It’s well-known that one of the easiest upgrades you can perform on any hardware is a RAM upgrade. Nowadays RAM is so cheap, it makes no sense whatsoever not to spend the less-than-$100 to give your computer extra life. Today I decided to grant this blessing to my MBP. At the same time, the MBP decided to grant me a couple lessons in messing around with it’s internals.

So, the machine I have is a MacBookPro4,1 (from circa early 2008), one of the last models before they switched to the new single-case style. The laptop has a Core2 Duo at 2.4GHz and shipped with 2GB of RAM. I wanted to kick it up a notch and go to 4GB of RAM. So I purchased said RAM, and attempted to install it.

On my first attempt, I installed the new sticks of RAM and tried to boot. Nothing happened. I waited and waited, but the only activity I saw was the CD-ROM spinning up and the power light staying solid.

Second attempt: back to the old sticks of RAM. I booted, and got 3 Simon (the game)-like beeps. Quick research showed that this meant “no good banks.” I was fairly certain that my RAM didn’t go bad just from removing it.

Third attempt: 1 stick of the new RAM, 1 stick of the old RAM: boots.

Fourth attempt: tested the other two, still one of each: boots.

Fifth attempt: back to the 2 new sticks of RAM: CD-ROM spins up and power light is solid. No activity.

Sixth attempt: back to the original sticks of RAM: boots.

It was at this point that I realized something: the new sticks of RAM were rated at 800MHz, whereas the stock sticks were 667MHz. Now, this has never made any difference in the past, but I decided to run with it since nothing was making sense at this point. I fortunately had my personal laptop at work which had 4GB of DDR2 667, so I put those in the MBP and attempted to boot. Success.

I guess the MBP is picky about what RAM speed you have, or perhaps they just don’t like OCZ. Either way, my MBP now has 4GB of RAM.

Oh, and the personal laptop? The Inspiron 1520? He runs just fine with the 4GB of DDR2 800. They’re just clocked down to 667, like every machine should..

~Jaker