Problem Finally Solved... Bad RAM

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I post the following to help other Mac users learn from the problems I had and finally resolved after much trial and tribulation.

Let me start at the beginning... Along time ago, about six years ago, I purchased a late 2009 iMac 27", 1Tb drive, and I immediately upgraded the RAM to a full 16Gb (4x4Gb sticks). It ran flawlessly for many years.

Then, about a year ago, my trusty iMac began to develop erratic and random crashes once every few weeks. The crashes persisted and increased, and began corrupting my Outlook email. I lived with the problem, rebuilding the Outlook database, and thinking it must be crappy software compatibility issues on an older computer.

As the frequency of crashes increased to several times a week, my problems got worse when my TimeMachine backups became unusable. I then figured my iMac had a hardware issue, probably a bad hard drive or maybe a bad power supply. In fact I ended up returning 2 external hard drives to Western Digital under warrantee since Disk Utilities could not fix them and they were making strange clicking noises. I tried reinstalling the operating system (multiple times), took the computer to the Genius Bar twice, replaced the internal hard drive (twice), replaced the optical drive with an SSD drive (amazing upgrade!!!) and moved the OS to the SSD drive, even hired a really experienced Mac consultant.

Nothing I tried worked. My crashes continued and increased with frequency to daily crashes to multiple times a day crashes. This iMac was literally wasting my life away as I tried every thing I could think of to resolve it. The crashes got so bad and frequent, I could not get anything done, even backing up the computer. Finally, after having SEVEN crashes in one day, I decided to call it quits and reluctantly ordered a new iMac Retina.

As I waited for my iMac Retina to get built and delivered, and still not quite completely defeated by my once trusty iMac, I did a few web searches for random crashes on an iMac to see if others had the problems I was having. Everything I had found were issues I had addressed or didn't think concerned me. One forum I looked at (it was here in Mac Forums but I do not recall which) said bad RAM could cause random crashes, and mentioned to run RAM check software on new RAM. I initially discounted this a advise, thinking my RAM was 6 years old and had been running perfectly for YEARS. But at my whits end, I downloaded and ran the app Rember just to see if this might be a problem. I was so certain this was just another waste of time down another dead end. Sure enough, within minutes, the tests showed faulty RAM. I was ecstatic: I finally found the problem!!!

I decided I would find the exact problem RAM stick that was causing me such frustration. After about half a dozen boot ups switching out my RAM in different positions and running ever more RAM tests, I isolated the problem to one RAM stick. Once I removed the faulty RAM from the computer, this completely fixed all my crashes. It's been over 1 week with my computer running 24/7 and not one single crash!!! I've even tried running tons of apps all at once. No crashes!!!

Initially I was running just 2 of the 4 RAM sticks. Some further research suggested I could run just fine with 3 identical RAM sticks, so I tried this. I'm pleased to report that my iMac is purring along with 12Gb of RAM on 3x4GB sticks. And still, no crashes!

I hope this story of woes and finally success helps other Mac uses who are pulling their hair out with random crashes. It might just be bad RAM.
 

pigoo3

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I hope this story of woes and finally success helps other Mac uses who are pulling their hair out with random crashes. It might just be bad RAM.

Thanks for the detailed account of your iMac troubles...and how you finally found the cause of the crashing.

You should have joined Mac-Forums sooner...I'm sure we could have helped you out.:) We actually run into this sort of situation fairly frequently (computer crashing & bad ram being the culprit). But I'm sure you learned quite a bit figuring it out.:)

- Nick

p.s. By the way. Glad the ram may be bad idea was initiated via the Mac-Forums search you did!:)
 
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chas_m

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Wow, thanks for posting this. It is certain to help someone at their wit's end.
 
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RAM can make or break a system quick like..
 
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Thanks for the nice replies.Yes, I wish I had joined here earlier. A long time reader and lurker.

By the way, the RAM checking app I used is called Rember. It's free.
Rember - Kelley Computing

I also used Tech Tool Pro with good success. But Rember is much more comprehensive for RAM tests and offers much better testing parameters. And it's free. Tech Tool Pro is about $100 with a prettier interface, but no where near as robust tools for testing RAM.

