Macbook 4,1 RAM upgrade, L-Bracket

From where did you buy the RAM? What brand is it?

~Lyssa

Hmm, it's possible the RAM itself is the source of your issue. Perhaps it's just a touch sub-par compared to the original modules and that's making your computer misbehave.

Usually the machine will refuse to boot at all, or randomly restart, but I've seen all kinds of odd things that only went away when proper RAM was purchased.

If I had to hazard a guess, it seems to me like your touchpad and/or keyboard is being shorted out when the L bracket is in place.

Do you have a USB mouse you could try, just to see if you can click & select things with it? If so, put the L bracket back and try with that mouse, just for grins.

If the mouse works, that says to me that your touchpad is being shorted out or something similar, and the RAM must be the culprit.

If you can, return the Kingston modules and order from Crucial (crucial.com) or Other World Computing (macsales.com). They test their RAM to ensure it works properly with Macs.

~Lyssa

The physical size of the Kingston replacement RAM likely is larger than that of the original spec RAM; so the bracket can't be used due to the lack of clearance, given the RAM takes up the space once available.

I have a horror story involving Kingston RAM in an Apple computer under AppleCare where the authorized retail store with trained experts upgraded my new iMac with this stuff, and eventually killed the computer. Yet they could never find anything wrong with it, I could repeatedly get kernal panics and other big problems by simply running five things. The same five things and the computer would tank. But they said it never did anything in their care. I sent along a list of things to do, to recreate the misery, and I know they did nothing to follow it. Miles of long distance driving, to leave the computer for testing, to find it would kernal panic by following the same method I told these experts when I got back home with it. Because of AppleCare, I was forbade to open the computer to access the upper RAM slot. So their monkeys did it. I traveled many 200+ mile road trips (1,200 miles) with the dead imac riding shotgun in its original box... It's still in a coma inside that box. Does it dream? A scary thought.

And I've repaired, upgraded, and restored over 200+ Macs.

{Sad to think I had to rely on inCompUSA & had no real

Apple Store or support here in AK at the time.}

So get a better quality product on the outset and avoid bad RAM whose only guaranty is more of the same. I got replacement Kingston RAM months after I paid to get other brand RAM, in the mail. I gave it away. Junk. About the same quality as the company who worked on my iMac under AppleCare. No support at all.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