4GB Ram + 10.5.8 = Hang on Boot?!

[poopmonkey]

Hey guys I have a Acer Aspire 5600. Recently, I bought myself a 4gb ram kit for this laptop. The laptop does support up to 4GB of ram. So before the upgrade I had only 1.5GB of ram. Leopard would boot perfectly fine, everything worked and nothing ever gave me a panic or crash. Now once I pop in my new 4GB kit into my laptop, windows boots perfectly yet Leopard hangs on boot. If I take one of the sticks out and leave just 2GB of ram, it works fine. Is there some sort of kext I can install to make it work with 4GB? I even memtested this ram and its stable no errors whatsoever. Could anyone please help me out?

[poopmonkey]

Bump.

[poopmonkey]

Ok, I really am drawing a blank. Leopard will work when I put in a 512MB stick and one new 2GB stick but not one 1GB stick and one new 2GB nor two new 2GB sticks. Can anyone please help me out here?

[Gringo Vermelho]

If you were using a patched DSDT before adding more RAM you need to extract your DSDT again with all 4GB installed. Search the new DSDT for the word operationregion and replace the values in the old DSDT with the values you find in the new one.

 

Better yet, start fresh with the new DSDT and add your modifications to it.

 

btw, instead of removing the ram you can just boot with maxmem=2048 or whatever amount works for you.

[poopmonkey]

I'm not actually sure. I mean I have reinstalled it a few times with 4GB installed. Though I did not do this via a retail Leopard disc nor Snow Leopard disc. I used iDeneb 10.5.8 Lite Edition to install it. From what I can see in verbose mode it seems like perhaps VoodooHDA might be having a problem with the 4GB. I noticed that it posts differently on Verbose with 2.5GB VS 4GB.

[poopmonkey]

Also, I have noticed that my chipset even though i945GM is documented to support 4GB on manufacturer's sites, people have stated that there is a hardware limitation that the chipset does not support memory remapping for the 4GB. So in my bios I only see 3GB yet in like programs such as CPU-Z I can see I have 4GB just not 4GB effective just 3GB unfortunately. So I am wondering can this present a problem for Leopard? I mean Windows would perfectly. Yet, even with a 2GB stick and 1GB stick Leopard does not work. The only way Leopard worked would be in these configurations:

 

Single 2GB Ram Stick

512Mb stick plus 1GB Ram Stick

2GB Ram stick plus 512Mb Ram Stick

 

Any other config hangs the bootup of Leopard.

[poopmonkey]

Anyone got a clue?

[poopmonkey]

The maxmem kernel flag does not seem to work. For example, if I pop in the 512mb stick and a 2gb stick of ram they mac works. Though if I pop in the two 2gb sticks equaling 4gb and then set the kernel flag maxmem=2559 then it does not work. It seems like my VoodooHDADevice and my GMA950 both have like driver issues. GMA950's codecs timeout and VoodooHDADevice does not see its device IDs.

[poopmonkey]

After trying for a few hours last night, I have ran out of ideas. I'm about to give up? Anyone wanna guess why this hang on boot is happening?

[dothacker]

I say just run it with 2.5GB ram. and use the other 2gb somewhere else not worth the headache. Id rather have a good working hackintosh than have a nonworking supped up one.

[poopmonkey]

Thanks for the advice but this is just settling with the problem. I don't wanna run 2.5gb cause not only is it less, the 512mb stick is a slower ram stick and the 2gb needs to be clocked down. I wanna use the two 2gb kit so at least I get 3gb and I get the max dual channel performance. I mean I see no reason why it should wouldnt work yet it doesnt. Also, I have no where else to use this ram so I'd really like to get this done.

[poopmonkey]

Anyone willing to drop a hint?

[poopmonkey]

BUMP.

[poopmonkey]

I'm guessing nobody has any clue?

[poopmonkey]

BUMP!

[verdant]

BUMP!

