aluminum MacBook 4gb ram upgrade - no problem!
You might have read articles on the internet about aluminum MacBooks becoming unstable after 3rd party RAM upgrade.
Well, some good news: I’m writing this post on a 2.0ghz aluminum MacBook with 4gb memory from OWC!
unibody MacBook with 4gb RAM from OWC
After reading all the rumors, I was skeptical to put the 4gb RAM upgrade on my Xmas wishlist, but my MacBook was constantly running out of memory, which caused the whole system to slow down to a point where it usually took about 30 minutes to switch through all my apps to save the documents and restart. (By the way this never happens on my Vista laptop running the same applications in the same amount of memory. No pun intended. Just keeping it real.) Anyway, I was desperate.
Here’s what I (Santa) ordered:
Item code: 2 x OWC8566DDR3S2GB -> link
Description: 2GB PC8500 DDR3 1066MHz SO-DIMM -> link
The RAM arrived on time, well packaged. Installation is fairly easy, very clear instructions were included. All you need is a tiny set of phillips screwdrivers and a clean surface to work on.
This is my experience. I’m not affiliated nor getting paid by OWC, but they made me very happy… no slowdown issues anymore.
I mostly use Photoshop, Illustrator and xcode. The macbook runs 24/7.
you mean to tell us, with 2GB of RAM your macbook was slowing to a crawl and taking literally “30 minutes to switch through apps”? If so, maybe you should have went with a macbook pro.
even so, only the ultra hardcore graphic/video rendering professionals will benefit from 4GB. As for the average user, 2GB is fine.
Yes. It usually took about 30 minutes to shut down the macbook, that was the time needed to switch through all apps, save the current documents and cleanly shut them down. This has nothing to do with MB vs MBP, but simply OSX running out of memory. 2GB is nothing if you are using Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefox, Mail and a couple other apps.
If you are using a web browser, mail and music player, the 2GB might be sufficient. I can’t speak for that.
But I like my computers like my horses: ridden hard
I am thinking if buying a macbook aluminum
If im just going to use itunes, safari, and possibly some power point apps or photoshop, do I need to upgrade to the 4GB of RAM???
@macbrizzle: I would. The more memory you have the happier your computer. Memory is the single cheapest upgrade you can do to make your mac run better.