upgrade ram yourself or through apple?

I'm curious to know for those of you that upgraded your RAM, if you upgraded through apple or if you purchased the memory sticks from a 3rd party such as crucial and did it yourself? I'm guessing that if you had a problem with your imac and apple discovered that you had 3rd party equipment on the computer, wouldn't that technically void the warranty?

Curious to know what your opinions are. Thanks in advance.

Upgrading RAM does not void your warranty. Apple even shows you how to do this in your User Guide. It is very simple and also cheaper to do it yourself instead of paying Apple to do it.

Here's the newest iMac User Guide: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/imac_mid2011_ug.pdf.
See Chapter 3, Page 36.

adding your own memory will not void your warranty. Think of getting a new monitor for your computer, that doesn't void the warranty. Neither does buying a new keyboard.

I got mine through OWC for a good price.

It can be significantly cheaper to upgrade the memory yourself rather than have Apple do it. You do have to make sure that the memory purchased matches the specs for your machine. OS X can be a bit picky about that.

BTW last time I checked the OWC site had some very good videos on replacing Mac memory and hard drives if you want to see it done before trying it yourself. Haven't checked to see whether videos of the new models are up yet though.

Hey guys, I just have a few questions to bounce off this thread.

1) My imac has 4 slots, 2 are occupied with 2gb sticks each. Can I add a single 4gb stick to one of the other two slots for a total of 8gb, or do I need to buy two more 2gb sticks?

2) The imac I have is has an i3 processor. When I searched on amazon for some ram, the ones that matched the specs the manual calls for says that they are specifically for laptops or are only for i5/i7. Can I safely buy those, or does my imac take a special size or is the ram related to my processor?

3) I want to buy from amazon bc I have a bunch of gift certificates... can anyone give me a link that will work for my mac?

I guess I'm just a little confused. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Even if you don't buy from there check out the memory configuration information at either OWC or Crucial. Either of them does a pretty good job at pulling up the correct memory.

Upgrade Apple iMac Memory & more

RAM Memory Upgrade: Dell, Mac, Apple, HP, Compaq. USB drives, SSD at Crucial.com - Run the Scan My System

I bought 16GB RAM and installed myself. It was easy and everything was good for a couple of months. But then I started getting random shutdowns. After some googling i realized many was having this problem. It seems the iMac is very picky about the RAM when running 16GB.

I switched it up so I now am running with 12GB and have not had any problems since. I would still upgrade myself because Apples prices for RAM are outrages, but you might wanna google wich RAM to get.

halfmonkey said:

I'm curious to know for those of you that upgraded your RAM, if you upgraded through apple or if you purchased the memory sticks from a 3rd party such as crucial and did it yourself? I'm guessing that if you had a problem with your imac and apple discovered that you had 3rd party equipment on the computer, wouldn't that technically void the warranty?

Curious to know what your opinions are. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Do it yourself. it isn't hard to do. If you get Apple to do some for you, you will pay anywhere from $100-300 extra.

May God Bless.

Ed

Toranaga said:

I bought 16GB RAM and installed myself. It was easy and everything was good for a couple of months. But then I started getting random shutdowns. After some googling i realized many was having this problem. It seems the iMac is very picky about the RAM when running 16GB.

I switched it up so I now am running with 12GB and have not had any problems since. I would still upgrade myself because Apples prices for RAM are outrages, but you might wanna google wich RAM to get.

Click to expand...

Out of interest as all my iMacs run on the original onboard 4gb RAM - WHAT sort of differences would you note when you stepped-up from 4 to 12gb ?
A general increase in speed only ?

Anybody please ??

I'm in the UK, and am thinking of adding another 8GB RAM to my new iMac myself. It's very hard to tell which RAM will work ok. Could anyone have a look at these and tell me if you think they are ok?

Corsair - Memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - DDR3 - 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 - CL9 - 1.5 V - unbuffered - non-ECC: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

and,



The tech guy on the Mushkin ones says he 'thinks' they would be ok?

Any advice much appreciated. Thanks

pedropete said:

Out of interest as all my iMacs run on the original onboard 4gb RAM - WHAT sort of differences would you note when you stepped-up from 4 to 12gb ?
A general increase in speed only ?

Click to expand...

Well I have never used it with less than 12GB so... RAM is so cheap that I just ordered the 16gb when I ordered the iMac. I use Lightroom a lot of Lightroom and just want it to have all the RAM it can use.

I have a friend though who bought the 8GB I removed so he went from 4 to 12GB and said he clearly noticed smoother operation.

I found the RAM at Crucial on-line. I just put the model of the iMac in and they tell you which RAM is right one. Was way cheaper than Apple RAM!!

Crucial RAM

Yesterday I received the new iMac 27 inch, 3.4 GHz, QuadCore, i7 computer. Today I increased the RAM from the minimum this computer ships with to 16GB.
I had ordered a 16 GB RAM kit from Crucial - as the computer has 4 slots for RAM and each of the modules was 4 GB, so of course 4 X 4 = 16 GB RAM.
I am a photographer and use Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 software. Sometimes CS5 files, with many layers, can get huge and Lightroom can also benefit from more RAM. Everything happens much faster with big CS5 files if you have more RAM. The install was very easy, pop 2 modules out and slide the 4 Crucial modules in! Installing/changing RAM is about the only change you can make to an iMac without taking the screen off - which requires special tools and someone good with their hands and that has an aptitude for working on things. Getting to the modules for changing RAM requires one small screwdriver to remove the RAM cover on the bottom edge of the iMac!

I did it myself, bought 2 4GB simms for $110. I didn't know better and installed it as my 27" iMac sat on my desk. All I did was pull it to the edge of my desk, tilt it back, unscrewed the two screws on the plate on the botton of the unit, the cover plate fell out, I oriented the simms and snapped them in, replaced the cover, fired it up and went into the system and bingo I had 12GB of RAM for less than $110.

It took me about 5 minutes to install.

Tom