Mac OS X updates disable or damage PowerBooks?
By Ryan Block 
posted Dec 28th 2005 10:50AM
posted Dec 28th 2005 10:50AM
Apple, seriously try and stay out of some product settlements for a few, ok? Not but yesterday the 1/2/3G iPod settlement got wrapped and finalized, and today we come to find out that another suit could be inbound with an open registration of complaints over what apparently occurs to some users when -- of all things -- they update to 10.3.9, 10.4.0, and 10.4.1: their PowerBooks' lower RAM slots go bad. The current operating assumption is that the update actually makes the firmware controller or possibly the chipset get all wonky, which, in turn, may disable the lower memory slot (permanently). Has anyone out there in Engadget-land experienced this issue? Besides airing those grievances in our comments, you can also feel free to air them to the complaints registration site, which may or may not at some point turn into a real life suit. How ya like dem Apples?
[Via TUAW]
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I have a powerbook purchased in Dec. of '03 and I haven't had any problems. (running the latest version of tiger)
I purchased a 15" powerbook in September 04 and my lower memory slot has crashed.
Aha...and I really did think my memory just fizzled out. I've got a Powerbook 1.5 Ghz, was loaded with 1GB RAM...now 512 =(
After I upgraded - kapoot...
Anyone have any brilliant fixes?
I had this happen to mine. After an ugrade. The lower slot was marked as bad. I performed one of the 10.x.y upgrades. The slot came back for a while, then was marked bad again.
This problem happened to me within the last month. My lower ram slot went bonkers and i'm relying on the upper one now.
I have a 1.5Ghz Powerbook and I added some ram and it recognized it, but it would cause apps to crash, so I took it out.
the new powerbooks 15" are having an issue about battery that wont charge or decrease drastically performance... I got both problems... ;/
yep, this happened to mine, had to switch the RAM into the other slot
same here... my book is perfect and I have ran all the updates. I even just ran a RAM check and it seems like no matter what I use all the RAM checks out all right.
I have gone through the very updates mentioned, yet have had no problems.
But... i thought Apple products didn't break? I mean... thats what the dude with the Nano t-shirt and the 12 inch powerbook told me down on campus the other day when i used my HP to get on the wireless! Was i decieved?
:-)
(Just messing with ya'll... i have a Mini and love it just as much as my HP laptop.)
my lower slot is kapoot
I've got 4 different PBs around here, from an 800Mhz Ti through the 1.67 Al, and no problems with upgrades on any of them.
Bad link- it keeps sending me to PayPal. Typical lawyers, eh?:P
I have a 12 inch powerbook..........no problems.....must only be a few with problems
this happened to me. had to take in to the apple store where they sent it out to get the logic board replaced. It took less than a week to get the powerbook back.
I have a 12" PowerBook 1.5Ghz that I bought in May 2005. I have been immediately updating to the newest versions of Tiger when they come out, and I have had no problems at all (I'm running 10.4.3). I recently upgraded my RAM also to 1.25GB without any problem.
Wow, I had no idea this was a widespread problem. My lower memory slot also stopped working after upgrading to Tiger. I just went to my local Apple store yesterday, and I am sending in my 15" PowerBook today to get fixed.
one of my ram slots died too. never thought about it much...hmmmm.
It happened to my Powerbook 15 in. My memory of 1 GB got cut to 516 MB. Luckily, I have Applecare and got a new motherboard, which fixed the problem.
The day after I installed Tiger, my lower RAM slot went bad. They said I was the first case they had heard of it. Apparently I was not the last.
My Lower Ram Slot has died as well 15" 1.5GHZ Powerbook
I had two logic boards replaced for this problem. It has been fine since the third board was put in. There used to be a huge thread on Apple discussions about this problem, I'm not sure if is still there. Luckily, I had Applecare and they fixed it pretty quick. It is still pretty annoying when you drop that kind of cash on a laptop.
I have a 12" Powerbook from 2004 and one day when I went to boot it the only thing that came on was the fan and it was especially loud. I owned the thing for 15 months and then it was dead and deemed unfixable. Grrrr.
