2011 MBP RAM issues

I have a 2011 MBP that has recently been giving me trouble. I replaced the RAM about 8 months ago and up until the past few weeks everything had been working fine. Then it occassionaly started freezing up and beeping 3 times. It also has been randomly shutting down while it is supposed to be asleep with the lid shut. It also has done the 3 beeps when I try to turn it on at times.
So, all of this made me decide to take out the RAM and reinstall the original RAM that it shipped with. When I did this it initially would not start and did the 3 beeps so I flipped the RAM stick position and then everything seemed to be working fine until today.
The computer had been put to sleep with the lid closed and when I pulled it out of my bookbag it was super hot as it had apparently been running while in my bookbag. It also has given me the 3 beeps several times today.
I have run memtest and the Apple Hardware Test (although it took me a while to actually get it to run without freezing) and both say there is no trouble to be found.
BUT, something is definitely wrong. Could two different sets of RAM go bad? I find that very unlikely. Are there any other tests I can perform to figure out the source of the problem? I don't want to purchase more RAM only the 3 beep problem continue...

If you installed bad RAM - you will get the 3 beeps but your Macbook won't boot to your desktop.
It could also mean that one of your RAM slots can also be defective.
You can do a few test if you want but it's time consuming - here's what you can do.
First - try doing a SMC RESET - if that doesn't work - do a PRAM/NVRAM reset.
if none of the above helps.....Take RAM out of the top slot then restart your Macbook - if your issues are gone - then it could be the top slot or the RAM. If problem persist - take the RAM out of the bottom slot and install the RAM in the top slot - do this with all your RAM until your issues are gone.
It is possible that both sets of RAM you have can go bad - but highly unlikely unless you've damaged them when you were taking the old RAM out and installing the new RAM in. ESD - Electro-Static Dischage.
Another thing too is that if your Hard Drive is failing or your OS is corrupted - you will also get 3 beeps and will boot to your desktop.
Most people will tell you your RAM is bad - but, it can also be your RAM slot and it can also be your Hard Drive.
Open disk utility and verify your disk permissions - repair them if errors are found - restart after repairs are done and see if your issues are gone.
Also, verify your disk - if errors are found - do not repair until you back up your hard drive. Once you've backed up your drive - then repair your disk.
Good luck

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When you have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
☞ Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above. Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

New SSD + 8GB RAM on 2011 MBP - Having Issues

I just installed a new 128GB Vertex 4 SSD and 8GB of RAM into my late-2011 13" MacBook Pro. I did a clean install of Lion on the new drive and enabled TRIM support. Although I have seen a slight difference in performance, it is taking forever to download large files. Currently it is downloading between 200-400KB/S. It has been running for an hour and not even a fourth of the way done. When I downloaded the application before on my stock 750GB HDD it only took about 30 minutes.
What do you think is causing this major decrease in download time? Is there anything I need to do with the new SSD to improve performance?

I started to download iPhoto from the App Store but ended up pausing it because it was taking forever. I then unplugged and reset the Internet connection thinking that could be an issue. I havn't tried to resume the iPhoto download yet but I did start to download Left 4 Dead 2 off Steam. It's downloaded 3500MB out of 13000MB with a peak download rate of 910KB/S. The average has been between 400-600KB/S since I last posted.
If it is the internet then it is going to be what its going to be. Even so, is there anything else I need to do with the new SSD then? I've read about updating firmware but also read not to update it for the Vertex 4. I tried doing as much research as possible on what I needed to do for installation but this is my first time with it all.

2011 MBP Ram upgrade. 8Gb or 16Gb?

Hi all.
Well I've just sold my two Core2Duo machines and bought a late 2011 13" MBP. 2.4 i5 4Gb ram. I was always intending to upgrade the ram and then put an SSD in it.
I've done a fresh install and have noticed right away that it doesn't take many apps to be open to get the beach ball up (having forgotten what that was like with max ram and an SSD in the MacBook)
Now I was going to put 8Gb in initially, but I thought I'd ask opinions, as this is the first time I've used Mountain Lion so I'm not that familiar yet. Would 8Gb be enough for me, or do you recommend the 16Gb? I'm a graphic designer and use indesign, illustrator and photoshop, and the for my own uses I use iPhoto and iTunes and office occasionally. This is my personal machine, so I don't use it all day for this, just when I do any freelance.
I was thinking 8Gb along with an SSD drive in the future should ought to do it. In the UK, crucial have 8Gb listed at £60 and 16Gb listed at £100 for this model (1333Mhz Ram)
I know the intel 3000 card used ram for the graphics, and I will be plugged into an external screen also.
Thanks for your help and suggestions.
All help much appreciated.
Rob

I'm thinking of upgrading my RAM too. I have a MacBook Pro 15" (Late 2011 Model) with the following specs:
2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
4GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB
As a 3D modeller and 2D illustrator, I use a lot of big software like Photoshop, Maya, Zbrush and Unreal 4. As much as I would like to upgrade to 16GB RAM, my wallet unfortunately is not on the same page with me. Is 8GB enough memory to run these software? And assuming I can afford the 16GB upgrade, can my MBP handle it?

