Problems with Mushkin RAM and the MacBook Pro

March 16, 2006 on 2:01 am | In Apple | No Comments

If you are think of upgrading the memory in your MacBook Pro to avoid the rather large Apple price tag, then I would steer clear of the Mushkin 1GB PC2-5300 SODIMM (Part 991504) as they appear to have an incompatibility with the MacBook Pro.

Immediately after installing the Mushkin SODIMM, the MacBook Pro began spontaneously restarting within a minute or so of starting up. I took the memory out and tested the laptop with just it’s standard 1GB and all was fine with no spontaneous restarts. So I reinstalled the memory hoping that it was just a bad seating, but the problem came back.

The odd thing is that if it doesn’t restart with two minutes or so, then it stays on without issue however this usually requires one or two reboots. Once it’s working OK, then I can put it to sleep and it’ll wake up fine, I can run it hard and it’ll run all night – but if I reboot then the problem reappears. I’ve run the Apple Hardware Tests in basic and extended mode repeatedly and it never reports an issue at all. There is nothing in the console logs when it does reboot, it just seems to power cycle.

I recently got a 1GB Crucial PC2-5300 SODIMM and that doesn’t have the problem at all. I ended up trying all the combinations of slots and memory types (the standard Apple SODIMM, the Mushkin SODIMM and the Crucial SODIMM) and if the Mushkin is installed in any slot, either on it’s own or with one of the other SODIMMs, then the problem reappears. The only explanation would seem to be an incompatibility between the Mushkin and the MacBook Pro…so I would suggest avoiding Mushkin for your MBP upgrades and go with Crucial.