I have a 15 inch PowerBook purchased in June. I've run all the updates with no problems.
1.67GHz 15" and a 1.5GHz 15", both have zero problems.
15'' 1.33ghz G4 powerbook. (purchased summer of 2004) Maxed out with 2GB ram, running great.
If one of my RAM slots didn't work I wouldn't hesitate to get it fixed through applecare.
My brother did the update this weekend, and since has not been able to boot.
The applestore says that the hard drive is tanked.
The machine goes through the boot sequence, but when the status bar gets full, it just hangs. No safe mode, either :(
I have a 1.25GHz PB G4, 1GB DDR SDRAM I'm running 10.3.9 with no problems or issues. Maybe this is on Newer or older PB's? Or maybe from just one factory? We all know how Apple likes to use different manufacturing plants for their hardware.
I've got no problems whatsoever with my PowerBook.
1.5GHz Superdrive Aluminum here...
...No problems through any updates.
((However, I do have a sticky hinge, finnicky latch, and a corroding wrist rest that I eventually need to get fixed under AppleCare... ...if only I could pull myself away from my otherwise OK Powerbook.))
I bought a 15" in July 05 with 512Mb from Apple Store in the SF Bay Area, added add'l 512 Mb and within 1 week the system crashed. When I took it to the Apple store in late August to fix, I was told that it will take 2-3 days to get fixed and be shipped to the store (40 miles from Cupertino). I got it back in beginning of October. After complaining to Apple, was told that "this is just the way it is" since they were waiting for a new motherboard from a manufacturer. Love the product, love the store service, HATE the corporate support...
There's been a lot of complaints about this for a long time
There's an online petition going with a shedload of signatures about 15inch PowerBooks going tits up which can be found here:
http://lowermemoryslot.editkid.com/
My PowerBook started acting up right after my applecare ran out (great timing I know).
Talking to people at the Apple stores and writing to Apple resulted in nothing for me. It's a good thing that this problems is being exposed on sites like this.
Sometimes I think Apple only react when they start to get enough bad publicity to cause concern. Otherwise they just don't want to know.
I have a 12" Powerbook with no problems....then again, the 12" doesn't have a lower slot - 256 built in ad one slot. Must apply only to 15" and 17".
My lower RAM slot has died as well on my 15" powerbook. If this is such a widespread problem they need to be fixing the logic boards in house. I can't be out of a laptop for a week. Help engadget!
I had the aforementioned problem in my Powerbook (dead RAM slot). I sent it into Apple before the warranty ran out, and they tried to blame it on "liquid damage" -- "we are unable to repair the RAM slot b/c there is liquid damage present, and that would mean we cannot warranty the rest of the Powerbook". I called them out on their bluff, threatened with the atty general and the BBB, and they sent me a fully repaired Powerbook.
I have a 15" 1.5GHz powerbook that came with OS X 10.3something and 512MB RAM.
I added a second 512MB chip into it (total 1GB).
I later upgraded to 10.4 (currently running 10.4.3).
No problems here.
What happens to you folks with "dead" RAM slots if you try:
1. Resetting the NVRAM in Open Firmware:
- Hold command-option-O-F (that's the letter O) at boot, and continue holding until a white screen with black text appears
- Issue the commands:
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all
(The last command here causes a reboot)
OR
2. Resetting the Power Management Unit (it's a long shot, but it's worth a try since it's easy:
- http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449#faq11
It would be interesting to see if the RAM slot is magically reenabled, becuase I highly, highly doubt that the RAM slot is "fried". No, let me rephrase: that is DEFINITELY not happening. Additionally, given the amount of PowerBooks we have going through here, this must be an extremely isolated issue, because I haven't seen this happen yet. And lastly, all of the machines in question are all under warranty, so even if something did happen, just get it fixed instead of complaining about it...