Early 2011 MBP Recurring Issues (Safe Boot Startup, MerpAD Office365, Recovered files, etc.)

Hello,
I realize there are threads about Safe-Boot mode. And about MerpAD Office365 files. And about "Recovered files" folders in the trashcan.
But my early 2011 MacBook Pro is doing it all. And no one has been able to figure out why.
My MBP has been to the Genius Bar so many times the people there know me by first name, and remember every visit. To date, here's what's been done to it:
1. Hard drive wipe and re-install (thinking it was the software)
2. Replaced bluetooth keyboard and mouse (thinking it was a problem with Bluetooth)
3. Numerous in-store diagnostic checks (thinking it was the hard drive)
4. Replacement of memory chip, logic board, magsafe charger coupling, and battery (thinking it was a problem the Geniuses couldn't figure out)
Everything has, essentially, been replaced. Yet, it still starts in Safe Boot mode -- three times this week so far, each time taking 5-6 minutes to recover and restart so that I can use it.
Here's what I'm running:
Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Software: Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)
I've owned Macs since the late 1990s. This is my third MacBook Pro. Nothing I've ever owned from Apple has ever been this prone to failure and frustration.
Can anyone help figure out what's going on with this machine?
Thank you in advance.
Bill

I'm having the exact same problem. Since installing Yosemite, my iMac (late-2013 model with 32GB of RAM) is constantly hanging ... the spinning beach ball pops up constantly. It pops up when I open files, it pops up when I open windows, it pops up when I close apps, it pops up when I open apps, etc., etc., etc. I've tried everything and can't get it to stop. And to make matters worse, I'm having the exact same problem on my 2010 iMac. It's driving me nuts.

MBP RAM issue

Hello,
I recently upgraded from leopard to snow leopard and love it, it was not until today i looked at my activity monitor to check out how things are doing. I am on a 13 inch MBP with 2 gigs of RAM and 160 gig hard drive. It was today that i noticed my RAM monitor reading 1.75 gigs of ram instead of the advertised 2 gigs. I am wondering if when I upgraded from leopard to snow leopard if it was partitioned for the graphics or what. Or if i just screwed around with the setting somehow. I think i was messing around with boot camp but i didnt recall doing anything that cant be undone.
So I would like for someone to help.
Thanks

Your 13" MBP has an nVidia 9400M graphics card that uses 256 MB of 'shared' system RAM. 'Shared' in this case really means 'stolen' - that 0.25 GB is not available for your system, since it's reserved for the GPU. So, Activity Monitor correctly reports that you have only 1.75 GB available. It was that way under Leopard, too. Perfectly normal.

Macbook Pro Early 2011 13" RAM Issues

Hello everyone,
About a month ago I realized that my computer was running extremely slow. After further inspection, I found out that somehow 1 of the 2 RAM sticks had come loose. I'm not quite sure how because I have never dropped my Macbook. Anyways, after getting this fixed at the computer store at my university, I realized that everything was working fine. However, today I noticed that there is another issue. As you can tell by the attached picture, it says that there is 4 GB of RAM installed even though it says that one of the slots is empty... I'm not quite sure what to do about this besides taking it to the Apple Store, but I would definitely prefer to not have to do this since my warranty has expired. I've been planning on upgrading to 8 or 16 GB of RAM, so if there's no other fix to this problem then I may have to go ahead and do the upgrade sooner than I thought.
If anyone has seen this before and knows a solution that would be great! Thanks!

I would run the Apple hardware test (use the extended test) to see if it identifies any hardware issue.

Early 2011 MBP - Power Issues

So, for the last couple months my Macbook Pro will shut off when it's processing a lot (like a game) or if the charger is taken off. Usually it won't start without the charger on it, and it takes awhile to start up. The gray Apple screen will load for 10 or 20 seconds, then it will either flash light gray or blue. If it flashes gray, the whole computer will die. Sometimes it restarts automatically, sometimes it stays off. If the screen flashes blue, the user account screen shows up. It always starts if I do a safe boot.
I've done most of this stuff (SMC, PRAM, Archive/Install, Onyx, Diagnostics, Repair Disk, etc.) and I've taken it to the Genius Bar. They said they'd have to send it in to figure out what's wrong with it, but my Mac is no longer under warranty. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and what the issue ended up being. Right now, I'm afraid it's a logic board issue, because I have no idea what else it is.

