How do chipset RAM limits work?

Serious_Scrub

I currently have a core duo macbook, which from what I can tell, can only support 2 gigs of RAM. One of my RAM slots is not working, and so I'm currently down to a single 1GB stick.
Does the 2 gigabyte RAM limit mean that each slot is limited to 1GB max, or can a single 2GB stick work as well? I would imagine that a single 2GB stick would work, but I'd like to have confirmation about this

ThornMartin

Which Macbook do you have? According to the tech specs, the current version supports up to 4GB of RAM. Typically, that means that if there are 2 slots, each slot would support sticks up to 2GB.

EDIT: According to wikipedia, every version since the earliest ones support up to 4GB. So, unless you have one of the early versions, you should be able to upgrade to a 2GB stick in the good slot.

To actually answer your question, if you do have one of the early versions, I think you might be stuck at 1GB if one of your slots is fried.

mspencer

I believe the actual physical limit is per-slot, and then the per-slot limit is multiplied out to give them an easy "max RAM" number to put on the box. So if the max is 2 GB and you have two slots, a single 2 GB module in one slot will probably give you errors. (It'll be recognized as 1 GB, or it'll be recognized as 2 GB but you'll have errors if your OS tries to use all 2 GB.) With exceptions for weird architectures, generally you can take the max RAM and divide by the number of slots, and that's the max module size you can put in any given slot.

ZackSchilling

OWC, a great Mac upgrade retailer, lists their Macbook 2 GB single module ($23, by the way) explicitly for Core 2 Duo Macbooks only. The 1 GB individual and matched sets are listed as for ALL Macbooks. They are usually excellent about knowing their stuff, so I'd take that explicit product description as confirmation that you've got a hard 1 GB limit, sorry.

They also have the following to say on their Macbook RAM page:

* MacBook 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz models with Core Duo support maximum of 2.0GB memory installed

**MacBook 1.83GHz*** and 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Models (May/2007) support maximum of 4.0GB memory installed, MacBook 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo ‘Santa Rosa’ (Nov/2007) models support maximum of 6.0GB memory installed.

***MacBook Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz and 2.16GHz (late/2006-Mid/2007) models are able to accept a matched pair of 2GB modules for 4.0GB total, but only fully utilize the first 3.0GB of installed memory. Even so, even with these systems, there is some benefit to having the matched pair of 4.0GB installed (View Benchmarks).

elliotw2

An advisory, Don't buy "Apple" ram, in most cases, it's normal DDR2 ram with an Apple logo and higher prices.

A single 2GB stick should work fine however, and all on This link should work in it

maximumzero

Personally I'm still a little bummed that my iMac only maxes out at 4GB. (That and grr at the new video cards)

But at the same time no fucking way would I have waited a whole 'nother year to get the current model.