Can somebody tell me if I can upgrade my Macbooks RAM with the following...

Question

I wanted to upgrade my 1 GB RAM to a 4 GB RAM. Will these upgrades fit into my Macbook2, 1? It's a 13" one. This is the serial number W87245L1YA4 and here's a link to the hardware I'm looking at purchasing: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=322813 9&Sku=C13-6082
here's the other hardware I was looking at purchasing if the above one didn't fit:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=317595 8&CatId=4152
Message was edited by: Richard Dittmer

Answer 1

Richard Dittmer wrote:
also...could I just buy a 1GB RAM and 2GB RAM and put them in to make it 3? or does it have to be 2 1.5GB RAM's
Memory doesn't typically come that way. It's almost always a base 2 value, and 1 GB is really 1,073,741,824 or 2 to the power of 30. 2 GB is really 2,147,483,648 or 2 to the power of 31. This is not the way disk drives are typically sold, although some of the newer solid state drives may be sold that way. Disk drives are sold with 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, where they guarantee at least that much capacity (could be more with enough extra capacity to allow bad sectors to be mapped out and still be at least the listed capacity). You'll notice that all single memory modules are sold as with base 2 memory capacity like 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, etc.
The information that you can't install more than 3 GB is not correct. MacBook2,1 is one of the first generation Core 2 Duo machines. Apple only specs them as using up to 2 GB, but people have successfully installed 4 GB and reported that 3 GB (some even report 3.3) was used. The are supposedly minor performance benefits (memory interleaving) to using two identically sized modules in each slot; using 2x2GB in your particular machine supposedly gives a slight benefit for video performance.
MacBook2,1 means one of these machines:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/stats/macbook-core-2-duo-1.83-13-s pecs.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/stats/macbook-core-2-duo-2.0-white -13-specs.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/stats/macbook-core-2-duo-2.0-black -13-specs.html
This is Everymac's disclaimer about memory for your particular machine:
*Apple officially supports 2 GB of RAM, but third-parties have been "unofficially" able to upgrade it to 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM (it can hold 4 GB but cannot fully utilize the memory beyond 3 GB).
Other World Computing has test results including 2x2 GB used in a Nov 2006 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook (MacBook 2,1) and they got slightly better results in some areas, and slightly worse in others. The cost of getting 2x2GB shouldn't really be an obstacle these days.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/MemoryBenchmark/AppleMacBook/
This one should work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148201