I just had a similar issue with my 2008 MBP 10.6.8, blue screen, gray screen, not booting, eventually no safe start, as well as other things. Did all the same stuff to figure it out, being that it is my kids machine now, and money is a little tight, I went to the Apple store and they gave me a flat rate to make functional again. $310 they replaced HDD, logic board, video card, reinstalled OS, and ran a full diagnostics. It works as new now for about $1000 less than I would have had to spend, I'll be really happy to get another year from it ,as it is basically refurbished. So, it could be your logic board, or even more, I thought it was just the drive that died. They told me no charge for the diagnosis, and the repair was a lot cheaper. You might want to have it checked, oh by the way, the tests I did all came back as OK, but obviously they were not. Best of luck:)

2011 MBP with 8GB of RAM, generally slow under Lion, possibly thrashing

I have a 17" 2011 MBP with 8GB of RAM and the fastest CPU available at the time. It came with Snow Leopard, and it was really fast with basically everything I threw at it.
Since the upgrade to Lion, it has a general tendency to get really unresponsive. My workload hasn't fundamentally changed. Rather than just hope it's bugs in Lion that will get fixed, I'd like to see if anyone can advise me on things I might investigate, either to fix things myself, or to be more intelligent about identifying bugs I can report.
One thing I notice is that Time Machine backups will bring the system to its knees. Everything will be going along just fine, and then TM will kick on, and all my apps will stop responding. Once TM has finished, things will slowly come back to normal. There's a lot of disk activity, which I have assumed was swapping. Another thing that causes trouble is that mds (and a whole bunch of mdsworkers) will frequently kick on, and will slow down the system.
CPU load is always quite low, but free memory is always very low. (However, in some OS's Free Memory is misleading, because a lot of disk blocks are cached in RAM, so it's not really "used" either..)
What I can't really distinguish for sure is if the system is slow because of swapping/thrashing (which is what I assume) or if it's slowed down for some other reason related to disk activity.
Here are the apps I typically run:
- NetBeans (which is a pig, taking up over 1GB or real memory)
- Safari (which is also a pig, often taking up more than 1GB between the main Safari process and the Web Content process)
- Sometimes Parallels (2GB for the VM, and probably another 1GB for other stuff, because it's also a pig)
- kernel_task typically reports taking up over 1GB of real memory
- WindowServer also reports using 280MB
- various other small apps like Mail, NetNewsWire, Preview, Terminal, Adium, Smultron, Colloquy, none of which use much memory
I got the 8GB, because I knew I was going to use a lot of memory for stuff, and it was great under Snow Leopard. But with Lion, it just doesn't seem to be enough. Even with all of those huge processes, I can't believe that their working sets are really as big as their virtual and physical memory footprints seem to be. I mean it's not unusual for a process to have 2GB of virtual space but only a few 100MB of real memory, and some of that is shared object libraries, where the same physical memory is mapped into multiple processes. (Have shared object libraries stopped being physically shared under Lion?)
Are other people having similar trouble? Any suggested remedies? Any suggestions on how to investigate so I can see if there are any actual bugs?
I would like to understand why my system went from zippy to slow after I upgraded to Lion. Actually, quite a few things have broken. Time Machine has become a pig, bluetooth doesn't work reliably anymore, airport doesn't connect reliably anymore, and lots of little annoying bugs. But this is common for early point releases of new OS's, so I can't complain too much. But for Lion to have really regressed in memory management is definitely not good.

Safari, for what ever reason, has become a huge memory
pig. The longer you are using it the more memory it
gobbles up.
In Activity Monitor, check the Page outs and Swapped used.
This will tell you how much memory swapping is going on.
As for Time Machine, you may want to set your Parallels
HD image not to get backed up by Time Machine. May
help since it is a huge collection of files. But there have been
issues reported with Time Machine and Lion. I don't
use it myself and opt for the cloning methodology and
seperate data backup strategy. Also, in Spotlight
preferences under the Privacy Tab, I have added
my Windows VM folders, for same reason. Unless you really
need to find something on the windows VM volumes when you
don't have the Windows VM active, it just eats up alot
of disk access time.
For solving airport issues check this article:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20117247-263/fixing-airport-problems-in-os- x/?tag=mncol;txt
For Bluetooth devices, try removing them, and have them rediscovered if you
can.
Hopefully, this gives you a start on cleaning things up.

Ok, so i bought a 16GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM for my late 2011 13" MacBook Pro whose memory runs at 1067 MHz (I was also told that late 2011 MBPs run at 1333MHz, is mine an exception?)... Im looking for all possibilities to close the compatibility gap...

Ok, so i bought a 16GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM for my late 2011 13" MacBook Pro whose memory runs at 1067 MHz (I was also told that late 2011 MBPs run at 1333MHz, is mine an exception, if so, why?)... Im looking for all possibilities to close the compatibility gap because computer freezes at boot and was wondering if there was anything i could do to get this 16GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM to work at 1067MHz or somehow get my computer to run at 1333MHz?...