By telephone in the US: 1-800-APL-CARE
By visiting any Apple Retail location: http://www.apple.com/retail/
By visiting any Apple Authorized Service Provider: http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service.html
I have not upgraded my RAM, but when I moved to 10.4.0 the modem quit working. That (finally) got fixed with 10.4.2. It was a very long time without the internet.
Powerbook 1.3 12", wen't through the mentioned updates, no problems.
My dad installed a 1GB stick into his PowerBook literally yesterday and it started getting random kernel panics. I know it's not the stick since it works fine in my own Powerbook.
I guess this firmware thingy is the problem!
My 9 month old PB 12" stopped working (won't boot) after updating from Tiger 10.4.1 to 10.4.3 Took it to the Apple Store where they had to keep it and send it away. The Apple geniuses claim it's a problem with the hard drive. Seems like too much of a coincidence--it never booted up again after the update.
Way to go Apple.
I have an 1.25GHz Alu Powerbook which had a broken lower slot about a year ago. My reseller replaced the mainboard which fixed the problem. Powerbooks are very picky about memory. I have had SODIMM's not working at all. I'm now running 2 * 1GB Kingston which is great.
#38: No, this firmware "thingy" is most likely NOT the problem in your case. What is likely is that you installed bad RAM.
I picked up my 15" powerbook in June 2004 and had the lower ram slot go on me as well. They went as far as to replace the mainboard as they simply said I had a defective part. No problem under warranty, but as it stands if this were to happen again it necesitates having the extended warranty on your machine. Scaring people into buying extended warranties is such a PC way of doing things. Having worked as a technician for a few years for a major vendor, it is endorsed by all parties in order to retain residual business off of cheap computers. But a hi-end powerbook, c'mon Stevie!
My iBook RAM slots are fried - could this also be a problem on iBooks ?
This makes me crack up. Nice proprietary solution Apple! Call Windows what you want, rarely do you see issues like this where a memory slot is disabled after an upgrade. Sure, you can have other issues - Windows is far from immune to problems after upgrades - but they don't disable a key part of the whole works.
I have the fist Aluminium PB 15" 1.25Ghz since Dec. 03, it came with 10.3 didn't reinstall system since this time just update system, now running 10.4.3 without any problems.
Yep, I had this happen to me. I purchased my 15" powerbook in July of '04, it is a 1.25 ghz machine. I had no problems with the ram (and it was both apple branded and 3rd party) until shortly after I did some of the OS updates in early november.
Then i began getting kernel panics. I was told this was a software issue by the apple care people, or something to do with my 3rd party ram. although through all of my own diagnosis, it looked as if the lower slot was dead.
I sent the computer into Apple, who then replaced the motherboard, the hard drive and some other things, returned the computer telling me it was the third party ram that had caused the issues.
it was a nightmare to deal with.
#41 - a quote from my own comment:
"I know it's not the stick since it works fine in my own Powerbook."
I placed it in my own Powerbook (as the only stick of RAM) in the top slot and it works perfectly fine.
I've got a 12 inch Powerbook with no extra RAM installed yet. I wonder if there's a way to determine if the slot is damaged without having RAM in there. Anyone got a slot-checker?
I'm the service manager at an Apple Authorized Service Provider, and it's not terribly common, but not unusual for some of the 1.33 and 1.5ghz 15" Powerbooks to have the lower memory slot go bad, it's a known issue and Apple will replace the defective Logic Boards free of charge - i think there is even a repair extension program in case the unit is out of the warranty period.
it's not really related to the os update, as it doesn't change any of the firmware on the logic board, just an unhappy conincidence imho.
funny how people get all class action happy when the manufacturer will take care of their problem at no cost - all it takes is a trip in to your local service provider.
