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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Newer RAM in older Mac?

Newer RAM in older Mac?
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Salty
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Dec 3, 2011, 02:09 PM
 
Hey, just wondering my sister has a 15 inch MacBook I think it's a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo. It came stock with 2 gigs of RAM, I was looking on Newegg and saw that upgrading my i7 13 inch to 8 gigs of RAM would be about 50 bucks, then I was thinking that I could throw my old RAM into her Mac.

Would this work? I think they're both DDR3, the RAM just wouldn't be as fast as it is in mine in her's right? She complains of beach balls a lot, which I think might be that she needs more RAM, though it could also be the fact that her harddrive is exposed because she broke the bottom of the computer and she doesn't take care of it. (Hence why I'd rather give her hand me down RAM than buy new stuff for her hahaha!)

I was thinking it'd be a very effective Christmas gift
     
seanc
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Dec 3, 2011, 02:14 PM
 
It's possible that her HDD is damaged due to the previous damage.

If it's a silver Unibody - yes you can put DDR3 in it, otherwise you need DDR2.
     
Salty  (op)
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Dec 3, 2011, 02:16 PM
 
It's got the black boarder around the screen and a bottom flap thing that houses the HDD and the battery. I thought the 15 unibodies were one who thing at the bottom but I guess they're not. I'm 90% sure it's unibody.
     
seanc
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Dec 3, 2011, 02:22 PM
 
I just realised you said it was a 15" but it still should be fine if it's not the older Powerbook G4 style MacBook Pro.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Dec 3, 2011, 02:39 PM
 
Its worth a try but I put 1333MHz in my 2.4 Unibody and it was flaky as hell. Replaced it with 1066 and its been fine ever since.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Salty  (op)
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Dec 3, 2011, 04:23 PM
 
Ugh now you've got me scared. Not so much because I can't put the 2 gigs back in if I take it out, but more so because my sister tends to bitch about EVERYTHING, and I thought it'd be a great deal, we could double both of our amounts of RAM for 50 bucks.

Oh well, she'll be home for Christmas so I'll tell her to use it for a while and see if we get KPs, if we don't, then should be fine.

And the symptom is simply lots of beach balls. It's a newerish HDD since it replaced the other one that got destroyed haha. I just bought her an incase pink shell for it. Sadly I think it'll only fit on the bottom of the computer since the back of her screen is bent ... yes she is the worst Mac user on the planet. Her Pro makes my 12 inch PowerBook look lightly worn.
     
   
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