iBook G4 RAM help

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:28 pm

Well, my sister dropped her iBook on accident. When she tried to turn it on, she said there was some sort of error about the RAM. Her charger broke a while ago, so I can't see the exact message. When I opened it up to see if the RAM popped out or something, I come to find... there is none?

Either someone stole her RAM, or is that slot just for expansion ram?

Here are some pics:

When I first opened it up:

The slot:

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:30 pm

I think those have 256 MB of RAM soldered to the motherboard.

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:31 pm

Hmmmm.. Any idea on what the problem is? I know its not much help without the exact error.. but

Post by **Skyone** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:51 pm

Depending on age, I think that iBooks have a range of 32-256MB of on-board RAM.

Not sure exactly how iBooks work, but you can try to throw a stick or two of SO-DIMM RAM and see if it works.

The exact error would help, of course though.

-Sky

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:02 pm

Error: your memory broke cause you dropped it.

If this is the case it will still be broken if you put more in. The solution seems to be to take the bad ram out...

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:06 pm

The RAM is integrated into the motherboard; you can't remove it. You can add more from the RAM slot, but that's it.

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:32 pm

timmeh87 wrote:Error: your memory broke cause you dropped it.

If this is the case it will still be broken if you put more in. The solution seems to be to take the bad ram out...

Ya, if you read the post, you would see that there is no RAM to take out.. So I'm asking for a solution. (Or asking if there was even onboard RAM)

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:51 pm

A short while ago I wrote:The RAM is integrated into the motherboard; you can't remove it. You can add more from the RAM slot, but that's it.

Feel free to buy my old one, it works great

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0264660740

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:07 pm

Bibin wrote:The RAM is integrated into the motherboard; you can't remove it. You can add more from the RAM slot, but that's it.

Have you learned nothing on this electronics hacking website? Of course it can be removed!

In theory you could desolder the failed RAM chips and replace them with identical (or at least 100% compatible) chips. I think somewhere on Hack a Day someone swapped out the LAN controller in their laptop that way...

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:34 pm

Yeah, of course! Closely soldered surface-mount pins are VERY FUN TO RESOLDER, especially when you must repeat the same process four times! Fun fun fun!

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:46 pm

But it is possible...

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:51 pm

So is the selling of my iBook on ebay. But is it happening? Apparently not! Unless, of course, someone wants to change that:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %3DSelling

</plug>

thehackerinside · Post by **thehackerinside** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:37 am

After looking at you pictures I think your problem is that the ram has become damaged, Must of been quite a drop it had. I've labeled one of your pictures below showing where the damage has occurred.

From what I can see all you really need to do is add some more ram into the other slot as others have suggested, if this doesn't work you may have to buy a new logic board or get a new ibook but buying the new logic board would be cheaper than that.

The "marks" that I had labeled looks somewhat like water damage (which I seen before) which is very odd, Was the ibook dropped outside by any chance?

Hope that was of some help, Joe.