Desktop Computer Review: Kingston memory - 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin

Kingston memory - 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR II

This purchase needs to be clarified a little. My 1st order was forKingston part "#KTA-G5533/2G", and those of you who are ordering 2GB SDRAM DIMMs need to be careful here, because this part number is for a 2GB "Kit" of 2 x 1GB DIMMs=2GB, NOT 2GB DIMMs of Apple PC-4200 533Mhz non-ECC parity SDRAM DIMMs...which is what I thought I was ordering. My mistake, I believe, unfortunately, as the correct part number for Apple G5 (Dual Core, Quad Core PowerMacs, such as my 2.3Ghz Dual Core G5, Apple part #M9591LL/A) computers like this one: "KTA-G5533/4G"--ie THAT part number will get you 2GB DIMMs!

It took a nice gentleman from Memory Unlimited a short day to recognize this issue, send me an RMA for the ill-fated 16x 1GB DIMMs, and I then returned the order for full credit, minus my shipping charges, so very well done Memory Unlimited, and thank you for a hassle-free RMA and return process. They only fulfilled what I ordered, apparently, it was NOT their fault that I ended up with 16x 1GB DIMMs, when what I wanted/needed was 8 x 2GB DIMMs, to fully populate my G5's memory banks with its maximum of 16GB SDRAM. I already HAD 8 x 1GB DIMMs, and hardly needed 16 x 1GB DIMMs! So, my bad!

Finally, the nice gentleman at Memory Unlimited gave me the correct part number, which I confirmed via my Apple parts book, "KTA-G5533/4GB" DIMMs, which is a "kit" of 2 x 2GB DIMMs, exactly what I needed/wanted for my Dual Core G5--to be dead-on correct 4 of those, for 16GB DIMMs total! Whew! You can see where this can *can* get confusing, and it did for this Apple tech during this ordering process, and it was apparently all my fault, so blame accepted fully.

That correct part number I sourced through another vendor, as Memory Unlimited could not supply me with the DIMMs straight away, and THAT process took more than 2 weeks to obtain! Wow! Not kidding, it did! The SDRAM was shipped from an East Coast supplier to the vendor I ordered from, (ProVantage.com to be exact--for the vendor's proper name) in Ohio, which took a week to fulfill via ground transit. Then the vendor shipped the SDRAM modules to my address in California, which took another week, so there you go, 2 weeks for my "corrected order", plus the 10 days or so it took for the original order to fully get corrected/returned/RMA'd/credited to my MCard.

There you go...but for one small detail: after a month and a half with the proper 2GB DIMMs populating my G5 full to capacity, I am having errors creep into my calculations in various applications, stuttering keyboard and mouse issues, and general Finder slowness which has NOT been corrected with the usual fixes: DiskWarrior, AppleJack, CockTail, my usual barrage of software fixes which usually take care of "issues" with the G5. I also ran Terminal applications like DiskTester 2.0 (DigiLloyd's block allocation test schematic for write and read parity with RAID and general Hard Drive testing), and others like simple memory test applications like MemTest 2.x. And they are having trouble with the new SDRAM DIMMs also; Apple HardWare Test can't even start a memory test/allocation run, giving me "registry error at 01XOTH X2" and other darned confusing readings. TechTool Pro reports nothing unusual, says the DIMMs are aok fine, but that's not happening, and confirms my usual assessment of TechTool Pro: it's not very good at what it does.

So, here I am with one, or possibly more 2GB DIMMs barely 1 month old, and I have problems with it/them, and it's going to have to be handled somehow, loathe though I am to such a thing happening now with my production machine! So I brought out my 2 x 512MB DIMMs of Apple SDRAM that the machine shipped with (!), and ordered a couple 1GB DIMMs from my usual supplier for such small orders which just arrived yesterday, and I'll have to throw the WHOLE Kingston order into its protective group of DIMM shipping containers, and off they'll go to Kingston for a thorough thrashing on their hardware testing equipment, and we will find out the source of the problems, be it 1 or more of these new DIMMs.

Amazon.com, they did a bang-up job of fulfilling my original, ill-fated
"incorrect order" for 16x 1GB DIMMS (8 x 2 GB 'kits'), and the vendor was 1st-rate, Memory Unlimited. Now, I am forced to reckon with figuring out what is wrong with my memory, but that's life, and off I go with yet another problem to solve! Thanks to nobody in particular, just the luck of the draw, I guess.

ADDENDUM, 5-03-09:

The saga continues about the 2GB DIMMs that are still in my Dual Core G5 machine, and I've come to believe that the memory errors are a result of AHT (Apple Hardware Test) NOT being able to deal with 16GB of SDRAM, not to mention 2GB DIMMs, which were not available for the ML9591LL/A 2.3 Ghz Dual Core G5 PowerMac when the test was cooked up by the software architects at Apple Computer...that's the major fault of my original assessment.

As for the Finder flakiness and other weird things, I can, I think, attribute that to a flaky BlueTooth Apple Keyboard, which has been replaced, and the symptoms of a dead mouse cursor, and other woes have "gone away"...so it looks like, in the immediate sense anyway, that my assessment of bad SDRAM was incorrect. This SDRAM bump-up has come at a price, I guess I should add. Oh, buying it was very reasonable, at less than $22 per 2GB DIMM, and the process of getting it to California was very long in the tooth, but that's an unfortunate piece of the law of supply and demand: there just aren't that many people looking for this stuff, it turns out, and Kingston only makes it up order by order these days, I've since found out since ordering mine.

So, the SDRAM ROCKS! I have been kicking around the whole deal with a couple Apple Support Engineer buddies of mine, and they are in agreement with my current assessment: ie bad hardware (the keyboard) and a bad AHT (Apple Hardware Test)=a problem that seemed to just vanish once the hardware was replaced, and the AHT was not being administered to the DIMMs.

I've been mercilessly pounding on the machine with video projects since I last wrote about this problem, and the FCP and Sony Vegas 5-produced HD movies have been coming out stellar, if I may say so myself, so no evidence of bad DIMMs to speak of in my daily work with the G5. I think I can pretty much call it "a wrap" on this so-called problem of mine!

Unless and until I get or start having more problems with my new SDRAM, I've got nothing but thanks to God to say about it, IT IS GREAT STUFF! Anytime you get to work with a Mac of any sort with 16GB of SDRAM or more (Mac Pro computers can 'populate' up to 32GB, ie 8 x 4GB DIMMs at a very healthy $$premium I may add!), well it's sort of a religious experience!

I am just happy as a clam that I got the stuff, and if any of you out there in Amazon.com land have such a machine, or a Quad Core 2.5Ghz G5 (even better than my 2.3Ghz Dual Core CPU), by all means stuff that sucker full of the maximum 16GB of SDRAM and watch it fly, and all the memory tests like X-Mark, and the 21-step Adobe Photoshop Filters Test by XXX (cannot remember who wrote it, for the life of me), another 'standard' for testing SDRAM and a machine's ability to do complex things pretty darn fast...well all those can be improved upon up to 30-40% with such an upgrade. It truly really DOES make a huge difference when a Mac is doing major Math/Computation projects.

End of tale of woe, as it's just "gone away" like the common cold eventually does, when we get one!

Wavey Davey 5-03-2009

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Product Description:
Kingston is the world's largest independent memory manufacturer. In today's performance-driven environment, memory upgrades provide an easy, economical alternative to increase system performance. Every memory product Kingston offers is designed to help you get maximum performance at the best price to you.This memory is designed for the following systems:Apple Power Mac G5 Dual Core 2.3GHz;Apple Power Mac G5 Dual Core 2GHz;Apple Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5GHz.

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