unknown capacity of mac pro fb-dimm

[brettotte1]

I purchased 2 2006-2008 Original Mac Pro Model A1186 2.66ghz quadcore.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-2.66-specs.html
They have a variety of FB-DIMM RAM installed in pairs, but they all have labels from 3rd party vendors EXCEPT one RAM board has 4 sticks & the only thing on the labels is a barcode that says:

Removal will voice Warranty, CE Rohs, 1203138 (1203139, 1203140, 1203141), April 2016. There's no brand name or capacity, just the manufacture date or perhaps a 10 year warranty expiration date?

I have no SATA hard drive nor do I have Mac OS X in order to boot up & just click About This Mac. Is there any way to determine each stick of RAM's capacity?

 

[chscag]

Normally each module will have a series of numbers and letters on it which tells its capacity and manufacturer. Have you tried to remove the modules to see if there is anything on the backside? They're very likely ECC modules and should have some type of nomenclature written on them.

 

[brettotte1]

I did. I even took the 4 metal clips off the heatsink on each one to clean them as they were extremely dusty, but there's nothing on them. no brand name, nothing.

 

[chscag]

That's really unusual. We have several folks in our forums who deal with and own Mac Pro machines. Maybe one of them will tune in and offer an explanation. But without being able to boot the machine and run Info on it, I don't know of a way to determine the capacity of those modules.

 

[brettotte1]

Picture

 

[brettotte1]

 

[chscag]

Looks like you will need a barcode reader to maybe find out what the denomination is. Do you have an iPhone? I believe there is either one or more apps in the iOS App Store that consists of a barcode reader. That might work unless someone else can offer an idea.

 

[brettotte1]

I downloaded 2 barcode reader apps on Android & didn't get any results

 

[brettotte1]

i also posted on tom's hardware forum and got the suggestion to make a USB bootable image of memtest86 on my windows laptop and held down the Option key on the mac while booting and I have 4 sticks of 2gb each of pc6400 fbdimm ram!

 

[chscag]

Hey, thanks for posting back. 4 x 2GB = 8GB. Not very much for a Mac Pro, but you can always beef that up. OWC (Mac Sales) is a good place to buy ECC memory for your Mac Pro. Have fun.

Apple Mac Upgrades - RAM, SSD Flash, External Drives and More

 

[pm-r]

i also posted on tom's hardware forum and got the suggestion to make a USB bootable image of memtest86 on my windows laptop and held down the Option key on the mac while booting and I have 4 sticks of 2gb each of pc6400 fbdimm ram!

I was just about to post that it looks like you found your answer:

It worked! i made a USB bootable image on my windows laptop and held down the Option key on the mac while booting and I have 4 sticks of 2gb each of pc6400 fbdimm ram! thanks!

Question - unknown capacity of mac pro fb-dimm | Tom's Hardware Forum

That was a good clever thinking suggestion.




- Patrick
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