Lower RAM Slot Repair

I did change it.

In that case, I'm sorry. I didn't understand that from your original post. You certainly aren't alone in having the RAM slot failure problem in a Powerbook that has already been repaired once and/or is ineligible for a free repair under warranty or under the repair program. The best course of action for most people in that predicament , annoying though it may be, is to do without the bad slot and maximize the RAM in the other one.

Hi,

I've bought my Powerbook on Febrery 2005 and last week, my lower memory slot just died. I've read the warrantly extension details and I'm not really sure if I'm covered.

I'm waiting for some help about it :P

Thx

Count me in the list of frustrated PB owners and consider my frustration on the Lower RAM slot issue. I'm wishing Steve Jobs or someone from Apple could read this thread and would consider extending the recall program to those who were victims of this unfortunate instance.

From the Apple guys out there, please consider our plead to address this problem with our PeeBees. We've already love our PBs as well as with other Apple products and I hope you wont let us down.

Hi, Evildef, and welcome to Apple Discussions. What's unclear to you about whether your Powerbook is covered or not? Quoting from the article about the repair program:

"The affected PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz) computers have eleven-digit serial numbers in this range: W8503xxxxxx through W8518xxxxxx."

"The program covers affected PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz) computers for up to two years from the original date of purchase. Apple will continue to evaluate the repair data and will provide further repair extensions as needed."

Does this clarify matters for you?

"Repairs will be covered by Apple for up to two years from the original date of purchase even if your computer is out of warranty."

I've bought my Powerbook 34 month ago, tath's why i'm not sure if I'm still covered.

I'm not sure why you're not sure; 34 months is longer than two years, so your PB doesn't qualify for the free repair. You yourself are hereby awarded a free membership in the steadily growing SOUPOWBRAMS, the Society Of Unhappy Powerbook Owners With Bad RAM Slots. That membership and $5 will get you a cup of coffee nearly anywhere, even Starbucks.

Call AppleCare and plead your case — it's all you can do. A few people have succeeded. Many have not.

Wish I had checked this board before trying to upgrade. All was working fine when running the original 2x 256MB RAM. But when I went to add 2x 1GB sticks today, my trusty old PowerBook 1.25 only recognized the lower slot.

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Guess I'll call Apple too, but that will only increase the frustration.

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I'll just get a 1GB module and use one slot, I was only using a total of 512 before the lower slot failed so it'll be an upgrade for me!

Has anyone come up with an answer to the concern about the upper slot going bad if you load it up?

Well, I just found out I'm in the same boat with you guys. Mine's a 1.67 Ghz G4. I called Apple today, but they won't do anything about it.

I wonder if the lower slot or its structure warps from the heat over time so that the contacts won't make good connection? I guess the cheapest way out - if you can afford to live with 1 gig of ram - is to just use the top slot with a 1 gig card. I'll go that route and, hopefully, Apple will fess up to the problem and send out word of a recall to all of us.

One thing that the Apple rep said that made me mad... she blamed me for not installing the ram properly. It worked fine since the computer was new with the additional ram I installed. So did the other 5 Macs that I have installed ram in since 1994.

I got the Wegener Media repair. It went very smoothly and my lower RAM slot works just fine now. I tried to find someone locally (Los Angeles) who might know something about this issue or repair to no avail.
All I can say is that I'm thankful that someone, i.e. Wegener, had a good price on the repair as all the other quotes I got were a lot more than I paid there.

I'd like to know if anyone has done the repair successfully themselves. If the problem is just warpage from heat, is there a way to correct that so the card makes contact again? Or could one buy a parts Powerbook on Ebay and take parts from it to repair theirs?

Some say the problem is in the motherboard, but is that true? Or is it only in the memory slot itself?

Did this problem all start with the Chinese-made Macs? I'm wondering if there is a quality problem from them?

Blake

My partner noticed his PB 15" 1.25GHz instantly ran 60% slower since we installed Leopard. I don't know whether the lower slot was bad prior to installing Leopard or not. Could it be that Leopard - being more sophisticated and ram intensive caused a significant burden to make us notice the problem? Or was Leopard's installation be the cause of the problem? But most people are saying it's the Logic Board, some people say heat or ram card not being fitted properly (his hardware tells him the slot is "empty".???

After reading all of this, it seems like there are few solutions:

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Either send it off to get it fixed ($250) or buy one 1GB RAM for the upper slot.

Sadly, Apple has not addressed this issue for 1.25 Ghz laptops.

My lower RAM slot went recently and because I do a lot of Photoshop image manipulation with large files, it has really slowed things down. Start a process and b-off for half an hour and come back and it may have finished. Don't know if there is a third party Mac repair in London area. Maybe just wait till the other goes, re-mortgage the house and get a MacBook Pro. Don't know if there is the same problem there?

Yep, put me on the list of 1.25Ghz PBs with the dead lower RAM slot.



No repair program!
No recognition!
No support!
No economical repair!
No, I'm not happy about it!

there is a possible fix at maxosxhints.com that involves Open-Firmware. the fix works for me, but it does not stick thru a reboot. a comment posted shows how to edit nvram to get it to stick, but that isn't working for me. maybe the nvram script isn't right?

anyone here with nvram experience have any ideas how to get it to stick?

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080226020954481