Topic: dweez, chrisT, help with RAM upgrade

[6pairsofshoes]

I have a mid 2010 iMac and I'm so tired of the spinning rainbow wheel  of death every time I attempt to do anything, that I've decided it's time to upgrade the ram.

So far I've determined that I require two 204-pin 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM units.  (Memory  4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3)  Currently I have 4 G.  If I understand correctly, these are two units plugged in @2G each and have to be removed, most likely tossed or recycled and replaced.  My question is, can they be replaced with 2 8G units for a total of 16G RAM?  Or am I only able to double them at 4G per slot?  I'm not sure where to look for info on this upgrade. I'm pretty sure this is a little 10 minute exercise of unscrewing a small panel in the underside of the machine, removing the old units and sliding the new ones into their place.  So my main concern is to obtain the correct units and find them so as to achieve best results at least expenditure possible.

I have searched both here and the noid fora for a similar discussion with you guys a couple years back and came up empty, so I apologize if this is a repetitive question.  I seem to recall dweez saying that I don't have to buy "Mac only" memory, that any such unit/chip/whatever with this configuration will serve as they tend to be standardized in terms of overall size, shape, pin connections, etc.  Is that right?  Thanks in advance.

[dweez]

The density of RAM dimms (the amount of ram per stick) your system can support depends on your motherboard.  What is the model number of your system (I'm assuming it's a laptop)?  You should be able to find out exactly what your system supports using Crucial.com's "Advisor Tool".

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/memory-info?cm_re=top-nav-_-flyout-memory-_-us-memory

I use it alot just to get the specs of what my system supports and then I'll go wherever I want to actually buy it (typically, I use newegg).

I just finished reading the last paragraph of your post (I tend to stop halfway through sometimes and answer before I'm fully informed) and saw the "Mac only" comments.  I'm not sure of the context I said that in (and I hope it was correct for the context) but as far as what components are used to make the ram stick, that's true.  Macs use Intel hardware so the memory chips in a Mac dimm are the same as memory chips in a "PC/Windows/Linux/Blah" mem stick and as long as the specs of the memory are supported, and it can physically fit in your system, it should work.

Now, laptops are a special breed.  Windows-based laptops (Dell, Asus, Toshiba, etc) typically use a standard form-factor for their ram dimms (so-dimm is the form factor).  I haven't ever had to work on a Mac (old or recent) so have no clue whether they conform to this form factor or not.  If so, you should be good.  But if your laptop model uses a proprietary form factor, then that might be the "Mac only" aspect of the advertisement.

Here's the wiki page to the "SO-DIMM" form factor typically used in laptops today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SO-DIMM

christ is a far better source of information on this (as well as a plethora of other subjects) so helpfully this will tide you over until he's able to grace us with his presence.

Get it?  "christ"...."grace"...

[smokester]

This is also a good link for info:

http://appsliced.co/memory/imac

[6pairsofshoes]

iMacs are desktop computers.  This is a mid 2010 21.5 inch iMac with 4G of RAM and it has a 3.2 GHz intel Core i3 processor.  The link says it has 4 slots, which suggests to me that it has probably got 4 1G DIMMs?

I wish somebody would just show me a photo of one of these babies with their clothes off so I could see the guts and figure it out for myself.  Your link suggests I could buy an 8G kit with 2 4G DIMMs but does this mean I can buy two kits and run 16 G or does the manufacturer keep the upgrade limited to 8G total?  Also, are some of the DIMMs already in the machine soldered so I can only swap out two of them?  I guess I could turn it off, unscrew the slot and look in there but I'm loathe to start trying to pry stuff out that might be soldered in.  I also would prefer not to damage the thing, given it's the best and newest computer I currently run.

[dweez]

Ah sorry.  So it's a "mid 2010 21.5 inch iMac".  Based on christ's url here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT1423#two

it has 4 mem slots, supports up to 16GB of RAM (4x4GB SO-DIMMs) so yes, you should be able to by 2 of the 2x4GB kits to use, as long as they are the proper specs (Unbuffered Nonparity 204-pin 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM).

[smokester]

The macbook I bought has a maximum of 8gb of RAM (officially) but apparently it works fine with 16gb.  There are RAM kits specifically for it.

There is a rumour that yours will host 32gb but I'm not sure about the i3? Perhaps it's worth investigating before you take the plunge.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/owc-is-now-selling-32gb-ram-kits-for-2010-imacs.1127367/

[6pairsofshoes]

Thank you all for the useful links and info.  The apple link is great.  chrisT, the second link you posted leads to a 404 error page not found, but I'm pretty sure I can locate the DIMMs necessary, especially given that dweez posted one earlier.

And, smokes, it's useful to get the info about the capacity because so far I've not been able to get a straight answer about this.  I'll try for the 16G upgrade.  I'm sure that will knock the socks off the current sluggish performance.  It's been driving me batty for a while, so this should be pretty straightforward.  I'll report back when the deed is done.  Thanks in the meantime for all the help!

[smokester]

Yes, looking further into it, it seems the i3 maxes out at 16gb.

That's a shame.

[dweez]

It's not christ's link that's broken, it's the forum's "linkification".  The asterisk breaks the linkifcation.

You can click here or copy/paste it from the code box below.

Code: [Select]

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Apple/imac-%2821*5-and-27-inch%2C-mid-2010%29

[6pairsofshoes]

Thanks, dweez, chrisT.  I now know what to buy, and it seems like for $120 US, I can upgrade from 4G to 16G.  That's got to speed things  up a bit.  The slowdown apparently happened when I upgraded to the current OS.  It's been running at a snail's pace, and even the keyboard is sluggish.  I hit keys and they don't register for a significantly long interval.  Hopefully, this upgrade will improve the function.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'll be happy with 4 x 4G DIMMs.  16G should make this thing seem like the Millenium Falcon compared to its present state.