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Macbook Pro 7,1 mid 2010 1333mhz ram issue

I want to upgrade my mid 2010 13" Macbook pro to 8gb 1333mhz.

I have a 2009 2.53 15" and 1333mhz chips work fine I have 2 kinds Crucial and Mushkin.

I can use any one of the 4gb chips along with one of the samsung 2gb chips that came with my laptop and it works fine at 6gb.

I have seen on one forum you can zap the pram with one of the old chips and a 4gb and get it to boot with both 4gb chips but this did not work for me.

I called apple and he told me to do a smc reset that was the only thing I could try. This did not work.

I am very new to apple and what I think is going on is the firmware is blocking the FSB from running at 1333mhz.

What I need to know if anyone can help me is, what am I missing? Intel's chipset and C2D 2.4ghz or 2.66ghz work fine with a 1333mhz FSB. The 2009 and 2008 macbook pros allow for 1333mhz what did they change in the 2010 mbp?

I am running efi 2.0 firmware and OSX 10.6.6 do I need to downgrade my firmware or mod my firmware to allow this to work. I am really upset that software is limiting my hardware speed.

Cheers,

Macbook Pro 7,1, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Raid 0 2x vertex 2 60gb

Posted on Jan 19, 2011 8:31 AM

Reply
46 replies

Jan 19, 2011 8:44 AM in response to astinus36

Please take a look at the following:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1270

As you can see, the 13" mid 2010 MacBook Pro does not take 1333 MHz RAM.
Instead, it uses PC3-8500 DDR3 1066 MHz RAM.

The 13" does officially (as in, according to Apple) support up to 8GB of RAM, so no, your software/firmware combo is not limiting you. You likely just need to purchase the correct speed of RAM.

While often Apple portables are able to still use faster memory, this is not an officially supported feature.

Jan 19, 2011 10:39 AM in response to astinus36

I accidentily bought 8GB of 1333mhz RAM for my mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro (the name and number scheme is too closely related). It ran fine, but the shared video RAM was running at 1333mhz, and the system RAM was running at 1066, which I find difficult to understand how it did that. A friend that has the exact same MacBook Pro bought the same RAM several months earlier, only to have it die after 6 months of use. I ditched the RAM and went back to 1066mhz sticks. Using faster RAM will not make a noticable difference in these laptops. A quicker hard drive will make a greater difference.

Mar 2, 2011 9:31 AM in response to astinus36

I can confirm that too. MacBook Pro 13 late 2010 (7,1) does not support CORRECTLY 1333mHz SODIMM. The interesting part is that when running ram diagnostic - everything is fine - this makes me think that the problem is in the NVidia 320M chipset or driver. Running single mode also is flawless.

IMHO this is Apple's flaw and correct clock should be enforced in EFI. I'll try to overcome this somehow...

Mar 16, 2011 11:59 PM in response to Martin Spasov

Please let us know if you do. I have a mid-2010 17in MacBook Pro with Core i7 and upgraded it to 8GB 1333MHz. It correctly shows up and works at that speed in Windows 7 Enterprise, but only seems to work at 1066MHz in OSX 10.6.6 and the pre-release OSX Lion 10.7. The brand new MacBook Pro models come stock with 1333MHz installed and I'm highly dubious that the hardware differs by much (except GPU)

Jan 3, 2012 6:08 AM in response to astinus36

Hi there guys,


Could you tell me if my Mid 2010 Unibody Macbook (2.4 GHz) will support 8GB (2X4GB) Corsair 1333MHz Modules? Running at 1066 isn't a problem, I just want to know if they should work? I've tried them seperately at 5GB (ie. 1X1GB and 1X4GB) and the laptop works (but is very slow because it's using two VERY different modules - dual channel doesn't like it) but with both together the laptop just beeps and wont turn on.. I'm looking to return them and want to know if they SHOULD work so that I can ask for a full refund!


My 1066 Modules are on the way so fingers crossed that they're fine too!


Thanks!

Jan 3, 2012 7:53 AM in response to uknowwho889

like eww said, use only the right spec for Ram: when you put in 1333MHz ram where 1066MHz is specified it will NOT run faster but the ram will be downclocked to 1066. While the macbook may get this done it is "helped" a bit when one of the right spec 1066 is present, but it may not work at all, and the macbook gets "issues". Normally Kernel Panics, which are worse than a bad hip.

Important too for Macbooks and MacbooksPros: take ram from a respectable producer (Crucial or OWC), the RAM is very cheap, don't throw good money to a bad product.

Aug 26, 2012 7:42 PM in response to astinus36

Hi everyone,

I seem to be having the same problem, my macbook pro 13' (mid 2010) will accept 6gb but won't boot when i put 8gb, I read about taiphoon burner and spdTool but they both require windows which I don't have also, I don't consider myself good enough in computers to attempt to change the ram speeds myself but is there a program that flashes ram on a mac? and will they do at the Apple Store ?

Macbook Pro 7,1 mid 2010 1333mhz ram issue

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