Comments on: Can I use PC ram for my Mac G4?

Question: Can I use PC ram for my Mac G4?

Sallysings — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:33:41 -0800

Can I use PC ram for my Mac G4?

Here're the specs:
Macintosh G4 450mhz AGP
128 megs of SDRAM.

I'm not sure how much ram OS 9.2 (we can't upgrade the OS - our bookkeeping program can't run in OSX) can take, and I'm not sure if I can just throw in any SD ram either. Do I have to do pairs? as in, 256 and 256 for 512?

By: Rothko

Rothko — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:43:11 -0800

You don't need to put memory in pairs in that model, and there's nothing special about "PC" RAM in particular. So long as you have 3.3V, 168pin, PC-100 SDRAM you'll be fine. You can put in faster RAM but it will be slowed down to PC-100 speeds.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:54:31 -0800

450MHz Power Mac G4s use completely standard PC100 or PC133 SDRAM DIMMs. As long as they aren't SO-DIMMs (laptop memory) or DDR, you'll be fine.

By: airguitar

airguitar — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:55:04 -0800

I'm running 512mb of 133mhz SDRAM in a G4 Power Mac (AGP). The sticks came directly from another machine running Linux on a Socket-7 motherboard and an AMD 333mhz processor. No problems.

By: zerolives

zerolives — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:58:24 -0800

Indeed, you'll be fine. All of my macs use normal RAM purchased from newegg.com, ramjet.com, or crucial.com. I can vouch for the service and quality of them all. If you go to newegg, I would recommend Rosewill ram. It's cheap, and it works just as well as the more expensive stuff.

By: Sallysings

Sallysings — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 10:55:00 -0800

Thank you all so much!

By: mendel

mendel — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 11:16:31 -0800

we can't upgrade the OS - our bookkeeping program can't run in OSX

I haven't touched OS X since the very first version, but isn't this what the Classic environment is for? I remember running a remote-access application in Classic that wouldn't run in OS X.

By: aneel

aneel — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 11:46:38 -0800

In case someone finds this thread in the future and is wondering what the answer is for a slightly different computer: Both Ramjet and Crucial have little apps that will tell you exactly what kind of memory you need for your particular model.

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:05:46 -0800

You should be ok, but there have been issues with very specific Ram. You might want to read this and the accompanying comments.