Disappearing Ram and Sleep Issues macbook pro lion

Question

Disappearing Ram and Sleep Issues macbook pro lion

Hello,

I have been having an issue with the RAM on my macbook pro unibody, late 2009 (model 5,5), since i upgraded from the original 2x2GB to 2x4GB acquired on the internet, from a certified supplier (the equivalent of OWC in Italy): Sometimes, the computer does not recognize one of the chips, showing only 4 gb mounted, other times it shows both chips, thus 8 GB...but it seems to do so randomly. The ram dissapears especially after a permission repair and a reboot, or a hard reboot.

This issue occurred one week after i recieved the Ram, and i have checked by switching the chips with the original ones, and it occurs with the latter, too, so i have excluded the possibility of defective ram. I have tested the banks, and the one in which the ram is not detected is always the lower one, never the top one (Bank 1, never bank 0).

Since the occurring of this issue, i have also had issues with the Sleep mode: sometimes, when i send my mac to sleep by shutting the lid, it will go to sleep, only to never wake up when i open the lid, forcing me to hard reset it. the status led, when i send it to sleep, starts pulsing normally, but when i open the lid it turns off, but the display doesn't turn on, and if i close the lid the status led stays on, and after some while the fans start running (occasionally).

this happens often, but sometimes it doesn't. here too, it seems to be on a random basis.

If i, however, send the mac to sleep through the apple menu and then close the lid and wake it with the power button, no issue occurs.

I have tried resetting SMC, PRAM, cleaning caches, Advanced Hardware Test from the DVD, but nothing.

for what concerns the RAM, i have tried with both the original and the compatible ram by inserting either only in slot 0 (the uppermost slot), in which case it always is detected, and only in slot 1 (the lowermost), in which case it is never detected and the computer emits the system beep (but i believe this could be normal - i am no technician).

Then, last week, the computer booted up showing 7.60 GB total ram, but only in one slot, and the strange thing was that it didn't recognize 8 Gb or 7.75, but 7.60.

this got me worrying, a bit.

Has anyone had the same issues? or, better, resolved the matter?

By the way, i am running OS 10.7.2

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Issues Adding Ram

Posted on Jan 29, 2012 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

jcorobow

Level 1

0 points

Feb 5, 2012 8:31 AM in response to francesco femi

Having the exact same problem with my Polycarbonate unibody macbook. I upgraded to 8gb ram a couple months ago. I am having the same sleep issues and now ram is sometimes not recognized. A restart will usally fix the undetected ram issue but not the sleep issue. any ideas as to what is happening?

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Answer 2

RaRFtv

Level 1

0 points

Apr 18, 2012 4:46 PM in response to francesco femi

Hi!, I'm having the exact same problem, I upgraded my 2Gb of RAM (2x1Gb) from my Macbook Pro mid 2009 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, to 8Gb of RAM (2x4Gb) from OWC and sometimes when I turn on my Mac it only shows 4Gb and I had also the same issue showing me 7.75Gb of RAM.

I also have the problem that when I close the lid the Mac goes into sleep mode but when I open it, it never turns on, I have to make a force turn off by holding the power button, which I think could harm the computer over time…

I've also tryied reseting SMC and PRAM but it doesn't solve the problems, I'm using the version 10.7.3, have you found a solution already?, what could be causing the problem?

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Answer 3

Apr 19, 2012 2:45 AM in response to RaRFtv

well when you added the 8Gb of ram, the fact that it showed 7.75 Gb is not a problem, actually it is perfectly normal, since 8Gb of ram are, actually, 7.75 Gb.

my issue was that 7.60 Gb appeared, which is not normal.

I have currently resolved the sleep issue by removing the Ram stick which appeared and disappeared..so now i am running with 4 Gb of ram on a single slot. I have the original 2Gb of ram on the other slot but they never appear, so i'm guessing the slot is defective and has ultimately left me...

So far, I have not found any solution allowing me to use all my 8 Gb of ram without any issue. I would appreciate if  gave their version of the story, since they do not appear to prescribe original -ram in the user's manual when upgrading the ram. (forgive me if i'm wrong).

Cheers

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Answer 4

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Apr 19, 2012 3:11 AM in response to francesco femi

Run an Apple Hardware Test. Use you original installation disks.

Also go to Kelly Computing and download 'rember' and run it. Do it overnight since it requires multiple loops to get an accurate result.

http://kelleycomputing.net/rember/

This should give you a good idea about the condition of your RAM.

Ciao.

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Answer 5

Apr 19, 2012 3:35 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

both were done in my case, an overnight apple hardware test on the memory (the one which loops until it doesn't see an error) and rember (although this one, running under lion, is said to not be a very thorough tester). the results were that the ram worked without flaws, when detected.

when the ram wasn't detected (this seemed to occur randomly when the computer started) it never appeared until until a next reboot or until I removed it from the slot and inserted it back in. Vice-versa, if it appeared it never disappeared until a reboot. I believe this is the reason why AHT never detected any error...

