It occured during the last week, when I someday said to myself:
Man, my PowerBook used to run faster than this.
Then yesterday, while starting the computer I realised that the lovely Apple chimes was missing on bootup, even though the volume was set at approximately 60 percent before (it is often disturbing when you are booting your Mac in an office, conference or what not after you cranked up the volume the day before).
To make a point: I finally had a look at the “About this Mac” dialog and was confronted with only half of the amount of RAM than my PowerBook has built in: 512mB instead of 1GB.
Damn it! But I already know about the issues of PowerBook RAM slots and Apple’s Repair Program for the serial range W8503xxxxxx through W8518xxxxxx and that mine isn’t in that range. So what’s going on here?
As an experienced Windows-Administrator and PC-Hardware geek my first reaction was to swap the RAM-Modules to see wheter it is a slot or memory-module that should make me nervous. After the first reboot the 1GB RAM appeared back. Yay! But doing another reboot to be sure, I got a kernel-panic during the boot process — restarting — the lower Slot again remained empty when checking it in the System Profiler. So my assumption is that the RAM-Slot first got a last impulse and now is finally corrupted.
Researching discussions on G4 memory problems and other comments plus my experience obviously show that there are PowerBooks affected that lie beyond the range of serials which Apple calls to their repair program.
So I might call my Mac dealer tomorrow and probably start an overall data-backup – which is no big deal, but I don’t want to renounce my PowerBook for a few weeks. Though it still has a valid warranty and I probably will go with that option. My model was bought in October 2005, just before the last PowerPC-Revision, the serial begins with W8540.
Don’t get me wrong now, but somehow the mentioned facts and the recent discussions about the iPod Hi-Fi’s audio quality, stories on Apple dropping OS X are making me lose my faith in the perfection that has made Apple popular and me switch from PC to Mac. At least from the technical view, their design is perfect.
Have you had similar experiences with a PowerBook that’s beyond the “Issue Series”? Are there tricks or procedures that can help to fix the empty lower Ram-Slot, since it is meant to occur by updating OS X?
I want my Gigabyte back, preferably without having to ship my PowerBook back to the Mac dealer.
UPDATE: I finally resigned and gave it to the local Mac dealer. It comes in quite handy when there’s an Apple-certified store around. Makes the waiting bearable at least, better than shipping the PowerBook across Germany to the store where I purchased it. Now 4 days abstinence and counting…
March 14th: 9 days without: I finally got my PowerBook back with a new logic board. The usual repair was done in this case.
UPDATE 2: June 21st: The same problem starting all over. Only half of the RAM showing up in the upper memory slot. Finally signed the petition.
RT @dertimbo Another Powerbook Ram-Slot storyPosted in Apple, Rants, Tags:Apple, corrupt, faith, lower, powerbook, ram, slot
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