Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

When good RAM goes bad?

IJ Reilly

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Original poster
Jul 16, 2002
17,924
1,534
Palookaville
After years of wonderful stability, my Cube took a dive yesterday. It began with a freeze (not a KP, but a freeze, the first I've ever seen in OSX), it failed to wake up from "deep" sleep a couple of times, and then today it KP'ed in Safari (also a first). I ran the Hardware Test CD and it detected bad RAM. I removed one of the 256k modules, and now (I think) all is well again. So here's the question: how can RAM that's been in the Cube for something like three years suddenly go bad? And no, it wasn't on account of a 10.3 upgrade -- I did that back in January.
 
electronics do fail you know even solid state ones like RAM
maybe just got overheated or a random failure, should be glad it wasn't your motherboard or something harder to replace

IJ Reilly said:
After years of wonderful stability, my Cube took a dive yesterday. It began with a freeze (not a KP, but a freeze, the first I've ever seen in OSX), it failed to wake up from "deep" sleep a couple of times, and then today it KP'ed in Safari (also a first). I ran the Hardware Test CD and it detected bad RAM. I removed one of the 256k modules, and now (I think) all is well again. So here's the question: how can RAM that's been in the Cube for something like three years suddenly go bad? And no, it wasn't on account of a 10.3 upgrade -- I did that back in January.
Click to expand...
 
When I read the title it made me think of a bad Fox special. As far as RAM going bad, heat can be a killer with it in systems such as PowerBooks and the Cube since they are packed so tightly and heat can built up real fast and cause a failure.

edit: Also, dust buildup and even static discharge can kill RAM, also. If you opened your Cube up and saw a large blanket of dust or if you moved it recently into an area that is prone to static buildup, that could have also done it.
 
It happens...the RAM in my Powerbook went bad last month. One of the 512mb chips would randomly only read as 256mb, so instead of seeing a total of 1gb, my computer would show that it was 768mb. I sent it back and they replaced it...perfect again :)
 
Looks like my problem is more complicated and serious then I originally thought. The Cube still freezes randomly even with the supposedly bad RAM removed. On one reboot it got to the desktop and splashed text (ala single user mode) over the desktop indicating a system failure (not the KP mode). RAM addressing was implicated (I didn't write it down). When that happened, I could not get the Cube to reboot again until I removed ALL of the RAM except the original 64 Mb, at which point it rebooted into OS9 (but not X). So... now I've removed the original 64 mb module and replaced it with one of the 256 mb modules I pulled. I'm booted into OSX now, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Could the RAM slots themselves be bad?
 
IJ Reilly said:
...

Could the RAM slots themselves be bad?
Click to expand...
Yes, it is possible that the electronics around a slot went bad.

It is also possible for the slot itself to go bad. But usually that's with removal and insertion of the memory modules.
 
Bear said:
Yes, it is possible that the electronics around a slot went bad.

It is also possible for the slot itself to go bad. But usually that's with removal and insertion of the memory modules.
Click to expand...

Doubtful in my case. Never messed with the RAM until today.

I'm thinking bad or dirty contacts, but of course that's just a wild guess. I'm not going to trust the Cube again until I figure this out and fix it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back