Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum. I'm troubleshooting a video editing lab where I work that runs 5 G5s with dual processors and 8GB of RAM in each, as well as OS X 10.4.2. The IT tech for the lab put the same image on all of the machines. They all tend to crash in iMovie when doing heavy audio work (so I'm told, I haven't been able to catch one do it, but have only seen the crash logs). One in particular gets kernel panics quite often. I've thrown out the preferences, reseated RAM and so on, but the problem continues. I ran memtest on a couple of them and noticed that both failed the block sequential test (I'm betting that if I were able to run the test on the others that they would fail as well). The IT tech purchased all 8GB of RAM from a 3rd party vendor - MacRAMDirect.com (HyperVelocity RAM). I'm curious if anyone else has had problems with this RAM or maybe that I'm looking in the wrong direction. The instability and especially the results of the memtest leads me to believe that there is a RAM imcompatibility issue since every machine is having the same problems. If anyone could help I would be very appreciative.
3rd party RAM trouble in G5s?
- Thread starter the_Dude
- Start date
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
If the memory test reports problems, then I'd bet money it's the RAM causing instability. If possible, remove all the 3rd party RAM, leaving only the Apple-supplied RAM in the computer. Run iMovie and whatever other applications previously produced a crash and see if the problems persist. If not, chances are the RAM just isn't meshing 100% with the system.
If you've got time on your hands, try different combinations of the RAM sticks to possibly narrow down the culprits to one or two bad sticks. It's likely that perhaps only a couple of sticks are causing the problems, and you could simply get those sticks replaced through the manufacturer.
Mac OS X is pretty damn picky about RAM... if you want good, quality, lifetime-guarantee RAM, I highly recommend http://www.crucial.com
If you've got time on your hands, try different combinations of the RAM sticks to possibly narrow down the culprits to one or two bad sticks. It's likely that perhaps only a couple of sticks are causing the problems, and you could simply get those sticks replaced through the manufacturer.
Mac OS X is pretty damn picky about RAM... if you want good, quality, lifetime-guarantee RAM, I highly recommend http://www.crucial.com
Gig'
Listen2BobMarley
Could be the ram if it's not installed in pairs and its for another kind of G5
you could double check with these specs
also is the ram correctly recognised by system profiler ? if so then the problem should be somewhere else.
you could double check with these specs
also is the ram correctly recognised by system profiler ? if so then the problem should be somewhere else.
On the system that gets frequent kernel panics I did switch the RAM around already and noticed that two slots were failing in the System Profiler. It ended up being one bad stick, but I removed the pair. It still gets the kernel panics just as before though. It was after this that I tried the memtest and got the failures. The guy who set these systems up removed all of the original Apple RAM and put in this HyperVelocity stuff (Hes out sick for a while or I would test the machines with the original RAM - don't know where he put it). I first thought that it may be a couple of sticks causing the trouble but that doesn't seem right since all 5 of the machines are having this trouble - thats why I wondered if OS X was just not working well with this RAM. I checked the specs and it is the correct type - maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction and he just put a bad image on these machines. I may try taking one of them and reinstalling from fresh, though that wouldn't help with the memtest failures I imagine. Oh ya, and the RAM is now correctly recognised by the System Profiler (in response to Gig').