I strongly suggest when using any sort of RAM testing software to begin with a fresh reboot and only have the RAM testing software open. The reality is only free, unused RAM will be tested. The OS and other open apps utilize a portion of RAM that will not be checked when you run the RAM tests.
 
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Thanks for the nice replies.Yes, I wish I had joined here earlier. A long time reader and lurker.

By the way, the RAM checking app I used is called Rember. It's free.
Rember - Kelley Computing

I also used Tech Tool Pro with good success. But Rember is much more comprehensive for RAM tests and offers much better testing parameters. And it's free....s.

I will keep that in mind.. I just ordered new RAM for my system (2x 8GB sticks) from OWC and will want to test those after I install them.
 
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My experience, too! I was fighting crashes for 2 years, hating my iMac more by the day. It was to the point it was just about unusable and I contemplated buying a cheap Windows-something for the interim. On a whim, I removed and ultimately replaced my RAM under warranty and NO more crashes.

Also, I bought from a recommended dealer - not some cheap eBay knock-off RAM, so even the 'good stuff' can be defective.

Sweet relief indeed.
 

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I had an almost identical problem with ram for a G5 years ago. I had the vendor install a couple of ram sticks. The problems started immediately. Took me a good while to work out the issue.

Like you I used Tech Tool Pro, The Apple Hardware Test and Rember trying to diagnose the problem. I finally resorted to using an earlier version of Memtest OS X. Meatiest found the problem immediately where other programs failed.

At the time I rain the test Memtest could test more of the Macs memory than Rember. I believe the reason given at the time was that Remember used a little more memory during operation due to the GUI. Meatiest ran in single user mode.
 
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The weird thing for me was that the original RAM was running (near) perfectly for almost 5 years and then ever so slowly the RAM started to degrade with more and more frequent crashes over the course of a year. Looking back from the first five years of use, I did get a crash about once every two months, But this could just have been a combination of user error and bloated software issues like running FireFox with 3 dozen tabs and windows open at once.

One thing I should add is that when I conducted the memory tests a few weeks ago when I was having multiple crashes per day with the damaged RAM stick installed, the RAM checking tests sometimes passed showing no errors. Bad RAM can be really tricky to find, with seemingly random intermittent diagnosis, working great for a while and then failing with what appears to be complete randomness in frequenty or application. I wonder if I had tried running the RAM tests six months ago when my computer was only crashing once every few weeks, would the RAM testing software been able to find the faulty RAM?

In the future when I suspect that my RAM may be faulty I will do the following: 1) let the RAM tests run and loop/repeat for hours. Once I am satisfied with positive results, 2) physically remove and reorder all the RAM (with the computer shut off and me grounded) and 3) retest the RAM.
 
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I should add one more important piece of information: Still not one single crash since I removed the faulty RAM almost 2 weeks ago. It actually feels strange to have no crashes. I got so used to the frequent crashes that I'm strangely expecting one to happen any minute!
 
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Those RAM tests didn't show issues with my situation either, which is why my problems lasted 2 years leaving me to believe the RAM was good.
Lesson learned: By the RAM from Apple configured OEM. I know it's more expensive, but I don't want to go through this again.
 

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Those RAM tests didn't show issues with my situation either, which is why my problems lasted 2 years leaving me to believe the RAM was good.
Lesson learned: By the RAM from Apple configured OEM. I know it's more expensive, but I don't want to go through this again.

If I am understanding you correctly you're suggesting that we only use ram purchased from Apple?

If that's the suggestion I can't agree with you there. Although getting ram that has the proper specs for your Mac is important as is buying from a reliable source. I can't agree with only buying from Apple for the following reasons:

1. Depending upon the type of memory needed the additional cost can be significant.
2. Over the years the memory that Apple has provided as OEM memory has been supplied by several different vendors IIRC.
 
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Yes. I simply don't want to ever go through the "stress" of having an expensive paper weight again. I bought my memory from OWC, like I was supposed to according to MacForums. I did everything right, but it still failed.

What I'm saying is I am willing to get ripped-off by buying Apple memory pre-configured.

I know 99 and 44/100% of Apple users don't have problems with aftermarket memory, but I did.
 