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Answer 6

Apr 19, 2012 3:40 AM in response to francesco femi

this is why I believe it is a slot error, and not a ram error, meaning the ram sticks are good.

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Answer 7

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Apr 19, 2012 3:49 AM in response to francesco femi

That was the point of my suggestion (eliminate RAM as a problem). A date with a repair facility looks like the only alternative.

Ciao.

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Answer 8

Apr 19, 2012 7:38 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

Yes I am afraid you're right...

however, being my mac out of warranty (and, as a consequence of the n-th corollary of murphy's law, the issue only occured machine went out-of-warranty), I wanted to verify if somebody "luckier" than me had had the issue in-warranty and sent the book to a repair facility, so as to refer the origin of the issue...

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Answer 9

May 9, 2012 4:05 PM in response to francesco femi

I started to have the same problem about a month or two ago.

My machine is a MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2009) with Lion. It also started to be very slow in every operation, then last weekend I tried to reinstall Lion and discovered the it would say that I needed 2Gb of Ram.

Well, the 1+1 Gb of ram that it has in it are the ones supplied with it by Apple (bought it online from the Apple Store).

Upon further testing I discovered that it is the Bank 1 (the lower one) that has the problem, but also discovered that IT IS NOT A HARDWARE problem since I restarted with a Snow Leopard Install DVD and low and behold, the ram returned and is working perfectly.

Backed up everything, erased the disk, installed Snow Leopard and it is now working perfectly with 2Gb of RAM.

In my case as you can see I can say for sure that it does not seem to be a hardware problem since I had been using Lion since launch and it worked ok until recently, now I downgraded and its working perfectly again but with an older OS.

Hope it saves you the money from a repair that it may not need after all.

Just restart with a 10.6 or 10.5 install disk and on the utilities check to see if you missing ram is there, in my case it was. It is.

Adeus.

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Answer 10

May 10, 2012 3:17 AM in response to Walking Stone

this could be an interesting solution, however the issue occurred also with the AHT: sometimes the computer booted and showed only one slot full, so performed the tests on the only available slot, other times it showed them both full and performed the tests on both.

being that the AHT is independent of the OS, the problem should be a level above the OS...

I'll try to install snow leopard on another partition and see if the problem still occurs...if it is a OS problem apple should definitely take care of it...I suggest you describe the problem to apple in order for them to run the appropriate tests...

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Answer 11

May 10, 2012 3:44 AM in response to francesco femi

You are right, unfortunately...

I shut down the MacBook and upon restart bank1 was again "empty"…

Next I switched the RAM sticks with the ones from an iMac, 2 Gb on the top bank and 1 Gb on Bank1 (bottom) and it showed 3 Gb upon restart. 8-)

Shutdown.

Reboot.

Bank1 "empty". $&%#!

Well I guess we'll have to take it to service…

I will try to install Leopard on another partition and switch between one and the other to see if upon restart Bank1 shows up.

Sorry for the false hope, let's see if we can make it work.

Adeus.

Message was edited by: Walking Stone

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Answer 12

May 10, 2012 10:19 AM in response to Walking Stone

yeah even though the number of people experiencing the same issue (i've seen it on other forums) makes me believe it is not a simple "random" hardware failure, but something maybe related to a "bad shipment" of the components of the motherboard...

only thing for me is to hope that the next macbook pro i'll buy doesn't have this issue, for the current one's warranty is long expired...

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Answer 13

TyasTG

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2012 7:30 AM in response to francesco femi

i'm having the same problems only the problem already started with the standard RAM installed, so without performing a ram update. When i noticed i was missing a 2 gb of ram i went to a apple store but they asked crazy prices. So i went to an other pc shop and wanted to buy a new 2 gb stick. The man at the shop did some diagnostics and booted my macbook again, and it showed 4 gb, so everything working normally. although when closing the lid a couple of times it started having the sleep problems again and on booting up the 2gb where missing again. I thought the problem could be helped with a RAM update so i let them put in 8 GB. after some time of my macbook working as normal, problems have come back again.

does anybody have a solution???

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Answer 14

Jul 27, 2012 10:52 PM in response to francesco femi

I'm having this same problem right now on my mid-2010 13 inch macbook pro with 4GB of RAM. I'm having the problem in slot 0 and have yet to find a solution to the problem...

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Answer 15

Freidy

Level 1

4 points

Aug 4, 2013 1:02 PM in response to francesco femi

I had the same problem and found the answer on macrumors. Slightly loosening the 4 bolts that are around the RAM slot by about 1 rotation did the trick for me. Here's the thread where I found the answer. I'm just reposting so that others can benefit from this info.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1360315

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