I have a 12" AlBook and I recently started having severe battery issues- I can run on battery power until about 55% at which point the machine hibernates, forcing me to plug in and see that it went from 55% to 0% in about 1 minute. Total battery life is about 30 minutes with the screen at its lowest visual brightness
Hahaha. The writer asked for replies from people who've had this problem. There have been an awful lot of such replies, but it's funny to see all the uninvited "no problems here" posters trying so hard to balance it out. You're such embarrassments. Voluntary corporate shills. This makes me want to keep as far away from the Apple world as possible.
have an old G4 400mhz 15" PB... says its got 256mb memory... now i can't remember if thats what it had originally... although, knowing apple, it probably was.
read post #37 and try that --- this is the exact same procedure i went through when my powerbook wouldn't boot after updates... it completely crashed and gave a 'panic - we are hanging here' error. i followed that same procedure and everything was just fine.
No problems here, but then again I have one of the new Powerbooks 15" Hi-Res 1.67Ghz
I have 1 .15 GHZ PB that was bought in Feb of '05. It had one DIMM with 512Mb. I added another DIMM with 256MB. About fall this year, I noticed the PB performing badly. I looked at the profiler and it said I only had 256MB. I took out the 256MB DIMM, then took the lower slot one (512 MB), and put it in the upper one, and it came up with 521MB. So it seems I am seeing what this article is describing.
I have a 15" that I bought in Feb. and just installed an additional 1gb stick. Both slots are working fine. No problems in system profile.
I got a question it says "lower memory slot" as a pb 12" owner i've only got one, so does this only affect 15 and 17 inch powerbooks? anybody know?
I have a Powerbook 15" Bought in March of Last year, that I upgraded to Tiger with a family member's copy of 10.4, and now I want to purchase some more memory for it, would I be safe?
Yep -- same here, and I had no idea so many people were experiencing this, and never would it have occurred to me to tie the problem to an OS release! I had to remove the memory completely from that slot lest my computer constantly freeze
I have a 15" powerbook purchased Sept. 04. I upgraded to 10.3.9 about 2 weeks earlier and last week my lower slot went on the fritz. The laptop would just freeze and upon reboot would only see the 256MB memory stick not the 1 GB stick. Reseating the memory would make all of it visible until the next freeze a few minutes from startup. Switching the memory around I discovered that the memory was not bad but the actual slot. Always the lower slot. I had no idea it was a wide spread problem.
My lower slot is busted too, But I cant remember when and why it happened.
no kidding, but my lower slot just went bad...i found out yesterday that the 1GB card i had there wasnt being read, so i switched it with the 256 i had chilling there, and after reading this post, i check my memory status....it reads only 1GB. thats bullshit. and its freaky that it just happened right now. engadget is reading my mind. im definitely getting into this class action lawsuit. my brother is getting something out of the ipod one, so lets see if i cant either.
Oh and another thing, does anyone know if cosmetic damage is covered under applecare, I have a few dings and scratcches that are really bothering me, it works great otherwise, but cosmetically it could use a few touchups that I would not like to have to pay 300 dollars to fix.
Never heard of this happening on a crappy wintel laptop. And for a moment I thought apple was going to get some of my money when they make the switch. Oh well.
Happened to my new (august) powerbook 15", which I purchased aftermarket RAM for but was unable to utilize due to the defective slot. I have yet to have an apple-tech look at is as I am a college student in my thesis year, which makes downtime a bit of a problem.
I have a 1.5 with 1 gig of RAM and have upgraded and now running 10.4.3. I have not experienced any problems. It is recognizing that there is still 1 gig of RAM.
Had a 10 month old 15 inch PB die a in September, or October. Got the memory error beeps, but the memory was fine, had been in there since new. No O/S updates near the time of failure. Running 10.3.8, methinks.
Had to send it in for a new system board. Took a month to get my machine back. Sat in the repair shop "Awaiting parts" for three weeks. When I was finally able to get through to tech support to find out what the holdup was, the parts just happened to "be coming in tomorrow". Give me a break. I love my Macs, but warranty service sucks.
Purchased a Powerbook 17" 1.67 back in May 2005, immediately added a 1Gb stick for a total of 1.5Gb. Upgraded to 10.3.9, plus every single update since then. Haven't upgraded to tiger, but so far, I haven't had a problem running anything on my PB.