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Yes. I simply don't want to ever go through the "stress" of having an expensive paper weight again. I bought my memory from OWC, like I was supposed to according to MacForums. I did everything right, but it still failed.

What I'm saying is I am willing to get ripped-off by buying Apple memory pre-configured.

I know 99 and 44/100% of Apple users don't have problems with aftermarket memory, but I did.

You got your RAM from OWC? Have you contacted them? They too have warranties and will replace defective RAM within the warranty period. BTW, all memory (no matter who makes it, and if you buy it from Apple it's one of the same few suppliers everyone else OEMs from) is subject to failure. It happens.
 
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Yes, they replaced it no questions asked. Great customer service and this is for 2 plus years old RAM.
 
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Yes, they replaced it no questions asked. Great customer service and this is for 2 plus years old RAM.

Cool. This is exactly why I recommend them :)
 
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I am the original poster of this thread. And I have an interesting follow up update to my bad RAM problems.

After I isolated the one bad RAM chip in my computer (as I reported in the first post of this thread), everything ran great for several weeks on the remaining 3 4Gb RAM chips. And I was extremely happy to have my computer not crashing at all...

And then one day last week, after weeks of not a single crash, a random crash out of nowhere. I rebooted and continued working. But the next day another random crash happened. This time I was unable to reboot from my internal hard drive. I couldn't even get the Recovery option to show up. So I booted from an external backup. The backup drive ran fine for a few hours, and during this time I ran TechTool and tested my RAM. Sure enough, the existing RAM repeatedly failed the tests.

Next, I began working to fix my internal hard drive, and then another crash. When I tried to reboot, neither the internal or external drives were bootable. I figured the bad RAM was corrupting data on my hard drives and rendering them unbootable.

At this point I decided to replace ALL the old RAM with brand new RAM from Crucial (ordered through Amazon, 2 8Gb kits for 16 Gb total at $65 each or $130 total). It took me some time to get my 3rd backup copied back onto my internal SSD. But now my computer is now back up and running perfectly. I have done a number of RAM tests and all have passed perfectly.

I can't quite figure out why my original RAM started failing after over 6 years of working great. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the new RAM will run without problems.
 

pigoo3

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But now my computer is now back up and running perfectly. I have done a number of RAM tests and all have passed perfectly.

Sounds awesome.:) From a troubleshooting perspective certainly pretty frustrating when more then one stick of ram is bad.

I can't quite figure out why my original RAM started failing after over 6 years of working great.

Oh I can come up with a reason…NOTHING lasts forever!;) This includes tires on your car, socks, old pizza, and sticks of ram.;)

But…considering that it sounds like multiple sticks of ram were bad…it is always possible something electrical could have happened. Like a rare & unusual electrical surge. Or it's always possible something happened during assembly/disassembly of the computer (not grounded properly).

Congrats again…and thanks for the update!:)

-Nick
 
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...By the way, the RAM checking app I used is called Rember. It's free.
Rember - Kelley Computing...
I will keep that in mind.. I just ordered new RAM for my system (2x 8GB sticks) from OWC and will want to test those after I install them.

As will I. I'm getting a new late 2013 27" iMac with 8 GB ram. I'll be ordering 2 4gig sticks from Crucial, I will definitely be utilizing Rember.

Many thanks, morerice, for the detailed post regarding your experience and for sharing the link!
 
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Backups

Many thanks, morerice, for the detailed post regarding your experience and for sharing the link!

You are most welcome! I wasted A LOT of time trying to figure out why my computer was corrupting my data and crashing. I am glad that others are benefiting and learning from my experiences.

One of the best lessons I have learned from having these computer problems is the necessity of LOTS of recent backups. Bad RAM can corrupt your data that written to hard drives rending them pretty useless. In my late 2009 iMac 27" the main internal boot disk a 256 Gb SSD and a second internal 1Tb hard drive. I use 3 2Tb external portable hard drives as backups. One is always plugged in with 2 partitions: one doing hourly TimeMachine backups and the other a clone of the internal SSD. For the others, I partitioned them as well into 2 partitions, 256GB and 1750Gb. I have been using SuperDuper! to make clones of my internal SSD and HD about every 1-2 weeks.
 

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