Mac Book Pro, Upgradable ram?

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gaer42

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 28, 2004
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I am looking to buy a Mac Book Pro, and was wondering if it is upgradable with out sending it in. I want to get one with 2 gigs of ram and then swap them out for 4 gigs later (since it will be imensly cheaper to do it that way if it is possible).

Is this possible, or once you open the book is it like looking at a maze?
 
gaer42 said:
I am looking to buy a Mac Book Pro, and was wondering if it is upgradable with out sending it in. I want to get one with 2 gigs of ram and then swap them out for 4 gigs later (since it will be imensly cheaper to do it that way if it is possible).

Is this possible, or once you open the book is it like looking at a maze?
Click to expand...

its very simple to upgrade the ram in the macbook pro's.

2 Laptop screws and your in the ram compartment!
 
I upgraded my MBP to 4GB in 10 minutes. The screws are extremely tiny, so you'll need a very small screwdriver. They're also VERY tight and difficult to unscrew so be prepared for a struggle.
 
I don't have a Pro, just a black MB, but I was shocked they had moved away from "toolless RAM slots." I ended up having to go buy a small screwdriver set because I couldn't find any Phillips small enough! But the regular MB uses an "L-bracket" to hold the memory in, versus a door. A bit weird, but it worked out OK in the end (next week I'm gonna swap out that shitty Broadcom wifi with an Atheros card, which requires removing about 20 screws :eek:).

Word to the wise, though -- don't upgrade your RAM at all if you buy it at Apple.com. Talk about price gouging. I bought my MB from Newegg, so I also bought 2x2GB RAM for it for $120. This is an $850 option on Apple.com, lol.

So...if you plan on upgrading the RAM at all, just do it in one go and buy the RAM from a reputable hardware seller, NOT from Apple.
 
4GB upgrade from Apple: $800
4GB upgrade from NewEgg: $85

Anyone who buys RAM from Apple should have their driver's license revoked and voter's registration rescinded... PERMANENTLY!!!

I don't quite get Apple's reason to use such small screws. Maybe to discourage owners from self-upgrading?

INIT6 - Was it difficult to load Ubuntu on your MB? I'd love to install it on my MBP!
 
***Not trying to thread hijack, a mod is more than welcome to split this off if need be.

Mr. Wolf:

Both Apple and Newegg dropped the 4GB price? :eek: The 2x2GB Mushkin I bought wasn't the cheapest, but it had better reviews than the Patriot (which was also out of stock last week). I guess I didn't look farther than the first couple.

As far as Ubuntu on the MB (I don't have a Pro), I would say hold off if you have the latest Santa Rosa. This may not be a problem on the Pros, precisely because of the internals. The discrete video, being Nvidia, is definitely not a problem with Linux and should run "OOtB" (out of the box) with Gutsy's restricted drivers utility. The biggest problem I have on mine (I'm running Hardy on this, not Gutsy) is that the trackpad is full-on broken. I have it on good authority that this should be fixed in Hardy kernel updates this week, because apparently it's just a matter of finding the new Synaptic model ID in the code or something...it's out of my league. But supposedly it'll be fixed soon.

The biggest issue is this damn Broadcom wifi they started using. Atheros is beautiful in Linux and is widely regarded as one of the best wireless chipsets out there -- so per usual, Steve Jobs makes a change that pisses me off. I got the wifi working with ndiswrapper and it detected all the nearby WAPs but it absolutely refused to connect to my WPA2 network. My solution is swapping the SOB out for an Atheros, but that's obviously not a good choice for everyone.

Sound can be a bit problematic, and sometimes doesn't work by default, but a simple string addition to /etc/modules solves it.

Elsewhere, though, Hardy is just buggy as hell on my MacBook, a ton of stuff crashes on loading the desktop, and the X3100 video in the MBs is "blacklisted" as problematic but this should resolve itself soon enough. The GMA950 MBs run fine with no issues (for the most part). The MBPs with ATI are just...well...ATI is not a good card/chip for Linux. But with some wrangling it can be made to work fairly well (including 3D, Compiz, whatever). AMD and especially its ATI division have just totally dropped the ball when it comes to FOSS.

Bottom line - you can run Ubuntu very well on a MacBook (Pro) and given time I think Hardy will run quite well on it, too.
 
I picked up a 4GB Kingston from the Egg for $85 including free 3-day shipping back in early January. I just got lucky because they were running a free shipping promo at the time.

Thanks for the Ubuntu info!
 
Jasonx82 said:
its very simple to upgrade the ram in the macbook pro's.

2 Laptop screws and your in the ram compartment!
Click to expand...

Actually it's 3 on the 15" MBP and 4 on the 17" MBP.

init6 said:
I don't have a Pro, just a black MB, but I was shocked they had moved away from "toolless RAM slots." I ended up having to go buy a small screwdriver set because I couldn't find any Phillips small enough!
Click to expand...

The G3 iBooks and G4 Titaniam PowerBooks were the last portables to use this design. I'd take this current design over the "Wallstreet" G3 PowerBook(you had to remove the CPU to get to the 2nd RAM slot)... :p

I use a #000 size screwdriver to remove the screws in my MacBook Pro. If you really start tearing it apart, you'll need a torx set too. I bought a couple at Home Depot.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...74336&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&keyword=74501
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...87664&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&keyword=74502
 
Thanks for the info. Guess Ill be buying a pro with only the 2 gigs and upgrade than. Was going to do it today but the Mac store is down. Good thing though, it will give me time to search for some deals, or promo codes, although besides the employee and the student discount I dont believe that Mac really has many deals.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the kind of ram to use for the upgrade. I will be using the laptop for video editing and color correction using Final Cut Studio 2, and eventually using the Red Editing system (once it is out of beta)
 
gaer42 said:
Does anyone have any suggestions on the kind of ram to use for the upgrade. I will be using the laptop for video editing and color correction using Final Cut Studio 2, and eventually using the Red Editing system (once it is out of beta)
Click to expand...

Any of these kits will work

G.Skill
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231135

Kingston
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134373

Mushkin
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146697

No need to get the Apple ram, these kits will give you just as good as and maybe even better performance. I've got the G.Skill for mine, but that's just my brand preference. I had great luck with their ram in my gaming PC so I figured I'd grab it for my MacBook Pro. Any of them will really be fine though. Good luck and enjoy!
 
This reminds me of a story from a few months ago. I bought a 12" Powerbook for my sister and installed a 512MB stick of RAM in there, to bring it up to 768MB. That went perfectly fine. Afterwards, though, I would get random kernel panics/wireless failure. I did a bit of Googling and discovered that often, this was caused by a loose Airport card.

Okay, so now I knew I wanted to find the card and reseat it. I looked up how to disassemble the whole bloody computer because I assumed the wireless card was under the keyboard somewhere right on the mobo. After taking the thing apart and looking around for it, I realized that...uh....well....the wireless card on this generation of Powerbook was actually located in the battery compartment and required nothing to be taken apart...

So I swallowed my pride, reassembled the bloody thing, pulled out the battery with a coin and found the wireless card. I pulled it out and shoved it back in tighter...and voila - all problems solved.

*hits self on forehead*

To answer the initial question: It's easier than you think to put the RAM in there.
 
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