Whoa. I thought my memory had just gone bad. One of my memory slots isn't working either.
how do you achieve 1.25gb of ram with 2 slots?
Yea, my lower ram slot died back when i updated dto 10.3.9 way back when...sadness...
Yes. This happened to me about 3 months ago. Maybe more. I noticed my PowerBook was a bit sluggish. I checked if I had some weird processes running that were sucking up all the RAM, and there was almost nothing left. I then checked the system profiler and noticed that the lower RAM slot wasn't recognizing the RAM. The Apple discussion boards showed that many, many people were experiencing the same thing.
I actually wrote you folks to tell you to get on this story, because I am hoping enough noise will be created to persuade Apple to issue a recall or otherwise address the issue. Here's to hoping.
Now that the airing of the grievances have concluded, we move on to feats of strength...
No problem with my 12" 1.33.
I have a 17" 1ghz powerbook. No problems yet. Although the latest 10.4.3 has been giving my laptop and G5 tower at work Kernal Panics
What amazes me isn't that there is a problem with a few powerbooks, but that so many people are so stupid they didn't take it to an Apple store when they had a problem! Apple is the world's best about making up for their mistakes. My friend had a problem with an out of warranty iBook and they still fixed it for free. My nano's screen was bad so they replaced it and gave me $100 worth of nano accessories. If you just sit there with a problem and don't go to Apple with it of course it will never get fixed. I suggest you let Apple try to fix your problem before you try to join a lawsuit. Don't let these greedy lawyers trick you into their money making scheme.
My Powerbook was purchased 3/05--I bought the TIger upgrade, things seemed OK. Then I downloaded an upgrade from apple. An hour or so later I started getting kernel panics. They seem to know about this, because I sent it back to Apple on a Friday, and got it back Tuesday--new hard drive, RAM, and board. When I was on the phone with Apple, there wasn't much surprise when I was trying to reinstall Tiger and it crashed...
Wow, it's not just me! My lower slot shows empty too. I was waiting until I have stopped moving around to have apple service it. I have 2gb of apple ram and only one (top slot) is showing. Lower slot shows empty even if I swap chips around.
I don't know when this occurred, but it was working correctly when I upgraded to Tiger originally.
yup, i tried tech supporting one of my buddie's brand new 15" powerbooks (a Switcher, nonetheless) a few months ago. i went through every setting, tech tool, etc that i could think of before another friend yanked the 2nd RAM chip out. runs like a charm now, albeit w/ 512MB RAM. :^(
I'm another one of those people who just thought it was a fluke with my 12" powerbook. My lower slow did in fact die. This is quite a surprise to see so many others with then same issue...
Happened to mine. Lost half my memory.
I have the same issue .. thought it was the chip so replaced 2x512MB with 2x1GB .. lower slot seems bad and now I only have 1GB .. the other chip is there but seems to be a waste :(
What happens when the problem manifests with an update and you reinstall an earlier version of the OS? What I'm suggesting you do is to reinstall a baseline Mac OS X install, like 10.3 or 10.4, and then add back the updates up to but not including the point where the slot went bad.
It's a hardware defect that seems to be common with certain models. Software updates have nothing to do with it. That happened to my 15" 1.5 GHz June 2004 PowerBook G4 early this year. Since it was still under warrantee, my dealer replaced the logic board for free.
I could not upgrade the OS at all until I removed the lower slot memory. The elcheapo memory in that slot was sold to me by third-party Apple dealer. I removed the memory and upgraded the OS. Then I bought decent memory from Apple directly. I'm back at 1 G with no problems on 17 in. powerbook. Earlier versions of Mac OS were apparently more tolerant of elcheapo memory if you were willing to put up with the occasional kernel panic and system crash. Those problems went away with installation of better memory, too.
