Upgrading Ram??

[tommypenngotti]

Hello all, finally secured a 2009 Mac Pro Xeon Quad Core 4,1 2.66GHz - I have (4) slots currently with (3) 1 GB sticks . What do you recommend to upgrade - I've been looking at Crucial and OWC - what do you recommend for running DP? Seems Crucial recommends the (3) stick 12GB pack - Thanks in advance!

[Frodo]

3 x 4GB would be fine from either company. I would inquire if they do RAM exchanges to offload what you already have.

[tommypenngotti]

thanks man ....anyone have any arguments for :

Ram is Ram ....spending money on top dollar "Crucial" Ram is a waste?? (heard this from a friend of a friend)

thanks

[Alfred Zigoma]

I put kingston kvr 1066d3d8r7s/4g total of 16 gb. Everything works. Though I have Mac Pro 5,1, but the memory of it is the same

[Frodo]

RAM is not RAM, but if you're talking OWC, Kingston, or Crucial, you're talking about some of the most trustworthy RAM folks in existence.

The most important things to keep in mind:

1. Get Apple approved RAM. Make sure it says "Apple approved"...

2. Don't buy RAM without a lifetime replacement guarantee.

Do that and you're covered.

[mikehalloran]

RAM is not RAM, but if you're talking OWC, Kingston, or Crucial, you're talking about some of the most trustworthy RAM folks in existence.

The most important things to keep in mind:

1. Get Apple approved RAM. Make sure it says "Apple approved"...

2. Don't buy RAM without a lifetime replacement guarantee.

Do that and you're covered.

To which I will add: Buy RAM from a vendor who will have a replacement in stock should there be a problem.

There is no guarantee that RAM from any vendor will not go bad. But if you keep the above in mind, your problems due to bad RAM will be minimized.

I find a bad stick about once a year or 18 months. These days, I buy from MemoryX or OWC and no one else. Never a hassle.

When a stick goes bad, all sorts of weird things happen. I use TechTool to diagnose it when my suspicions are aroused but there are other tools out there.

The first time I ever experienced it was on my Beige G3. My only symptoms were a) Bounce to Disk sometimes didn't work, b) Norton Utilities sometimes crashed and c) TechTool 2 always crashed (during the memory test, it turned out). Anyway, a guy at Symantec actually yelled at me saying 'it wasn't their fault - bad memory could have caused it...' Oh... It made perfect sense and I immediately thanked him which caused him to get even madder. After putting the stock memory back and seeing the symptoms disappear (and DP 2.x slow down), I sent all 4 sticks back to OWC and they were replaced w/ no hassle. Nowadays, Tech Tool can identify the bad stick.

[bayswater]

When a stick goes bad, all sorts of weird things happen. I use TechTool to diagnose it when my suspicions are aroused but there are other tools out there.

The first time I ever experienced it was on my Beige G3. My only symptoms were a) Bounce to Disk sometimes didn't work, b) Norton Utilities sometimes crashed and c) TechTool 2 always crashed (during the memory test, it turned out).

I can't remember ever having bad memory but maybe I just didn't know. Would the Memtest command have detected the instances of bad memory you've experienced?

[mikehalloran]

> Would the Memtest command have detected the instances of bad memory you've experienced?<

Only on startup. Most often, memory can go bad only when warm. Memtest won't find that and generally isn't very good at actually finding ba RAM.

Bounce to Disk is a pretty good indicator, it turns out. When it gets flakey, I run TT immediately for bad memory. So far, 100% of the time, there was a problem.

There was an OS 10.5.x upgrade that found bad RAM on a few of the machines I took care of - I don't recall if it was .6,.7 or .8. In any case, it gave a weird install error. Half the machines had RAM from OWC; the other half from Memory X. Anyway, TT confirmed it and there was no hassle.

Realize that I take care of over 30 Mac systems so it makes sense that I run into this more often than the average bear. The last one I found, however, was on my wife's laptop.

[bayswater]

There was an OS 10.5.x upgrade that found bad RAM on a few of the machines I took care of - I don't recall if it was .6,.7 or .8. In any case, it gave a weird install error.

Was that when Apple increased the performance specs for memory?

And, if Rember is not reliable in detecting bad RAM is TT the best way to go?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Few things are worse than when your RAM stick goes bad.