Last week I noticed that I had lost the chimes when I started up my Powerbook, I then checked and found that my lower slot of 512mb memory was not being recognised, as my laptop was in the recall serial number range I took it to my local Apple Store (Bluewater, UK) for them to check over.
They took it in on Friday and phoned me the following Thursday to say it was fixed!
So everything is back to normal and a big thumbs-up for the service I received.
iMac G3 500hz; Powerbook 15" 1.5Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1 Gb Ram
Add me to the list with my 1.5 Ghz. same thing. Discovered one day a few weeks ago that one of my 512's was not showing up (wondered why it was sluggish!). Thought it was bad RAM, so ordered a new 1 GB. No go. The new one works only in the top slot, nothing works in the lower slot.
My G4 15" 1.25 Powerbook was mysteriously running slow recently and sure enough, when I did an "About this mac" peek, it is only recognizing 1Gb of the 2Gb of RAM that I have in my slots. Unfortunately, 1Gb is not enough to run photoshop or final cut with any speed. I have no choice but to look into the third party repair vendors. Will post with my results.
Thanks for the info.
Niels
Got my G4 laptop back from Wegener yesterday. My lower RAM slot is once again working! Wegener was very communicative and efficient in doing this work for me. Of course, time will tell if the repair lasts, but so far I'm very pleased with the experience. Especially since there was really no one else that I could find who understood or specialized in this particular repair. All the other Mac authorized repair centers I spoke with said the same thing: the motherboard must be replaced at a cost of $600+. Wegener did their repair for $249 and overnighted the computer back to me for about $40. Here's the link to their page on the subject:
http://www.wegenermedia.com/alumramslot.html Good luck all!
Niels
Add me to the list. Obviously this is a problem. I don't know exactly when my lower slot went out. I just noticed it when i was going to upgrade to Leopard and only 256 of my original 512 was being read. Apple advised buying more RAM. I bought two 1 GB sticks from Crucial and at first both were read. Within 3 hours of use my system crashed and when i rebooted the lower slot was out. To me, this suggests a software/ hardware interaction. Have people noticed whether the RAM stick in the lower slot has been damaged after becoming dysfunctional?
Do people suggest using WEGENER or are there preferable companies? I am out of Applecare WArrantee. Has anyone found Apple to be responsive? Has anyone had the balls to start a petition? If not, let's do it.
I believe I had a related problem. I was having charging issues and brought the computer to Apple to diagnose and repair out-of-warranty. The Genius Bar concluded that it was an internal hardware issue: logic board or DC in board.
I paid a flat $300 repair fee which I was told would repair anything they found that was not working properly. When I got it back they had fixed the screen and hinge problems, latch mechanism and replaced the logic board/dc in board. It's working properly now but they said they removed the lower memory because it may have contributed to the failures since it was Kingston and not Apple.
After reading this thread (and many others) I am wondering if the lower ram slot is and will be damaged if used again. My computer is out of the range of those affected but I would like to add a second stick of Apple ram and see if it fails again since it is covered for 90 days. Anyone have a spare?
My PowerBook is more than two years old, and I just discovered that is has the same lower memory slot issue. The serial number starts with W8506 and is within the models that are covered by apple extended repair program. But the program stated that it only covers PBs for up to two years from the purchase date. Is there still a chance that my powerbook can be repaired by apple for free?
I have a general question. My PowerBook has been acting up ever since I installed the most recent update (10.4.11). I deleted Safari 3 because the lags were ridiculous, and then yesterday my computer started to crash. At that point I noticed that the lower RAM slot wasn't registering.
I noticed in another posting someone mentioned that perhaps the firmware updates didn't make the cooling fan kick in soon enough.
I am now wondering if I uninstall, and go back to my original OS version, if that would manage the lower slot better.
I've been extremely happy with my machine until this point. The problem is that I live in Africa, and have been talking up Mac for the past 2 years. I don't have a local store to go to until I get back to the states or Europe; and sending it out to be repaired is not an option.
Any thoughts?
My PB G4 1.67 had a lower memory slot failure 30 months out of the box. The S/N is in the range listed by Apple as potentially defective. I called 800.SOS.APPL, opened a ticket and was told that the repair extension is over, my defective PB would not be fixed at their expense.
mac1984: My PB 1.5GHz is more than 34 months since I purchased it. I had the same lower memory slot issue. I wasn't expecting that Apple would fix the problem for me, but I went to an Apple store nearby, and they said it was still covered under the warranty. I am not sure if this special warranty is extend or not. I would suggest you to bring your PB to an Apple store and inquire in person. They just left me a message today and told me that the PB is fixed, I am going to pick it up tonight.
Problem begin with the day when I bought my first powerbook G4 1.67Ghz, it was about two years from today. When I first to turn on my new powerbook G4 from box, the computer did not start up; instead, there were three short beeps (typically) followed by the the sleep LED flashing periodically. IT WAS HAPPENED THE DAY WHEN I PURCHASED IT(December 2005), I sent to my local apple store to check it out, they were kindly to tell me that I have had a bad logic board, and lower memory slots was dead, unless I want to switch with my upper memory slots, then it would fix up the problem. Of course, I called back to apple support Australia to confirm about this matter. It only happened to be the very first week of my purchased, they have to provide me a new one with next day or two. At that time, I only need to have one ram to suit my need, then I decided to buy my 2nd 512 ram which was 2 months ago. It was fine with my Tiger (10.4.10), there was nothing wrong until my latest upgrade with Leopard. It happened to be 9 days ago when I bought my new leopard. At begin of the new upgrade, it has had many issues for me, I was keep freezing and I have to fully wipe out the system and reinstall, after 4th time of reinstall the system. The problem seems to be gone, until yesterday (28th of December) my computer performance has had dropped significantly, then I checked my system profile, I discovered that my lower slots of RAM is Empty. Is it really Leopard cause the issue, or the problem happened has already existed when they manufactured the logic board 2 years ago? Or the firmware updated slowly killed the lower memory slots to cause it unable to work??
I have contacted apple support, they give me a respond " We are unable to fix the problem due to the Serial number was not part of the range"
Hope they fix the issue, I do not think that I want to spend a price that i can almost buy a new macbook to fix the problem or waste my 2 512 ram and buy a new 1Gb ( unless i have absolute no option).
Atlantis: Please post your issue just once, in one place. I've asked to have your two other duplicates removed by a host.
If you've had a bad RAM slot from day one, but you didn't insist that Apple replace the logic board then (which is what your post seems to indicate, if I understand it correctly), then it's no surprise that you still have the bad slot. You had your chance to get a new logic board when it would have been free.
