Q: Lower Memory Slot Failure - Ongoing Saga - Can anyone advise, please?
Hi all,
Just wondering if anyone would be kind enough to advise - I would be extremely grateful for any help.
I've had my PowerBook since 2003 and had no problems with it whatsoever until a couple of months ago, when it began to run extremely slowly and erratically.
After contacting and paying for Apple service, they advised me to carry out a fresh reinstall of Tiger.
Having done so, I realised I had lost many of the updates I'd acquired along the way, including iWeb (and a complete website).
I was then informed by Apple service that these were no longer available for Tiger, and that the only way I could get them back would be by installing Leopard.
As I hadn't been warned of this beforehand, I was offered a free copy of Leopard (very reasonable, I thought - although in fact I've actually been sent the wrong disc, but that's another issue).
However to install Leopard, I needed 2Gb of memory, as opposed to the 256Mb my computer had originally. Ok, I thought, and bought 2 x 1GB memory cards.
I hit the big snag on trying to install them. Although my computer has only ever displayed the fact that it has 256Mb of memory, it did in fact contain 2 x 256Mb cards - i.e, only one slot has ever worked.
Experimenting with the new cards showed that this is the lower memory slot, and having read much on the issue I now realise this was an extremely common fault with the 15" PowerBook at the time.
My issue is, what can I do now? Two months and a considerable amount of expense on, I am left with a computer far more limited than it was originally, thanks to a manufacturing fault and ineffectual support from Apple.
I am sure other people must have had similar situations - if anyone can offer any thoughts at all on how to proceed, I would be most grateful.
As I have recently been made redundant, upgrading the model or expensive motherboard replacements arenn't even a vague possibility at the moment - and nor should they be; the computer's always been fine for my requirements, and still would be if both memory slots were working.
Thank you very much if you've taken the trouble to read this far!
Sandpipa.
Just wondering if anyone would be kind enough to advise - I would be extremely grateful for any help.
I've had my PowerBook since 2003 and had no problems with it whatsoever until a couple of months ago, when it began to run extremely slowly and erratically.
After contacting and paying for Apple service, they advised me to carry out a fresh reinstall of Tiger.
Having done so, I realised I had lost many of the updates I'd acquired along the way, including iWeb (and a complete website).
I was then informed by Apple service that these were no longer available for Tiger, and that the only way I could get them back would be by installing Leopard.
As I hadn't been warned of this beforehand, I was offered a free copy of Leopard (very reasonable, I thought - although in fact I've actually been sent the wrong disc, but that's another issue).
However to install Leopard, I needed 2Gb of memory, as opposed to the 256Mb my computer had originally. Ok, I thought, and bought 2 x 1GB memory cards.
I hit the big snag on trying to install them. Although my computer has only ever displayed the fact that it has 256Mb of memory, it did in fact contain 2 x 256Mb cards - i.e, only one slot has ever worked.
Experimenting with the new cards showed that this is the lower memory slot, and having read much on the issue I now realise this was an extremely common fault with the 15" PowerBook at the time.
My issue is, what can I do now? Two months and a considerable amount of expense on, I am left with a computer far more limited than it was originally, thanks to a manufacturing fault and ineffectual support from Apple.
I am sure other people must have had similar situations - if anyone can offer any thoughts at all on how to proceed, I would be most grateful.
As I have recently been made redundant, upgrading the model or expensive motherboard replacements arenn't even a vague possibility at the moment - and nor should they be; the computer's always been fine for my requirements, and still would be if both memory slots were working.
Thank you very much if you've taken the trouble to read this far!
Sandpipa.
Powerbook G4 15", Mac OS X (10.4.11)
Posted on Sep 25, 2010 5:53 AM