joevt was right !! |
January, 08, 2003 8:16 PM |
cbunch |
I took some of the advise posted on the forum from joevt. I posted a problem with memory access exception which several of you responded to. I followed the advise of joevt because it made the most sense. I tried to use the ram (OWC5MD128MB) and I can now tell you with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that this ram will not work with 7500/100, G3/400 PowerLogix card and Mac OS X. I ordered the other ram (OWC5MD128MBE). Note the 'E' on the end. This is EDO ram and NOT FPM or fast page mode. The new EDO ram that I just ordered to replace the other has made so much difference that, "I DID NOT HAVE ONE PROBLEM LOADING AND INSTALLING OS X SINCE USING THE NEW RAM." It is apperently so different that once installed, the computer won't even boot back where it was. The hard drive had to reformatted and the system software reinstalled and now it is working perfectly! You wouldn't believe the difference. The choice for Legacy Macs is clear... Go with the ram with the "E" on the end. Thanx Joe |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 8:18 PM |
ian |
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I have (6) 128 MB OWC DIMMs, and I think they are non-EDO cards. When I had the first 3 modules (one set of two 128s and the one set of two 16s that came with the machine) plus the extra 128 interleaved, the machine didn't want to boot into OS X for whatever reason. I now have 6 cards plus the two 16s and they are non-interleaved with some spacing to keep them from being so, and they all work well. I was keeping my fingers crossed as my video card won't display on the screen during boot time and there would be no way for me to see kernel panic text should it occur. Luckily, it is perfect and I have a nice 784 MB of RAM now. It would have sucked to have the additional 384 MB of RAM I got for Christmas not work in the machine. My setup is a 9500 with an XLR8 ZifCarrier card with a 300 MHz OWC G3 card, a Matrox video card, SIIG ATA/133 card, OWC FireWire, SIIG USB, and two RealTek NICs plus the 784 MB RAM and (3) Samsung 120 GB SpinPoint hard drives. |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 7:36 PM |
fixitjc |
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I love this forum. I was going to add my 2¢ to the discussion since my 8500 has all FPM from OWC, but now I learn that EDO is also FPM with an added feature that my machine doesn't use. I have wondered what the difference was. Thanks Guys |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 7:01 PM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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I'd like to know if anyone beside me is using RamJet memory and, if so, if you have ever had any problems with it. On my 9500, I've swapped out 3 sets of OWC DIMMs before I finally got a pair of 128's that seemed to be stable. In the interim, I purchased 256M of RamJet DIMMs and haven't had a bit of trouble with them in either my 9500 or 7200. Now that I've added back in the pair of OWC DIMMs a couple of months ago, the machine has just started locking up again. Ran MemTest and sure enough, bad DIMM. I would put any money on a bet that one of the OWC DIMMs has failed marginally, and that the RamJet DIMMs are fine. I don't completely agree that ram problems on these Old World machines are inherent to the design. I do think that they're much more finicky, and then we add in our accelerator cards which increase the bus speed to 50 MHz. But put in some good DIMMs from RamJet, and my machines work just fine. |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 6:35 AM |
twoolley |
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Nick, you are spot on. There seems to be no hard-and-fast rule for OW Macs. For example, it has been stated that my PowerTower Pro should use FPM Ram, not EDO, so that is what I bought from OWC. So far I have no problems in OS X.x or OS 9.x attributable to bad Ram. Yet a friend of mine with exactly the same setup: PTP/Sonnet G4 800/Radeon 7000 - bought EDO Ram when OWC was out of FPM and also has no problems. He runs only OS 9.1, but I suspect he would have no trouble with OS X either. |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 6:04 AM |
nick.ashton |
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If only life were that simple. I think your final statement should read "The choice for Me is clear... Go with the ram with the "E" on the end." Marty is correct in saying that OW Macs don't use the EDO feature of EDO RAM they merely treat it like basic FPM RAM. There are endless discussions on this forum about refresh rates, bank sizes and interleaving from people struggling to find RAM that works on their particular machine. I'm only flagging this up because with the lack of a search facility on the forum (still!), new members tend to latch on to the first post that seems to relate to their problem. My own 8600 has opposite preferences to your 7500 in that it doesn't seem to like EDO modules. I think the underlying problem with all these machines is that the timing of signals in the memory subsystem is only marginal for supporting CPU's running at much higher clock speeds than they were designed for. I know the system bus is still running at only 45 or 50 MHz but the number of people reporting RAM problems suggest it's inherent to the design. Often it comes down to trial and error using different modules and changing the interleaving until hopefully you find a configuration that works but there are no "guaranteed" solutions that will apply to everyone. Anyway, I'm happy that you solved the problem on your machine and can now enjoy OS X to the full. It's performance certainly benefits from lots of RAM. |
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RE: joevt was right !! |
January, 09, 2003 1:14 AM |
mjoecups358 |
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Actually legacy macs including the 7500 do not support EDO ram... It works ok, but doesn't use the EDO feature. EDO is actually a type of Fast Page Mode Ram with Extended Data Output (EDO). So either type of RAM FPM or EDO will work... If it's good ram. Marty |
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