So last night, I decided that I was going to take the plunge, and replace my paltry 512 MB of RAM with a more standard 1 GB. I found myself at Fry’s Electronics in Concord, Calif., where they sold me two 512 MB sticks of Patriot Memory for about $110.
This morning, back at the Macworld offices, I decided to take the plunge and install it. Remembering Jason Snell’s video which showed how easy it is to install RAM, I figured it would be a breeze. I started unscrewing and then found myself in a position where I couldn’t get the screws to come out of the housing. I sauntered on down to Jason’s office, where he kindly explained that the screws don’t actually come out of the housing — so once they’re loosened enough, you can just pull the housing out of the battery bay. The screws don’t come off of the housing. Then there was also the issue of how to know when your RAM is actually installed, because you can’t see the socket where you’re installing it. Jason said the “RAM finger” method applies : just push down until you have creases from the edge of the RAM on your fingertips.
I booted up the MacBook and amazingly I have 1 GB of RAM now.
Hi,
I had the same issue. I kept unscrewing the screws and nothing was happening, put a finger nail behind the little panel and out it came. But the real issue was that I never got to the point where the RAM would 'click'. I kept pushing and pushing and feared I would somehow crushing the RAM. After a while I just seated the RAM as best I could, closed it all up and restarted the MacBook. And, lo and behold, it works just fine. 2GB. Very fast.
why did you install 2x 512MB sticks of memory when you had 512MB installed? was the original 512MB installed as 2x 256 sticks? i have looked into getting another 512MB for my MB Pro. Crucial.com told me that i must install a matched pair, and that purchasing only 1 stick of 512MB that matches the specs of my existing memory exactly would not be as efficient. is there any truth to this?
Yes, when you get your factory 512 MB, that is 2x 256 chips. You can install a single chip, but you get much more performance out of chips installed in pairs.
My experience with installing ram was worse. The middle screw somehow wouldn't turn and I ended up overtorqueing the screw and removing the thread. I resorted to bending the metal piece so that I can remove the ram. Next, I never heard any click and when I tried to boot, the computer would not start so I feared that I fried the board or static charged my new ram. But before I made any conclusions, I opened it up again, pushed a little harder and now I have 2gb of ram. What a nightmare though.
Yes Nelsorp,
RAM should be installed in pairs. Even if my MacBook came with one 512, I'd remove it and put in two matching 512's to replace it. It should work without but you get better performance out of matching pairs.
I installed a single 1GB along with one of the original 256MB. I have been running like this for a while no problem and no major performance issues. I will eventually go to 2GB but I am in no rush.