 

It may be an Acer 5601 BIOS issue......try updating your BIOS as some have had success with the 3128 BIOS......see posts here.........

[poopmonkey]

I have the 3128 Bios. Im not sure reflashing with the same bios will help. I have updated it before I even had the 4gig in. Thank you for the suggestion though. And thank you also to the previous posters!

[verdant]

I have the 3128 Bios. Im not sure reflashing with the same bios will help. I have updated it before I even had the 4gig in. Thank you for the suggestion though. And thank you also to the previous posters!

 

You then need to check your RAM specs carefully......2 x 2GB Kingston [KVR533D2S4/2G] PC4200 ( DDR2 533 MHz) SODIMMs are reported to work fine with the 3128 BIOS.....

[poopmonkey]

I have 2x2gigs PC2-5300 Mushkin DDR2 667MHz Ram. I have, before I bought it, consulted with my owner's manual and the chipset does support either 533Mhz or 667Mhz Ram, 4 gigs max with 2 gigs for each slot. I can boot windows completely fine with 4Gigs popped in. I have ran memtest on the ram and I got no errors. I also have made sure there is enough voltage for the sticks and yes my slots support 1.8v and the sticks are rated for that. Overall, I do not believe that this is a issue with the ram since if it was I think my Windows would be affected as well but the only item being picky is Macintosh 10.5.8 installed via iDeneb.

[verdant]

I have 2x2gigs PC2-5300 Mushkin DDR2 667MHz Ram. I have, before I bought it, consulted with my owner's manual and the chipset does support either 533Mhz or 667Mhz Ram, 4 gigs max with 2 gigs for each slot. I can boot windows completely fine with 4Gigs popped in. I have ran memtest on the ram and I got no errors. I also have made sure there is enough voltage for the sticks and yes my slots support 1.8v and the sticks are rated for that. Overall, I do not believe that this is a issue with the ram since if it was I think my Windows would be affected as well but the only item being picky is Macintosh 10.5.8 installed via iDeneb.

 

OS X can be "picky" about the RAM it recognises.......in Leopard 10.5.8, download and run HighLoad with each of your RAM modules installed individually........have you tried downrating the RAM in BIOS to 533MHz to see if OS X can then work with 4GB running at 533MHz.....?

[poopmonkey]

I haven't tried Highload yet but my bios on this laptop is extremely restrictive. I mean there are hardly any options that the only things I can do are set the time adjust my GMA950 memory and switch boot device priority. Thank you so much for being helpful I will try Highload and report back.

[poopmonkey]

Module 1

Last login: Sun Dec  5 15:45:48 on console
/Users/PR/Desktop/HighLoad.app/Contents/Resources/memtest; exit;
prs-mac-pro:~ PR$ /Users/PR/Desktop/HighLoad.app/Contents/Resources/memtest; exit;

Memtest version 4.2 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2004 Charles Cazabon
Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006 Tony Scaminaci (Macintosh ports)
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 only

NOTE: No command-line arguments have been specified
Using defaults: Test all available memory, one test pass, no logfile

Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L30) running in single user mode
Memory Page Size: 4096
System has 2 Intel processor(s) with SSE
Requested memory: 1650MB (1730506752 bytes)
Available memory: 1650MB (1730506752 bytes)
NOTE: Memory request is too large, reducing to acceptable value...
Allocated memory: 1604MB (1682052544 bytes) at local address 0x0000000101000000
Attempting memory lock... locked successfully
Partitioning memory into 2 comparison buffers...
Buffer A: 802MB (841026272 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000101000000
Buffer B: 802MB (841026272 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000133210ae0

Running 1 test sequence... (CTRL-C to quit)

Test sequence 1 of 1:

