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two DIMM Slots are not working

I have a Mac Pro (Late 2013) with four slots filled with each 4 GB memory cards (originals), but only 2 memory slots in use, 2 available with in total 8 GB memory. Exchanging the cards showed that all memory cards are working fine. But slot 2 and slot 4 are not working. I am not sure when the functionality of these two slots got lost, but I had Mac Pro switched off for one week because of an business trip. What can I do?

Mac Pro (Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on May 12, 2016 4:51 PM

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8 replies

May 12, 2016 6:56 PM in response to SchoolMontain

Exchanging the cards showed that all memory cards are working fine.


...working fine at the time that you checked them.


It would be really nice if once a DIMM made an error, it would fall over dead. But that is not how they work, and it is made much more complex by the Error-Correction Memory in these Macs.


The error-correction logic is applied very aggressively at Startup, and any DIMMs that experience any error (correctible or not) during those few seconds will have its slot declared "empty" and that DIMM will not be used. But there is no historical carry-forward -- the next time you do a restart, they are all tested from scratch, and DIMMs that failed last time may pass the next time.


When a correctible error occurs in the running system, it is corrected in Hardware in one extended memory cycle, and the errors bits are checked and tabulated by a background process. They are available as a STATIC read-out using this display.


About this Mac > ( System Report ) > Memory:

User uploaded file


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May 12, 2016 7:34 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

OK, I understand this startup check and the consequences. In the last 3 hours I applied a careful cleaning to the slot 2 and 4. Now slot 4 came back again. I got 12 GB of memory. And I checked slot 2 by an microscope and saw that the long contacts to the left are covered by a substance like candle wax, some contacts more some less. The round contacts to the right looks fine. I tried to clean them very carefully but I think that I moved the waxy thing from one site to the other only. It is still not working. Now only slot 2 is outstanding. Do you know any contact cleaner that clean and protect these contacts?

two DIMM Slots are not working

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