Memory install- G4 Sawtooth
 

I just got my memory upgrade in for my Apple G4 sawtooth. 2- DIMMS of 512MB PC-100 64x64 SDRAM. According to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=43103 this memory should work. I was able to physically install the RAM without any problems, and she boots fine. However, Apple system profiler says that the memory is not compatible, and that I am only using the 256 MB DIMM that the machine came with. It says that the original DIMM is PC100-322S. However, it reads the new memory as PC100-222S. If anybody has any input as to what memory I need, it would be greatly appreciated.

512MB DIMMs made from one bank of 16 64Mx4 chips are not compatible with the G4 AGP Graphics, i.e. Sawtooth. Make sure to buy your memory from a Mac-aware memory vendor--they are aware of these fine points.

Trevor

One of the dangers of buying online. There was no salesman for me to ask any questions to. The one time I did call an e-commerce vendor's 800 numbers for questions, I was greeted by somebody with a very thick Chinese accent who had almost no English. She almost burst into tears because I was talking too loud. The poor girl thought I was yelling at her :rolleyes: . I'm out in the boonies, so all of the local vendors only sell new memory for new PCs. They wouldn't know what PC100 memory was if it was shoved up their nose.

Anyhow, I am going to return what I bought. Would this work:

* 256MB SDRAM * PC-100 100MHz memory module

* Non-Parity, Unbuffered, 32x4 * 168-pin, 7/7.5ns

I should be able to get three for the price of the two that I already have. I hope they take them back :mad: .

The non-parity, unbuffered, 168-pin is all fine. At 256 MB size, the possible issue is the 32Mx4. That will work IF this has two banks of eight chips. It will NOT work if this has one bank of 16 chips.

But seriously, there are scores of Mac-friendly memory vendors on the web, just itching to send you memory using your favorite overnight shipper. The method you are using to choose memory now puts all the pressure on you to know the arcana of memory types and compatibilities--why not let the memory vendor worry about this?

Trevor

I wasn't sure if the vendor- PCWonderinc, would give me a full refund, or credit. It turns out that they have a no-hassle return policy, so hopefully, I should get my money back. Otherwise, why bother upgrading when I could get brand new Mac Mini for less than what I am spending to fix up a 5 year old tower? I did break the ESD seal on the RAM, and technically, I did use it, but with luck, their return policy really is no-hassle. The vendor does have apple certified 512 MB DIMMS available at: http://store.pcwsurplus.com/ap51sdmeforg.html , but at 1.5x what I paid for the other memory.

Google came up with a price search website for Mac memory at: http://www.macseek.com/scripts/allLowestPrice.php . It looks like I can get the ram I need at $60.00 per stick. That's $15.00 more than what the other memory cost me, but if it works... I'm coming over from the Linux world, which uses PC standard hardware, most of the time.

Apple publishes detailed hardware-documentation in the developper-part of their site, if you really want to spend time to hunt down the spec and buy the cheapest RAM out there, no problem.

Those recommending the go-easy go-lucky approach just figured it might not be worth your time, but there's nothing more arcane about RAM for Macs than for PCs - you just need to get the specs right and find a vendor you can talk to...

The memory saga continues. This time, I have three sticks of 256MB PC133/100 SDRAM from Omni Technologies. I put all three sticks in my machine, with the 256MB that she came with, and I got the startup chime and that was it. The monitor didn't even come on. She would boot with the original memory only. I re-installed two sticks of new ram, and tried again. This time, the screen came on, but had a flashing folder alternating a question-mark and the Classic icon. I've never seen that before, but am guessing that it couldn't see my hard drive, or perhaps my system folder. I tried again with only one stick of new ram, and the original, and had the same problem. In case the problem was the new ram being incompatible with the old, I tried to boot with only one stick of new ram. For some reason, that worked. I brought the system profiler up, and for half a second was told that I didn't have a boot drive specified before everything looked the way it should. I tried the rest of the new ram in several combinations, only to be back to the original problem (no monitor). The mac will still boot with the original memory. The company's website claims that they are 100% Apple compliant and specified this memory for my machine, but it was definitely doing odd things with my computer.

