Is it my memory card or the slot?

[jessearl]

I have 1.25G of Ram in my PB G4 1.5Ghz. I've been running a 1 gig stick and a 256meg stick for about a year and a half now.

During the last couple of days, certain applications, even Safari have been running sluggishly and I've been seeing a lot of spinning pinwheels.

So yesterday I had the bright idea to check my "About this Mac" and it only listed me as having 1gig of ram.

I then went deeper and on the memory section of the System Profiler it says empty for where my 256meg stick of RAM is.

Do you think this means the stick is bad or that the slot has gone bad? Is there anyway to test the hardware?

 

[mkrishnan]

Do you think this means the stick is bad or that the slot has gone bad? Is there anyway to test the hardware?

This is a 15" or 17" with two user RAM slots, right? If you think it's the RAM module, you can always take out both RAM modules, and then put the 1 gig one back in the slot that held the 256 before. If it works, it's the RAM. If it's b0rk'd, it's the slot.

P.S. This 256 MB RAM isn't in the lower slot on a 15" Powerbook by any chance, is it?

 

[heaven]

I dont know why, but mine stopped working after the last 10.4.4 update... I have a 17" and dont know what to do. I guess i ll take it to apple next week.

 

[AlBDamned]

wow, this problem's really rearing it's fugly head again.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/122576/

 

[bartelby]

I had the upper slot die on my 15" 1.5GHz PB. So it's not just the lower ones that can go.

 

[AlBDamned]

I had the upper slot die on my 15" 1.5GHz PB. So it's not just the lower ones that can go.

That's true. Certainly the top slot cases are the minority and it could even be a different problem, but it's still a pain either way.

 

[johnnybluejeans]

To the OP: While your slot or RAM might be dead, I really doubt that the difference between 1.25Gb of RAM and 1.0Gb is your performance problem. I don't think you could feel that difference.

 

[AlBDamned]

To the OP: While your slot or RAM might be dead, I really doubt that the difference between 1.25Gb of RAM and 1.0Gb is your performance problem. I don't think you could feel that difference.

I think when the RAM slot goes like this, it does have an impact on the performance over and above the regular difference you'd expect if you took off the RAM.

I know both times when it happened, my PB actually ran really, really badly on 512MB - like it couldn't even run safari properly. It affects more things than just a RAM boost or reduction would affect.

 

[heaven]

To the OP: While your slot or RAM might be dead, I really doubt that the difference between 1.25Gb of RAM and 1.0Gb is your performance problem. I don't think you could feel that difference.

One thing i can tell: I notice a HUGE difference between 1 GB and 512 MB i am running on now. I want my second slot back!!!! Guess i have to wait one more week until im back in Vienna and can take it to the store where i have my warranty..