Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Peter Ritchie — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:04:26 GMT

It would be interesting to know if the MacBook Pro with 8GB with just a Windows OS installed (i.e. no OS X) recognizes the entire 8GB properly...

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Brian Henderson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:06:10 GMT

What about a 2 GB VM in Fusion? Results?

Outside of VMs... can you load up multiple OSX apps to use more the 4 GB RAM?

Thanks.. nice experiment. :)

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Keith Combs — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:19:30 GMT

I'm going to setup bootcamp with Windows Vista x64 and see what happens.

Regarding a 2GB Fusion VM, I did that with Windows Server 2008. Again, poor performance all the way around. Sad.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Marc Brooks — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:30:22 GMT

You should probably try installing Windows Server 2008's Core install with Hyper-V and then you can run the various "native" OSes in partitions.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Keith Combs — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:40:15 GMT

LOL. Yea, you first Marc! :)

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

kai axford — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:44:09 GMT

Does your new iPhone 3G support 8GB of RAM? :)

I thought I saw Keith camping out in near his home in Dallas waiting to get one.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Keith Combs — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:27:06 GMT

Nope, no iPhone for me just yet. I'm letting all of the Microsoft early adopters figure out all of the ins and outs.

If I get one, I'll likely just buy one without a plan. I already have a ATT plan and SIM.

I have no intention of locking into that phone for 2 years until I've had a chance to touch and feel the HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Sony Xperia X1, etc. I'll probably make a decision in the fall on my next gadgets, as usual.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

automaticit — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:37:39 GMT

In response to Brian Henderson's question, the slowdown Keith observed seems related to an inability on the MacBook Pro to allocate beyond 4 GB. We purchased 8GB SODIMMs from Crucial with specs that matched the Kingston SODIMM's Keith got, and tried 8GB in a MacBook Pro 17" 2.6GHz ordered from Apple's web site, Build To Order (BTO), meaning it is likely we got the very latest firmware and motherboard revision. The "top" utility shows PhysMem at around 3.5 GB before we see the kind of slowdowns (across all applications) that Keith described.

It seems that OS X and the MacBook Pro will recognize the 8GB, but either the memory controller or the something like the page allocator wanders off into the weeds when we approach 4GB of actual memory allocations.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Dj — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:20:55 GMT

hii

i know in linux if you have 8 Gb ram you must enable 64 Gb support from the kernel

maybe they didnt config there kernel yet xD

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

automaticit — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:14:24 GMT

Dj, I too suspect a software-related issue, though I'm uncertain about whether some 64-bit toggle needs to be enabled, and I think hardware is possibly involved as well. Using the same SODIMM, but just one installed in the lower slot (the one closest to the keyboard), the MacBook Pro recognizes the 4GB just fine. Particularly interesting is how memory is allocated far less aggressively with the same set of applications loaded under 4GB versus 8GB.

I did eventually manage to push a set of applications to consume more than 4GB as reported by top in the PhysMem row, in the "used" label. But performance across the applications was abysmal. Think thrashing-to-disk-10X-slower-to-open-OpenOffice/Aqua performance. Also, even if I try to open only a couple of applications to stay under 4GB, more memory seems to be allocated (more code pages perhaps?) so that eventually the system slows down again.

This doesn't happen on Core Duo MacPro desktop systems, so that is why I suspect some hardware issue is also involved, but it would be ideal if just a patch to OS X would enable 8 GB access. I'm hoping that the rumored new generation MacBook Pros coming out later this year arrive with 8GB support.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

John W — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:55:02 GMT

Keith

how did the bootcamp with vista x64 setup go with your 8 gb of ram?

i am wanting to put 8gb in mine to run a ram hungry CAD program (in either xp or vista x64).

interested in your results before i try.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

LE Studios — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:04:43 GMT

What of sticking this in the 2.4GHz or 2.8GHz Core Duo 2 iMacs that used PC5300 SODIMMs? Theoretically since that's a desktop Core Duo 2 it should be fine? Theoretically though.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

Mistyday — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:49:05 GMT

I am wondering how your experiment with Bootcamp worked out? It would be great if that would work.

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

gm — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:26:51 GMT

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/29/58184-g-skill-4gb-ram-single-stick-works-macbookpro-1x4gb-1x2gb-6gb-works.html

I've been playing with 6GB in my MBP: 1x G.Skill 4GB, and 1x Kingston 2GB. Works fine, and I've had XP booted in VMWare given 3GB, and Photoshop up in OS X with several 30000x30000 images open to use up RAM. Filled the full 6 up and the machine was still responsive.

Give 6GB a try and see what happens for you.

Haven't tried loading my BootCamp'd XP, but that will only be able to address 3 of such :)

re: Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro

gm — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:30:12 GMT

Oh, and:

Processes: 72 total, 3 running, 3 stuck, 66 sleeping... 276 threads 18:59:24

Load Avg: 0.83, 0.39, 0.25 CPU usage: 21.50% user, 22.43% sys, 56.07% idle

SharedLibs: num = 8, resident = 55M code, 124K data, 3924K linkedit.

MemRegions: num = 13341, resident = 445M + 24M private, 244M shared.

PhysMem: 741M wired, 3691M active, 668M inactive, 5105M used, 1039M free.

VM: 11G + 371M 1852481(0) pageins, 4840(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE

562 vmware-vmx 28.9% 0:19.64 9 160 1939 12M 10M 1311M+ 2131M

559 vmware 18.5% 0:39.39 6 278 729 54M- 34M 94M- 521M

159 Terminal 16.1% 0:09.30 3 104 146 2880K 18M 16M 367M

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