2 gb ram in eMacs long term a good thing?

G'day,

To my knowledge, the only reason Apple stipulated 1GB as the max for eMacs was due to the available sizes of RAM at the time.

In terms of "running hotter", I don't think this would be an issue, as the RAM doesn't make the computer "run faster" as much as it just allows it to remember more things without having to retrieve them from the HDD.

To date I am sure many people have upgraded to 2GB, and I've never seen anyone here saying their machine has overheated due to too much RAM.

cheers

cosmic

We've have one 1G stick in our eMac 1.42G for over a year along with one of the original 256MB sticks. Runs like a champ and, if all goes well, I'll drop in another 1G stick this fall. I bought my 1Gigger from OWC--no problems

Hobo is right--Apple won't update machine specs when larger compatible RAM modules appear. In the older spec format, they sometimes acknowledged their existence but usually in a very equivocal way: "Compatible modules up to XXXMB may be available but have not been tested." With the new tech sheet formats, there is nothing.

One reason I don't buy Mac RAM from Crucial is that they follow Apple specs to the letter, leaving upgradeable machines like the USB 2.0 eMacs behind. See this:

eMac 1.42G RAM at Crucial

That means to find a compatible 1G module for an eMac on their site, you have to figure out what other Macs can use that module and find the listing for it. That can lead a novice RAM buyer to the wrong product. Compare that to listings from my favorite online Mac RAM vendors:

eMac 1.42G RAM at Data Memory Systems

and

eMac 1.42G RAM at Other World Computing

The 2005 eMac officially supported 2GB of RAM. In general, there isn't a problem having more RAM in a computer than it can use, it just uses the most it can.