RAM upgrade causing freeze/restart?

[h9826790]

I just recieved 32 megs (4x8) of "OWC" memory for my late 2013 iMac.
1 memory stick is defective. My iMac does the 3 beeps sound and won't boot.
The other 3 sticks are good. The pencil eraser trick didn't work.
Moving the sticks around didn't work.
I re-installed the original Apple 16 megs (4x4) of memory for now.
I don't really need 32 megs of ram, but I just installed a 1 terabyte SSD & decided to max out the ram.
I already issued a RMA online with OWC.
Not sure yet if I have to return 1 memory stick, or all 4.

Better all 4. OWC may ship you another correct spec but different model DIMM as replacement.

In general, that doesn't really matter. But if it's their fault at the beginning, better replace all 4 to make sure you have 4 identical DIMM running in your computer.

 

[ThugFreak]

Better all 4. OWC may ship you another correct spec but different model DIMM as replacement.

In general, that doesn't really matter. But if it's their fault at the beginning, better replace all 4 to make sure you have 4 identical DIMM running in your computer.

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[mlibrescu]

OWC RAM caused my iMac to randomly reboot. They told me to try the pencil eraser nonsense. I told them I’ll send the RAM back, just give me a refund, because it was all over the Internet that their RAM had problems. They refunded my money. I bought RAM from Crucial. Problem solved.

Hello everyone,

I purchased a brand new late 2015 27" iMac 5k in November and it ran perfectly (I absolutely love it). I decided to finally upgrade the RAM last month and went with OWC's 32gb kit.

I installed the new RAM and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Computer recognized all 32 gigs and ran fine. But whenever I start watching video online the iMac would freeze and after about 10-15 seconds it would restart. This started happening not just with video but randomly even when I'm not using the computer.

I contacted OWC who recommended cleaning the connection on the RAM stick with a pencil eraser to remove any artifacts from the manufacturing process. I did that but nothing changed. They then asked me to send it back so they send me a new kit.

While I was waiting for the new kit to arrive I put back my original two sticks from Apple and the computer never froze/restarted even with the heaviest use.

Today I received the brand new 32gb kit from OWC, installed it right away and as soon as I started up a video online the computer froze again then restarted.

I thought maybe it was one or both of the previously unused slots on the iMac (the two bottom ones) that was the problem so I installed my original two sticks in those two slots but everything has been working perfectly. Because of this I am 100% certain that it's the RAM that is the problem but I just can't believe two new kits from OWC would be defective.

Anyone else having this problem or know of a solution? I really don't want to be stuck with just 8gigs of ram (or shell out the crazy amount Apple would charge for 32gb)

 

[ThugFreak]

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[mlibrescu]

Good luck with that. I would have asked for a refund and bought RAM from Crucial.

OWC sent me a shipping label and I sent back all 4 memory cards.
They said that they are going to test them, and if they are good, they will send them
back to me. And if 1 is bad, they will replace it.
I was expecting them to ship me another memory card pack immediately.
They dont do that.
I bought a computer monitor online from Best Buy last year, the monitor wouldnt power on.
I called them to issue a exchange at 3pm and had a new monitor delivered to my house at
915am the next day. This is excellent customer service.
And this was a computer monitor that no stores near me had in stock.

 

[ThugFreak]

Good luck with that. I would have asked for a refund and bought RAM from Crucial.

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[Justin Kim]

Glad to find you guys having the exact same issue that I am facing.

I have late 2014 5k imac and recently I made full upgrade as below.
- 1TB HDD to Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
- i5 4690 CPU to i7 4790 CPU
- 128GB PCIe SSD to Imido 512GB SSD
- Original Apple 4GB RAM x 2 to 4 of Crucial 8GB DDR3L-1600 RAM

The first moment after installing Big Sur, it seemed fine. However, a few hours later, imac freezed with error "folder icon with question symbol inside & support.apple.com/mac/startup" and reboot was required. So, I thought that it was a random issue...but it happens more often until it made me mad like hell.
I tried to open my imac at least 10 times.....(damn...) to see what I missed and reconnect every parts "except RAMs" also, tried reinstalling OS more than 3 times, but still the same issue persist.

I could not even imagine that this would be caused by RAMs!!! After reading this thread, but without hope, I pulled 4 of Crucial RAMs out and insert 2 of original 4GB RAMs back....Walah! It's perfectly fine for 2 days now. I still wonder how this is possible....

Which means, not only OWC RAM cards are incompatible, but Crucial RAM cards too!
Hope this my finding is helpful to some of you.

P.S: I forgot to mention 1 important thing, as some of you advised, I used 2 of original RAMs at 1 & 3 slots and added 2 of Crucial RAMs at 2 & 4 slots, then it's fine as well (total of 24GB RAMs). By all this my troubleshooting, I suspect this whole issue might be caused either by apple OS update or something to do with hardware companies like OWC and Crucial did not update their firmware well.

 

[DeltaMac]

You could reinstall the Crucial ram sticks, and boot to the good Memtest utility.
That can often give an accurate idea of which stick might be bad (and can help decide that you actually have a bad slot, rather than a bad stick of RAM.

 

[Justin Kim]

You could reinstall the Crucial ram sticks, and boot to the good Memtest utility.
That can often give an accurate idea of which stick might be bad (and can help decide that you actually have a bad slot, rather than a bad stick of RAM.

Thanks for your information and that Memtest looks complicated; haha I am afraid of touching Terminal again...

 

[DeltaMac]

I just set up a Memtest install on a bootable flash drive. Wasn't difficult at all. Then just boot to the flash drive, and the utility runs automatically. You mostly just decide how many times you want the Memtest to run on your memory.
Memtest can take a really long time time - several hours to a couple of days with a lot of memory installed.

Or, use your Mac with the original RAM for a day or two, just to make sure it is really working OK. Then, add one stick at a time of your new RAM sticks. Run for a day or two. If you have problems, remove the last stick, then insert another. When you have the slots filled, start to replace the original RAM, again one stick at a time. If you verify that a stick is bad, finish testing with all of the sticks that you have, until you are satisfied that your installed RAM is all working good, and you have one (or more) of the new RAM sticks that are failing in your iMac. Most RAM should be lifetime warranty, so return the bad RAM so you get replacements. Test those replacements with the same method.
Can take some time for THAT kind of verification, but eventually you will get a working full set of RAM.
Don't worry about "it's not pairs", as you are just testing, and will eventually get that good full set that you want. Your iMac will work fine, even with mismatched sizes and combinations. You will eventually get it all sorted out and working (or, you might find out that a slot is faulty -- that happens, too!)