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My neighbor is having some strange behavior in his G5 tower--in poking around, I found that he had his RAM installed wrong--4 sticks in the bottom set and two sticks in the upper set (my first clue was that the profiler claimed only 2.5gb when there should have been 4.5).
I got the RAM arranged correctly (and Sys Profiler now sees it all), but this other problem still exists.
Any guesses what problem I might be seeing? I'll give the answer in a little bit, just trying not to skew the guesses.
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What's the other problem?
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What's the other problem?
That's not much of a guess.
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I'm just looking for a list of known issues that may result from RAM that's not paired in a G5 Tower... also, whether this un-matched operation might have caused damage (that we could blame on an idiot repairman).
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Is some of the RAM showing the wrong capacity in the System Profiler?
Does a bank appear unpopulated in the System Profiler?
Are you really so lame that you're asking us to play this stupid guessing game?
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I have seniority over you Doc, so I get to decide if YOU are lame. If you don't like my game, don't play... and your guesses are appreciated, but incorrect.
Think more of something that's obvious without having to check any diagnostics.
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Although I'm not certain, I suppose having the memory installed incorrectly could cause users to try to do a backward method of troubleshooting, by trying to have people guess the problem rather than the cause of the problem.
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Physically, no known issues I am aware of. Of course, improperly inserted RAM can damage the slot, but that is the same whether matched or not. Basically, if the person who installed it could not use enough care to do it right, there is the possibility other steps such as proper static precautions were not taken. But not directly related to the non-matching install.
Beyond that, running with improperly match RAM can potentially corrupt files as they are read to memory, possibly then modified, and written back to disk. Might be worth backing up documents, wiping the disk, and then reinstall the OS and any applications for the original installer discs. May have to sort through settings files as you restore them to cull out any corrupted ones.
P.S. of course you could include a link to the original description of the problems you were seeing, anything listed here without that is just conjecture based on a minimum of information.
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It's not actually troubleshooting--the machine is as fixed as it's gonna get (is my guess).
SPOILER:
The video is screwed up. Any bright areas on screen are obscured by a pink and white elongated checkerboard pattern. It's like zebra-stripes in over-exposed areas on a camcorder. And, unfortunately, there's a lot of white onscreen in normal operation (including the menu bar and all menus).
If you switch to thousands of colors in display prefs, the machine is useable, but not exactly normal.
The video ran normally for about a week after the retread installed the RAM wrong, and then went bad all of a sudden. I don't suspect the monitor as there are two monitors attached that both got the same prob simultaneously.
I was going to suggest replacing the video card, but I wanted to know if we should bill the idiot repairman for it.
