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OWC Ram Issue 2020 iMac 27 inch I7

J

jdoenumber2

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
19
0
New Computer and new ram. Added 2 x 16 gb sticks of DDR4 2666 to slots 1 and 3. slots 2 and 4 had 4gb each of stock apple ram. In Shows all 40 gb of ram in the About this Mac screen. System would crash after a few seconds to minutes. After 20 plus crashes (runs for a while then resets abruptly). I took out the apple RAM. Still kept on crashing. So I put Stock RAM back in Slots 1 and 3 and removed OWC RAM and system runs perfect. Is there any insight to the issue? Should I try to change any settings? I was afraid iMac was dead on arrival. RAM is wonky and is there any suggestions to try before I try a different brand? I emailed OWC and sent them a message through this online chat.

Thank you,

Jason
 
Did you put the OWC RAM in by itself to see how it went? Sometimes you can have issues when mixing different types of RAM (even from the same brand).
 
TwoH said:
OWC RAM has been quite dodgy to use from both personal use, and from the amount of people I've seen with kernel panic issues on their iMacs with OWC RAM.
I'd suggest checking out this thread for suitable RAM to use for your 2020 iMac: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ls-internal-changes-and-similarities.2249226/
Click to expand...

Did you mean to link to a different thread? The one you linked to just talks about some internal difference, with no discussion on suitable RAM that I can see.
 
Thank you for the reply. Would you suggest I try another brand and if so which wold you recommend? They all cost around the same within a few dollars. I was thinking Crucial next. In my last iMac I used Gskill. I have ordered other parts from OWC before and I will consider them still in the future. I will give them a couple more days to help me out and will consider other options at that point.

Would it help if I did a system restore with new ram in? I am afraid I would get caught in some loop that cannot do a restore and would be dead in the water with a $2500 anchor at that point.
 
I tried OWC ram by its self in slots 1 and 3. Same results with same issue. Thank
sco said:
Did you put the OWC RAM in by itself to see how it went? Sometimes you can have issues when mixing different types of RAM (even from the same brand).
Click to expand...

you for your help.
 
Sounds like you need to return/exchange. I've used OWC RAM before and never had issues on opening but had one failure after a while and OWC were no trouble to get it exchanged. Just a hassle when you're keen to get on and use your new machine.
 
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sco said:
Sounds like you need to return/exchange. I've used OWC RAM before and never had issues on opening but had one failure after a while and OWC were no trouble to get it exchanged. Just a hassle when you're keen to get on and use your new machine.
Click to expand...
That’s what I was thinking. I won’t need to use the computer while I’m not at home next week. I’m on vacation out of town next week so I was thinking of just reordering another set and set up a return for the first set. I was possibly considering another brand but OWC has always been good to me in the past so I was hoping to give them the business.
 
jdoenumber2 said:
New Computer and new ram. Added 2 x 16 gb sticks of DDR4 2666 to slots 1 and 3. slots 2 and 4 had 4gb each of stock apple ram. In Shows all 40 gb of ram in the About this Mac screen. System would crash after a few seconds to minutes. After 20 plus crashes (runs for a while then resets abruptly). I took out the apple RAM. Still kept on crashing. So I put Stock RAM back in Slots 1 and 3 and removed OWC RAM and system runs perfect. Is there any insight to the issue? Should I try to change any settings? I was afraid iMac was dead on arrival. RAM is wonky and is there any suggestions to try before I try a different brand? I emailed OWC and sent them a message through this online chat.

Thank you,

Jason
Click to expand...

I've never had a problem in more than a decade of using OWC RAM. Of course that doesn't mean it's not happening now. I'm getting a new 27" iMac next week, and also ordered 2x16 OWC RAM modules. I'll report if I have any issues.

I hope the problem you're seeing is not related to the addition of the T2 chip to the iMac lineup. The T2 has been a source of crashes in every Mac model it's in.
 
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jdoenumber2 said:
That’s what I was thinking. I won’t need to use the computer while I’m not at home next week. I’m on vacation out of town next week so I was thinking of just reordering another set and set up a return for the first set. I was possibly considering another brand but OWC has always been good to me in the past so I was hoping to give them the business.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan. Out of curiosity - what is the brand on the chips themselves on the OWC RAM? I have 4 x 16GB on its way.
 
Hmmm....I ordered some OWC sticks for my incoming iMac but cancelled and went with 2 32GB sticks from Samsung. Hopefully those work out ok.
 
mreg376 said:
Correct, T2 has nothing to do with RAM. But it has had a lot to do with crashes.

Crucial is excellent too.
Click to expand...

I've almost always used Crucial, but I recently bought 2*8GB sticks from them for my Mini, and one of them was faulty, Mini refused to boot, or there weird glitches on the screen and then crashes. Now running some Corsair with no issues. Lesson? Any brand can have the occasional bad RAM module.
 
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jdoenumber2 said:
That’s what I was thinking. I won’t need to use the computer while I’m not at home next week. I’m on vacation out of town next week so I was thinking of just reordering another set and set up a return for the first set. I was possibly considering another brand but OWC has always been good to me in the past so I was hoping to give them the business.
Click to expand...

9to5Mac's video suggests they had to put same sizes in the same bank to get 2667Mhz memory speed:

Maybe try putting the Apple RAM in slots 1 & 2 and OWC in 3 & 4 (and vice versa)
 
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I too ordered OWC RAM and curious if I should return it. I ordered 16x2 (32). Curious is this will still work. I wasn't even considering going to 40 (keeping the 8 that came with the machine in it.
 
I had a similar problem. My stock memory was in slots 2&4. Any time I put any memory in slots 1&3 the computer would not turn on. Any sticks in slots 2&4 worked. OWC 16 gb sticks worked fine. Apple is repacking the logic board.
 
I have the same problem with OWC 2 X 32gb in slots 2 & 4 or 1 & 3. When mixing with Apple RAM (Micron) 2 x 4gb in various configurations, the problem continues. I've gone back to Apple only until I can get replacements from OWC. (runs fine with Apple only). This is on an iMac 27" 2019 with 3.6GHz i5 on Catalina.
 
I put 128GB of OWC RAM in my 27" iMac 2019. It would kernel panic every so often. While the system report and the diagnostics showed all RAM as OK, when I ran Rember it showed an error. Also tested with the Techtool Pro RAM test and got an error there also.

Did you try testing with just one stick of the OWC RAM? That's how I found my issue. Put them in one at a time until I got the one that was giving the error.
 
Speak of the devil, I just got a reply from OWC support. They want me to try a few things so I thought I'd post that here in case it helps anyone.

1) Try cleaning the contacts on the RAM with an eraser, then when testing each module do the following:
2) Reset the SMC.
3) Reset the PRAM. Wait for 3 chimes.
 
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