Can i add ram slots?

I have G5 Tower dual 1.8ghz pwer pc G5 OSX 10.5.8 7.3, it has 2 memory slots that can hold either 4 512 sticks, or 4 1 gig sticks of ram. there is room to install more slots. does anyone know of this happening. I just want to add 2 more slots to put 2 more 512 sticks.

Someone who is more familiar with the inner workings of the G5 tower will have to answer this for you. Our moderator "Nick" is our local expert on older Macs and should be able to advise you when he tunes in.

Another suggestion is to place 2 x 4GB modules in the G5. Buy from Mac Specialists OWC or Crucial. your G5 will handle up to 8GB of memory.

OWC OWC42ECDDR2M4GP 4GB PC4200 ECC Matched Pair (2... in stock at OWC

If yours is the '04 model...

I don't have a clue. And, unless you just happen to find someone that did exactly that to the same model...

I think you're going to have to find and compare a tear down of the dual 1.8 vs. the dual 2.0 (which had 8 slots) - both mid '04 models to see if it was merely a riser card Apple added to the dual 2.0 or if they used 2 different system boards.

(You have 4 slots - not 2 - or you couldn't put 4 sticks in it as each stick requires it's own slot.)

You could also pick up the phone and call OWC - link by harry above - if they're willing to sell 2 GB sticks for your machine - I'd bet it will work.

MacForever said:

...it has 2 memory slots that can hold either 4 512 sticks, or 4 1 gig sticks of ram.

Click to expand...

As bobtomay mentioned…you clearly have 4 ram slots (not just two as mentioned above).

The Powermac G5 models came with either 4 ram slots or 8 ram slots. I'm going to say that the lower cost/lower end models came with only 4 slots. I have had both types. On the logic board it can be clearly seen where the additional 4 ram slots would have gone (if it was a higher end model).

Bottom line (as far as I know)...you cannot "add" more ram slots to a Powermac G5. A Powermac G5 with 4 ram slots has a max. ram of 4gig. And a Powermac G5 with 8 slots has a max. ram of 8gig.

Technically…the only way to "add" ram slots..would be to swap out the current logic board for a Powermac G5 logic board with 8 ram slots. But this would probably not be a good idea financially (unless you could find a working Powermac G5 logic board with 8 ram slots for very very cheap). And it would be quite a bit of work doing the swap.

HTH,

- Nick

If this is possible without changing the logic board, which I doubt, harryb228 probably has the cheapest solution. Substitute higher capacity chips for the ones that are in there now. Even if it were possible to add slots it seems to me there is lots of room for problems/incompatibilities.

I'm pretty sure that all of the single & dual cpu Powermac G5's can only use 1gig ram modules. That's why the 4 ram slot models max. out at 4gig of ram…and 8 slot models max. out at 8gig of ram.

The later dual-core and quad-core models all had 8 ram slots…and all of them max. out at 16gig of ram. But even these models don't use 4gig ram modules…they use 2gig ram modules. So for a max. ram setup…they use 8 x 2gig ram.

Thus no Powermac G5's use 4gig ram modules.

As far as I can tell…it's a bit unclear how much ram (or how any ram slots are currently filled)…in the OP's Powermac G5. But I'm thinking that if 4 x 1gig ram modules were used (4gig total)…that would be more total ram then the OP was thinking of doing (since they were talking about installing more 512meg modules).

- Nick

i guess the only way to tell is to have an old g5 and try the empty slots or get a 2.5, but thx everyone.