I am probably going to return this memory, but am wondering WTF happened. The new sticks are configured with 8 small chips on one side with the other side empty. The original memory has two banks of 8 larger chips.

This is not the first time that this machine has had problems seeing the boot drive. For the longest time, she would boot with a flashing question-mark for the first five seconds before seeing the hard drive. I had to tell her several times where the system folder was before it actualy 'remembered'. I have also had screen resolution problems, the screen changing resolution several times while booting, but that somehow fixed itself the first time I tried installing memory. I am not the original owner, and I do not know what she did to the machine. I have re-installed Classic a few times, but am waiting until I have more RAM before installing X. So far, I have not been able to get more than 256MB of ram to work in this machine, which is the bare minimum for X to work. Would wiping the hard drive and doing a clean install help, or do you think this is more of a hardware problem?

It sounds like you need to reset Open Firmware and Zap the PRAM: (directions)

Trevor

I can't get either one of them to work with a KVM. I'll have to try later when I have the time to completely dismantle everything. Just out of curiosity, would the KVM explain why my display cut out on me?

Yes, remove the KVM and see if the problems continue.

Trevor

Alright, I reset Open Firmware and PRAM. However, I still have the same problem, although the symptoms have changed slightly. Now, I don't get the flashing folder with the question-mark/classic icon. All I have is a blank screen and no HD activity after the first second or so. Also, the system profiler still has a hard time remembering my startup device- it still shows no device selected for half a second before showing my internal drive. In addition, my monitor is changing resolutions several times during the boot process again. When it first did this, I thought it was because it didn't like the KVM, but right now, the KVM is not in the loop. One thing I have not checked is if the factory RAM will work in any other slots than the innermost. I will probably check that next and get back. If anybody had any input, it would be greatly appreciated.

I re-seated the original memory into the outside slot, and now the screen resolution problem is gone. The symptems for the new memory have changed as well. Now, I am back to the flashing folder. Every minute or so, the hard drive churns, and the icon goes away, but then it comes right back. I can still boot with my original RAM only. The system profiler still has to think for a second to find my boot disk. I only have one internal drive, and all of my external drives have been disconnected. Are macs usually THIS hard to upgrade?

No, they're not. Did you follow my advice back from post #4, in the second paragraph?

Trevor

The vendor claims that they are 100% Apple compliant. Here is their website: http://www.omnitechnologies.biz/cgi-...&cat=2&catstr= . I am going to call their tech-support number this afternoon and see what they have to say.

Doing some research, it looks like the memory I ordered uses high-density chips which are not supported by this machine. Memory using low density chips costs more than twice what I paid for these. The vendor HAS to be blowing smoke to claim that the memory that they sold me is compatible with my machine.

It makes me wonder if it is worth upgrading this machine now. I am looking at paying at least $150 and probably closer to $200 to upgrade the memory. Add Tiger, and I am close to half the price of the Mac Mini without the additional capabilities or software.

Thinking back, there might not be anything wrong with the memory after all. Remember that it could boot with ONE stick of new ram.

I decided to do a 'nuke & pave' so I could have a nice shiny tabula rasa for a hard drive. Thinking along those lines, I hooked up my firewire drive to back everything up. At first, my mac couldn't see it, so I rebooted. Then, she couldn't see the farging boot disk- just a flashing '?' inside a floppy. Creeped me out, because I thought that the HD was dead. I THOUGHT I had everything backed up including some artwork that might actually be worth something some day, but I wanted to be sure. She came back up with the FW drive off, and she sees the FW drive fine now. Anyhow, I am going to back everything up, AGAIN, run Norton Utilities to make sure that the drive is OK, then wipe the drive and re-install Classic. Then I should be able to re-install the memory to see if everything is good. If not, then perhaps my motherboard could be having problems.

Norton Disk Doctor tends to cause problems, and I would not advise it's use in OS X. It is completely incompatible with OS X 10.4, it will always cause problems when used on a hard drive used with Tiger. The earlier versions of OS X such as 10.2 Jaguar give you a higher chance of success when using it, but really I'd not count it totally reliable with any version of OS X.