not sure if anyone thought to mention this, but from what it seems, EVERYONE who was under warranty had the problem fixed for free and very promptly. So instead of wasting time and money in court, why not just buy the applecare and have them fix it for you at thier cost? if Sony gives you a laptop with one dead-pixel on the screen, they're not going to take it back nor replace it. You're stuck with it because it's only one-pixel. Applecare covers pretty damn near everything in the systems. If you have a problem and it costs you money to repare it, you should only be filing if you had applecare. If you didn't have applecare, sit down, shut up and stop whining. It's technology. These things happen. When WindowsXP, or any windows based OS (which are never complete) screws up your entire system forcing a need to re-install or simiply buy new hardware, why isn't a major law suit filed then? The people filing most of these law suits are arrogant morons who either believed that they could fix everything and were above the purpose of a warranty, or those who don't realize that in electronic computer-based technology, THINGS HAPPEN. If 2.9% of production has hardware problems, it's still a good process and those 2.9% will be repaired at no cost to the customer. Motherboards are made of cardboard with several impressed and etched circuits conducting massive amounts of heat and electricity. How long do you realistically think something like that can handle unplanned abusive stress i.e. being held incorrectly or a driver/firmware update that tells it to conduct operations in a new way?
Just be realistic. I don't work for apple, but it makes great products and issues like this are a waste of time and money when applecare for Powerbooks is $349, lasts 3 years, is renewable and extends phone support and express shipping for repair service to the entirety of the plan. Do the math yourself. It's worth is just for the phone support alone (apple, $40; Microsoft, $90; HP, $40; etc)
I have a 2003 Powerbook Titanium 1g processer and 1g of RAM. I just upgraded to Tiger last week and have no RAM trouble at all.
I never ever have had any problems like that. I guess it's because I buy the same ram as what comes in them. Yes it does cost more, but hey you get what you pay for.
Mine also went out sent it in for service with apple and all is well...My brother has the same computer as me and he has had 0 problems. I dont know if it can be tied directly to the update mine happened after it someone tripped over my power cord and it ended up on the cement with a dent. Apple fixed it all though. YAY Apple care. If you didnt get apple care it is only your fault.
I've had mine for about 2 years now, Hard drive failed at just about the 1 year mark which was replaced by apple under warrantee... upgraded to 10.4 around that time and have been keeping up with the updates... so far my memory still reads fine at 1GB (512 in each slot)
If I have 1.5 gig of ram how could you tell if my lower slot (1g) isn't working?
Do you look up "about this mac" and realise that only 512 is recognised?
This may not be related, however, when I upgraded to 10.4.2 back in July my 17" powerbook crashed. Apple said it was my hard drive, but then it crashed twice more in October/november. Apple took my added RAM out in the last repair attempt - which seemed to fix it. They made no mention of a malfunctioning so-dimm slot. I am adding a 1GB stick of RAM soon, for a total of 1.5gb, so then I'll know if my 2nd slot is working - in which case I'm sure Apple will fix if it ends up messed up.
The problem most are dealing with has to do with a bug in the OS which was finally patched in an airport update AFTER 10.4.3. The bug affected people who have more than 1gb RAM in their powerbook (making them think the second slot was defective). A command line fix was put out to limit your system to only seeing 1gb of RAM, and voila - FIXED. Since the update was released, however, you can use more than 1gb RAM without problems.
Typically, the problems were memory leaks, system instability, and frequent wireless disconnects.
My slot is fine on 10.4.x
Ok. So a bunch of PowerBooks have a problem. As an earlier comment points out, Apple replaces the Logic board and this fixes the problem. Yes, it happened to me with my 15" PowerBook and yes I got it fixed within 4 days. Loads of companies have had problems like this with one product or another but as soon as it happens to an Apple computer pe3ople go mad with lawsuits. Get a life people, nothing is going to be perfect all of the time and Apple is replacing the things quick enough. Go find another way to get money, such as get a job.
Wow- this story is an eye-opener!
I thought my system was working slower than ususal. Bought my PowerBook this year with a gig-O-ram, but now reads 512.
This exact thing happened to me on my PG G4 (TiBook). I upgraded to 10.4.0 and poof! Lower RAM slot is dead.