRAM, SMC etc

it seems just like a process of trouble shooting.
ill say the memory probably has reading errors, its not timing properly and theyre just in fact DOA.


*edit*
so it happened prior to installing the new memory? it happens even with stock memory?
try a new installation again and go from there.

and definitely try a PRAM/SMC reset of the machine something could be caught up in the cache.
 
Funnily enough I've never had a problem with Crucial RAM on at least 7 or 8 Macs, but this is the first Mac Pro I've owned.

Its now totally back to stock, rebuilt, reset etc and still doing it. Weird how its fine until a program crashes and then just goes downhill. Am on the phone to Apple now to see about returning it.

Very frustrating as it took so long to get everything across to the machine, get software installed and now time wasted troubleshooting this.

Have I just got unlucky with it being a refurb or do you think there's maybe a fault there which was the reason for the initial return of the machine but Apple couldn't replicate it?
 
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