You don't have a late 2011 MB Pro.
You have a 2010 version. Your MB doesn't support 16GB. 8GB Max.
That's what it shows on your about this MAC.
You need to return the RAM and get 8GB ( 2 X 4GB ) 1066MHz.
Your system bus is set to 1066MHz.
You're having issues because you've installed more RAM than your MB can support. It's only reading 4GB per bank which totals to 8GB and not 16GB.

2011 MBP with SSD/Time Machine Issues

Early-2011 MBP (MacBookPro8,2)
8GB RAM
240 GB OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD (newly installed)
750 GB HD (original boot drive, now with the user folder on a 500 GB partition and a 250 GB Windows boot camp partition)
I replaced my 750 GB boot drive with the OWC SSD recently and put a fresh install of Mavericks (10.9) on the new drive. I used the OWC bracket and moved my old 750 GB drive to the optical drive bay. Erased and reformatted the 500 GB partition (on the 750GB drive) as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive. I moved my Home folder to the Mac partition. I've since reinstalled apps and replaced my Home folder contents from a clone I made.
When I try to run Time Machine (either via a directly connected HD or via Time Capsule) I end up with the machine freezing up. It doesn't always totally freeze up, but once I try to click around or open the Finder or an Application I end up with the beach ball and end up having to do a hard reboot (hold power button til it shuts down). If I don't wait awhile before restarting sometimes the machine won't find the startup disk. It does seem like Time Machines starts... as it does start writing the backup record. It never finishes though.
Based on some of the other threads I've read I ran the following command:
find ~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 -o -acl $ 2> /dev/null | wc -l
And was given the number "235".
Any pointers?

There's no simple or easy way to do that, and it depends on your circumstances. See Transferring Home Folders not on a Startup volume for some suggestions.

TS5167 Same issue with 2011 MBP

I have a similar issue with a 2011 MBP and note that there is a considerable number of posts referring to this issue. Is completing a feedback form the best way to raise this with apple?

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/apple-inc-replace-or-fix-all-early-2011-ma cbook-pro-with-graphics-failure

Im planning to upgrade my MBP late 2011's ram from 4gb to 8gb. Is there any specific brand of ram that i should buy or i can buy any brand that suits my MBP.

im planning to upgrade my MBP late 2011's ram from 4gb to 8gb. Is there any specific brand of ram that i should buy or i can buy any brand that suits my MBP? im aware of all the details that i need to consider pc3 - 10600 1333MHz 4gb. i just want to know is there any specific brand or i can use any brand,
Thank you.

The most reliable sources for Mac compatible RAM are OWC and Crucial. Macs seem to be selective with RAM so some brands will not work. Make certain that you get RAM with the exact specifications that apply to your MBP.
Ciao.
If you have a need, be advised that you MBP can actually support 16 GB RAM.
Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

Issues with 2011 MBP fixed?

Hi, I was wondering if the 10.6.7 update successfully fixed the major issues that were reported (screen freezing, fan running, etc.) or are these hardware issues that can't be fixed with an update? My mom wants a new laptop and I really think she should get a Mac, but I'm hesitant to order a 2011 because of these issues...it's a headache I don't want or need!
Also, are new 2010 Macbook Pro's still available anywhere? Would you recommend buying a used 2010 on ebay or is that risky?

We've purchased more than dozen Early 2011 MBP and none have those issues. Apple has a refurb section if that makes you feel better. And they have a full year warranty that you can even purchase AppleCare for.

Yosemite performance on MBP 13" Late 2011 4GB RAM ?

Hello everyone,
I have a Mac Book Pro 13" Late 2011 with Mavericks and 4gb of RAM. I was wondering if anyone had the same system specs and had upgraded to Yosemite in order to know how it was running on their system ? Is it smooth ? The official requirements state 2gb of RAM but I'm really skeptical towards this.
Thanks for your input. Cheers !

I have the early 2011 MBP, 8 GB RAM, and I put a SSD in it (Samsung). I do some processor and memory intensive things, like audio recording and video editing, and I was not pleased with the performance in Mavericks until I put the SSD in.
I think it will depend on what you are doing with your Mac. 4 GB of RAM is probably enough to check your email with, but not if you are doing more creative work. Unless you like to see the pretty spinning beachball.
Regarding Adi's somewhat ranty note above, the usual cause for poorly performing Macs with OS X is crapware, like CleanMyMac, MacKeeper, or third-party anti-virus software, and having 57 startup processes active along with Parallels or VMWare, and expecting it all to run with 4 gigs of RAM.
Back to smashr: you can test drive Yosemite. If you make a Time Machine backup of your Mavericks installation, then you can easily go back to it if you don't like Yosemite. Alternatively, you can make a test partition on your HD and put Yosemite there.

2011 MBP RAM issues

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