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chibitotoro · Mar 14, 2006, 03:14 PM

Help! I tried to upgrade my 1.83 MBP today with a new 1GB otherworld computing memory chip. When I opened it up I took out the factory-installed chip just to see how it popped out and such, then put it back in and attempted to put in my new chip as well. When I closed the machine and attempted to boot up, the sleep light on the front of the machine just blinked at me, so I figured I had it wrong. Took it apart again, thought I fixed the problem...this time the sleep light glowed steadily, but the screen remained blank, it just never got anywhere. I tried going back and taking out the new chip altogether, but now even with just the factory-installed chip I still get nothing but a blank screen and a glowing sleep light when I turn on the machine. This is the last fricking thing I need right now, and I'm worried I'm going to have to take it to the Apple store or Tekserve or some place and pay through all orifaces to get the problem fixed. Any thoughts??

mduell · Mar 14, 2006, 04:00 PM

Perhaps you're not pushing the modules in far enough; the gold contacts should nearly disappear in the slots.

Maflynn · Mar 14, 2006, 04:16 PM

Another vote on making sure the memory memory is in correctly and firmly. By correctly I mean make sure that pin one is lined up with the slot.

chibitotoro · Mar 14, 2006, 04:20 PM

I thought that was the problem the first time, when it was just blinking at me, but I just now opened it up, fiddled around, and fudged it a bit to make sure that the chips were pushed in as far as possible, and now it works great! Thanks both of you...I guess sometimes all it takes is a little reminder of the obvious, eh?

P.S. DAMN SON that is a speedy computer now!

mintcake · Mar 14, 2006, 04:35 PM

Any 'whine/buzz' issues? Any difference before and after the memory upgrade?

inkhead · Mar 15, 2006, 01:26 AM

It does this often when installing memory. Even expensive brand name ram. I had to take it out, put it in, and it didn't work in the original slot even when it was all the way in. So I took out all the ram, put it back in, tried holding down all the keys and removing the batteries. after about 20 tries of installing ram it worked.

It did this with every macbook pro in the office regardless of the brand of ram. I think there needs to be a reset switch or something.

chibitotoro · 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by mintcake

Any 'whine/buzz' issues? Any difference before and after the memory upgrade?

I haven't been paying attention to the other threads about the whine, but mine has made a bit of a high-pitched whine, both before and after the memory upgrade. It doesn't happen all that often, and when it does, turning down the screen brightness causes it to stop.

Also, I was going to start another topic about this, but I may as well reduce clutter and ask here. What's up with the different statuses that memory usage is filed under, when looking at Activity Monitor (or the iStat Nano widget)? For example, right now I have about 110 MB "Wired", 380 MB "Active", 1 GB "Inactive", and only 18 MB "Free". The main thing I'm curious about is the difference between inactive and free. Does that mean what I think it does, and a whole gigabyte of my RAM is being "claimed" by apps but not actually being used? It would be pretty ridiculous if, with 1.5 GB of RAM, my MBP had only 18 MB free while running four programs (iTunes, Safari, iChat, and BitTorrent).

Wevah · Mar 16, 2006, 04:40 AM

No. From here:

Inactive memory
This information is no longer being used and has been cached to disk, but it will remain in RAM until another application needs the space. Leaving this information in RAM is to your advantage if you (or a client of your computer) come back to it later.

chibitotoro · Mar 16, 2006, 07:51 PM

Thanks for the link.