Will installing non-compatible ram screw up my Mac?

[neoelectronaut]

I have a 128MB strip of 133 ram that I yanked out of my non-operational PC. If I install this in my Mac and it doesn't like it for some reason, will it mess it up?

Or, if it's not compatible, will I be able to take it out, reboot, and have everything be back the way it was?

Don't want to mess up a $1300 investment here.

 

[blue&whiteman]

ram will either work or not, it cannot mess up anything. it may work fine, it may not work at all, it may only see half the stick but it for sure will not hurt anything.

 

[blue&whiteman]

also, if you have tech tool pro for osx or os9 then run a ram test to see if the stick is working properly. this will save you possible conflicts and freezes but again it cannot hurt anything.

 

[neoelectronaut]

Well, after the 5-minute process of removing the stand and ram door of my eMac, I plopped in the 128 strip. I then booted the computer. Well, nothing happened, so that's good. In fact, it didn't read the ram at all. In the system info it said that the second slot was just empty. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Thanks again, Blue.

 

[Lz0]

If it fits in the slot then it's OK, it may be faster or slower than you need (PC133 or PC100) in which case it just runs at the slower speed.

The fact that your Mac doesn't even know you put in some new RAM says to me that you haven't pushed it in far enough, it does need a little force to seat it properly in the slot.

Your eMac has in it PC100 so a PC100 or PC133 should be fine.

 

[neoelectronaut]

Well, it's confirmed.

I took out the 512 strip that came with the eMac and put the 128 in it's place. When I tryed to boot the computer up...well, it didn't boot up. So, there you have it. It's incompatible after all.

 

[blue&whiteman]

I have tried to get pc ram to work in my mac about 6 or 7 different times and out of all those times only once worked 100%. it was a single sided 128MB stick of pc 100. all the other times it would only see half the stick whether it was pc 100 or 133. my system (a blue and white G3) calls for double sided yet out of the 4 sticks in there (1x256, 2x64, 1x128) only the 256 stick is double sided and its pc 133. the other 3 sticks are all single sided and pc 100.

trust me, pc 100 or pc 133 is not all the same. even among pc systems.

 

[manitoubalck]

Originally posted by neoelectronaut
So, there you have it. It's incompatible after all.

I think the RAM chip is Fried. RAM is RAM I swap sticks between my old School's PM G4 and My AMD home Brew. Never had any problems. RAM chips need quite a bit of force to correctly fit into the socket so the gates will cloes.

Apple use Samsung RAM in most cases for their systems, remember it's all just 1's and 0's.

 

[sonofslim]

it would be nice if RAM was just RAM, but unfortunately it's not. there's parity and non-parity, single-sided and double, latency issues, &c. if your chips are seated properly (the gates will close if they are; there's no missing it) and the new RAM doesn't work, it's probably just not compatible. or it's fried.

 

[neoelectronaut]

Well, a friend is willing to sell me a 256MB strip he doesn't need, so I'll have it up to at least 768MB in my computer here.