[mmravi]

Hi - I have an iMac G5 - its been working fine eversince i bought it - a year ago. Recently programms kept crashing and sometimes the OSX would freeze up. The problem started a week ago and the crashes have been occuring more frequently so i backed up my files and tried to do a clean instal of Tiger. However Tiger won't intsall - it gets to a point in the process and then tells me there are errors and that i need to try again.

Anyway i ran the hardware test cd and it came up with the following error while checking the memory:

2MEM/1/4: DIMMO/J4000

My apple warranty ran out a month ago but if its just a problem with the RAM then i can fix it myself. However i wasn't sure if the error was something more sinister like the actuall RAM slot is bad or some other hardware. Plus if it is the RAM then have two 512 chips in there so i wouldn't know which chip to replace.

Does anyone know what this error means?

Best Wishes
Ravi
Edit:Removed inadvertent smiley. Glenn

[jwoods]

Not sure what the error means, but if it is memory.....

First I would remove and re-seat the memory, just in case the contacts are loose, then I would remove one of the two, and see if it still happens. If it doesn't, I would remove that one and put the other in and see if it happens with that one.

That will show you, and confirm, which is bad. If it shows the same problem on both, you probably have a different problem. (Unlikely that both sticks go bad at the same time).

In 13 years of using computers I have had exactly one bad mem stick. More than likely it will something else. I know that PC users have utilities that will test memory (memtest), but not sure if anything is available for OS X.

[mmravi]

Hey thanks for your advice!

I took out one chip and ran the hadware test and I got no errors. I then stuck the good chip in the other slot and checked and still no errors. I then put the bad chip back in and on its own and got the error - thus i guess it is a bad chip! I don't know why it would suddenly go bad like that. It happened ever since i downloaded a widget that monitors the systems CPU and memory usage etc - but i guess its unlikely that was the reason.

Anyway thanks for your help
Best wishes
ravi

[codex57]

Sounds like a bad chip. Lots of people have had chips go bad. No big deal. Just replace the chip. Glad to hear it's something so simple and easily replaced. I'm sure someone with more technical knowledge can give you a detailed explanation on how a chip might fail.

[jwoods]

Not a problem. Glad I could help