It is fine to use with hard drives used exclusively with OS 9 or previous.

Trevor

All I have installed is Classic, so Disk Doctor should not cause any problems. I was just checking for bad sectors to see if the drive was dying. The sector check came up clean, so that wasn't a problem.

Anyhow, I wiped the drive and re-installed classic. The same old problems are occuring. Now, it is not showing any screen at all with more than one stick of RAM. She will, however, boot with one stick of new ram. The system profiler says that it is PC100-322S.

Does Software Update check the firmware revision in Classic? I ran it, and the only thing it came up with was the 9.2.2 updater which I installed. I have heard tell that with this model, if I don't have the firmware up-to-date I could have problems with third party memory. I searched Apple's website and came up with Firmware Update 2.4. However, when I tried to run it, I was told that it wouldn't run on this model mac. I am not sure if this is because the firmware has already been installed, or if I have the wrong one. Is there a way to check for sure and determine which firmware my machine has? I can't find it in the system profiler.

Classic refers to the environment running in OS X that allows you to run OS 9 apps. It is not the same as OS 9. Do you actually mean to say that you've only installed OS 9, and there's no OS X anywhere on the hard drive, nor is the drive used with OS X? If that is the case, then Norton should be fine.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

Trevor

As I have mentioned before, I have barely enough memory to run OSX, so I haven't installed it yet. Yes, when I said 'Classic', I meant MacOS 9.2.2.

I just tried booting the mac, and got the flashing '?' again. I didn't change the memory since I shut her down. Makes me think the HD is toast. This is the first time that I have tried booting the new system through the KVM. That couldn't be causing this problem could it? I am going to shut my other computer down and try without the KVM and the original memory back in place. At least I was able to back everything up first.

I replaced the original RAM, and now she boots fine, both with and without the KVM. Why would memory problems cause the computer to not see the hard drive? I am probably going to send this memory back, because it is obviously quite flakey. It could be that the HD is starting to die, but wouldn't Norton catch that?

Well, I tried the memory in an old Athalon 550 running Debian Linux that has known good 'old school' PC100 ram. The Athalon couldn't see the new ram, no matter what I did in the BIOS. I am going to try this one last time, using a vendor from Made4Mac. I know I waited too long to upgrade, but I didn't realize this would be such a hassle.

Well, third try is defintely not the charm. The computer still won't boot with anything except for one stick of RAM. I tried all of the slots, again. Sometimes, I get the flashing ?, sometimes I don't. When I contacted the vendor of the last set of memory that I tried, they were very suprised that it didn't work, and did not recognise the symptoms. My only guess is that there must be something wrong with the motherboard. Does anybody out there know of any hardware test utilities out there that run on either Classic or Linux?

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I found an old stick of 128MB memory that was in the Athalon machine when I first bought it. Just for grins, I plugged it into the Mac, and whadya know, this memory works! The machine boots fine, and the system profiler now says that I have 384 MB of RAM. I wouldn't be suprised if the last two vendors that I dealt with get their memory from the same supplier. I may need to find a hardware junkyard to get memory that actually works, because the new stuff out there is obviously bogus.

I just noticed on the invoice for the new RAM that it is listed as being 'PC100/PC133'. The memory itself says PC133 on it. Back when I was upgrading my Athalon machine, I had the same problem- vendors were trying to sell PC 133 memory as PC 100. I had to try 2 different vendors before I was actually able to get memory to work in that machine. Also, back then I heard tell that the 'dual-speed' PC133/PC100 memory often did not work in older machines that only used PC 100 RAM. I think that might be my problem now.

Well, I was finally able to find a 512MB stick that works for my machine. I had to pay more than $100.00 at a local computer upgrade shop for a stick of factory OEM RAM. He also had a 256MB stick that caused me problems. I couldn't boot at first, and had to shuffle the RAM a bit before it would work. When it did boot, I had an error message saying that the built-in memory test had detected a problem, and that I should consult a service technician. The system profiler showed the 256MB stick as being only 128MB. That one is not worth the hassle, so it is going back to the shop. Anyhow, I have 896MB of ram, which should be enough for Tiger, knock on wood.