New Life for Old iMac

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I just put High Sierra on a mid 2010 21.5 inch iMac I got for free. I ordered 4x4gig memory from OWC but they sent me 2x8gig. I put it in anyway.

I was having trouble installing the OS with the 16 gigs so I bumped it back to the 4 it came with and the install went smoothly. I put back the 2x8s and it seems to be fine. Greed is a human foible so I tried putting the 2x2s in for 20gigs, but that was not well received (the Kernel complained). So - back to 16 gig - so far so good.

I am wondering what my best config can be. Should I dump the 2x8s and go with Apple's recommended max of 16gigs (4x4) or can I put in 2 more 8s?

I am waiting for an SSD and will take a shot at opening it up to change the HD. I have to say I'm pretty stoked - did I mention FREE?

Question is about the RAM though - can I use the 8 gig sticks or is it false positive when the machine says it is 16 gigs memory?
 
You can use the 8 gig sticks but they need to be put in the right slots. You have 4 slots on that baby and it prefers to use the top slot.

"Top" and "bottom" slots refer to the orientation of the slots. "Top" refers to the slots closest to the display; "bottom" refers to the slots closest to the stand.
 
I had them in the bottom and did get a panic yesterday after some use. I put the 2x2s back in and no problem. The originals were in the bottom so that is where I put the 8s. I will try one more time putting them in the “top” or “front” slots. Without an ssd, the page-out delay with 4 gig is too much!
 
Your iMac does not support 8GB sticks. Just because they "work", doesn't mean that you will not have other issues when 8GB sticks are inserted, such as freezing, or simply unreliable operation. Forget the 8GB sticks, and go with 4GB sticks.
It's not your fault that OWC shipped the wrong item. It should be easy to fix that--OWC support is usually quite helpful. Return the wrong 8GB sticks, and get the 4GB sticks that you really can use successfully.
(Your BEST result will be when you replace the spinning hard disk with an SSD)
 
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