Running tests on full 1604MB region...
 Stuck Address	   : ok			  
 Linear PRN		  : ok			  
Running comparison tests using 802MB buffers...
 Random Value		: ok 
 Compare XOR		 : ok 
 Compare SUB		 : ok 
 Compare MUL		 : ok 
 Compare DIV		 : ok 
 Compare OR		  : ok 
 Compare AND		 : ok 
 Sequential Increment: ok 
 Solid Bits		  : ok			  
 Block Sequential	: ok				 
 Checkerboard		: ok			  
 Bit Spread		  : ok				
 Bit Flip			: ok				
 Walking Ones		: ok				
 Walking Zeroes	  : ok			  

All tests passed!  Execution time: 2192 seconds.

logout

[Process completed]

 

Module 2

Last login: Sun Dec  5 16:32:26 on console
/Users/PR/Desktop/HighLoad.app/Contents/Resources/memtest; exit;
prs-mac-pro:~ PR$ /Users/PR/Desktop/HighLoad.app/Contents/Resources/memtest; exit;

Memtest version 4.2 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2004 Charles Cazabon
Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006 Tony Scaminaci (Macintosh ports)
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 only

NOTE: No command-line arguments have been specified
Using defaults: Test all available memory, one test pass, no logfile

Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L30) running in single user mode
Memory Page Size: 4096
System has 2 Intel processor(s) with SSE
Requested memory: 1648MB (1728806912 bytes)
Available memory: 1648MB (1728806912 bytes)
NOTE: Memory request is too large, reducing to acceptable value...
Allocated memory: 1602MB (1680400256 bytes) at local address 0x0000000101000000
Attempting memory lock... locked successfully
Partitioning memory into 2 comparison buffers...
Buffer A: 801MB (840200128 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000101000000
Buffer B: 801MB (840200128 bytes) starts at local address 0x0000000133146fc0

Running 1 test sequence... (CTRL-C to quit)

Test sequence 1 of 1:

Running tests on full 1602MB region...
 Stuck Address	   : ok			  
 Linear PRN		  : ok			  
Running comparison tests using 801MB buffers...
 Random Value		: ok 
 Compare XOR		 : ok 
 Compare SUB		 : ok 
 Compare MUL		 : ok 
 Compare DIV		 : ok 
 Compare OR		  : ok 
 Compare AND		 : ok 
 Sequential Increment: ok 
 Solid Bits		  : ok			  
 Block Sequential	: ok				 
 Checkerboard		: ok			  
 Bit Spread		  : ok				
 Bit Flip			: ok				
 Walking Ones		: ok				
 Walking Zeroes	  : ok			  

All tests passed!  Execution time: 2225 seconds.

logout

[Process completed]

 

Overall, you didnt quite tell me what to do with Highload so I used common sense and just tested the ram. I have tested my 2x2gigs sticks individually with nothing running in the background just Highload. It seems like this is just a OSX-based Memtest and both sticks passed all tests again. Anyways, my logs are above for both modules.

[verdant]

@ poopmonkey

 

Assuming that the RAM is OK in OS X, try booting with maxmem=3702 and then raising it by 32 each time until you get freeze.......

[poopmonkey]

I have tried maxmem flags before. I have tried:

 

4096

3062

3702

2048

2559

 

None worked. All hang. No Panics just a hang. From what I see happening in the -v is that my VoodooHDADevice posts differently and my GMA950 also posts differently then when I am running only on one stick.

 

 

I even tried to edit it in the apple boot.plist and it still just hanged on boot. Even if I put both ram sticks in and set the ram amount as much as I know that is with the 2gb + 512mb config which works. But it still have not worked when I entered it. I even tried just setting it as the amount of one stick and it has not worked. I stated it earlier in the thread but perhaps you missed it. Supposedly, my chipset 945GM does support 4gb of ram but can only use 3gb of ram because it is limited by its hardware since it does not have memory remapping. Anyways, even though Im losing out on a 1gb Id still like to use my two mushkin sticks.

[verdant]

@ poopmonkey

 

If your BIOS does not enable PAE, you should be able to use 3.25 GB out of the 4GB.....