<SOLVED> Laptop Memory - Exceeding the max

[stephanieswitzer]

I have a 2012 MacBook Pro with 8 gig ram installed, which according to the specs is the max. I was thinking of adding another 8 gig and I was wondering what the consequences of doing that would be, aside from blowing up the logic board. I've read where folks have done this.

[old_noob]

The most likely outcome is that the motherboard simply will not recognize or use the extra 8GB. It might able to use it for graphics processing depending on other hardware. Or it could fry something; that risk is always there.

[thursty]

Your mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro 9,2 has 2 - 204-pin PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM slots and will accept 8GB in each for a total of 16GB according to the free MacTracker application.

I would replace the hard drive with an SSD as first priority, followed by the RAM upgrade.

New life for a great machine!

[Portreve]

Your mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro 9,2 has 2 - 204-pin PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM slots and will accept 8GB in each for a total of 16GB according to the free MacTracker application.

I would replace the hard drive with an SSD as first priority, followed by the RAM upgrade.

New life for a great machine!

I second this. Mine is a year older than yours and it takes a max of 16GB. And the SSD... I couldn't agree more. Totally changed the performance of my system.

[stephanieswitzer]

Your mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro 9,2 has 2 - 204-pin PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM slots and will accept 8GB in each for a total of 16GB according to the free MacTracker application.

I would replace the hard drive with an SSD as first priority, followed by the RAM upgrade.

New life for a great machine!

Thanks for the info. The first thing I did was to replace the HDD for an SSD and the really improved the performance, about 10 sec from power on to login screen.

Do you have a link for the free Mac tracker?

[stephanieswitzer]

Your mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro 9,2 has 2 - 204-pin PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM slots and will accept 8GB in each for a total of 16GB according to the free MacTracker application.

I would replace the hard drive with an SSD as first priority, followed by the RAM upgrade.

New life for a great machine!

Thanks for the info. The first thing I did was to replace the HDD for an SSD and the really improved the performance, about 10 sec from power on to login screen.

Do you have a link for the free Mac tracker?

Found it

[stephanieswitzer]

I dropped by our local computer store this morning and ordered two 8 gig sticks of DDR3 ram to drop into my MacMini. Stay tuned for either good news or bad news

[stephanieswitzer]

SUCCESS!

My little adventure with my second hand Mid 2012 MacBook Pro is done. I bought the MBP very cheaply from a university computer rental store equipped with 8 gig ram and a 250 gig HDD, running macOS High Sierra. First thing I did at the store was to plug-in a USB with a Live Mint Cinnamon 19.3 and fire up the Mac to see if it word work and it did. Yay!

Next step was to replace the HDD with a 250 gb SSD and to replace the old battery with a new one. So the Mac was up and running with Mint Cinnamon 19.3 and the only driver I needed to install was the Broadcom driver. Now according to Apple, this MacBook Pro was maxed out at 8 gig ram and mine had 1 memory slot free, and I wondered if I could put in another 8 gig to bring it up to 16 gig. After doing some research both here and on the internet, I decided to take the plunge and bought 2 x 8 gig SO_DIMMs to replace the 8 gig installed. I installed them today and they work perfectly and the increased memory is recognized. YAY!

Code: Select all

sudo dmidecode -t 17

Produces:

Code: Select all

stephanie@ss-MBP:~$ sudo dmidecode -t 17
[sudo] password for stephanie:          
# dmidecode 3.1
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.4 present.

Handle 0x0016, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
	Array Handle: 0x0014
	Error Information Handle: No Error
	Total Width: Unknown
	Data Width: Unknown
	Size: 8192 MB
	Form Factor: SODIMM
	Set: None
	Locator: DIMM0
	Bank Locator: BANK 0
	Type: DDR3
	Type Detail: Synchronous
	Speed: 1600 MT/s
	Manufacturer: 0x04CD
	Serial Number: 0x00000000
	Asset Tag: Unknown
	Part Number: 0x46332D313630304331312D384752534C0000

Handle 0x0018, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
	Array Handle: 0x0014
	Error Information Handle: No Error
	Total Width: Unknown
	Data Width: Unknown
	Size: 8192 MB
	Form Factor: SODIMM
	Set: None
	Locator: DIMM0
	Bank Locator: BANK 1
	Type: DDR3
	Type Detail: Synchronous
	Speed: 1600 MT/s
	Manufacturer: 0x04CD
	Serial Number: 0x00000000
	Asset Tag: Unknown
	Part Number: 0x46332D313630304331312D384752534C0000

and

Code: Select all

free

produces:

Code: Select all

stephanie@ss-MBP:~$ free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:       16302440     1403852    10950796      126644     3947792    14430832
Swap:       2097148           0     2097148

I AM FEELING VERY MINTY RIGHT NOW

[deck_luck]

I enjoy using my used 2012 MacBook Pro. I was lucky with an eBay buy. It was surprising clean on the inside and cosmetically very nice other than the vinyl sticker on the lid. It was dog slow with the 4200rpm laptop hard disk drive. After putting the a Samsung SSD in the latop it was a totally different user experience. It was one of cheapest ways to switch from Windows to MAC OS X. I am happy with it, and I still enjoy MAC OS X user experience. OS X is actually my favorite desktop environment, and my LM 19.1 XFCE similarly configured like OS X is a very close second. (I know some people in this forum will hate me for saying that.)

Of course at some point Apple will pull the same old game of not supporting the older hardware in one of the future OS X version. I setup OS X Mojave and LM19.1 in a dual boot configuration, so when it happens "C'est la vie" to Apple.

[stephanieswitzer]

I enjoy using my used 2012 MacBook Pro. I was lucky with an eBay buy. It was surprising clean on the inside and cosmetically very nice other than the vinyl sticker on the lid. It was dog slow with the 4200rpm laptop hard disk drive. After putting the a Samsung SSD in the latop it was a totally different user experience. It was one of cheapest ways to switch from Windows to MAC OS X. I am happy with it, and I still enjoy MAC OS X user experience. OS X is actually my favorite desktop environment, and my LM 19.1 XFCE similarly configured like OS X is a very close second. (I know some people in this forum will hate me for saying that.)

Of course at some point Apple will pull the same old game of not supporting the older hardware in one of the future OS X version. I setup OS X Mojave and LM19.1 in a dual boot configuration, so when it happens "C'est la vie" to Apple.

I still like macOSX and Apple products, in fact I still have a 2018 Mac Mini, and a 2014 iMac 27" both running Mojave, I also have an old Mac Mini, and now an old MacBook Pro both running Mint Cinnamon 19.3. I have to admit that I'm always on my 2 Linux machines and now only start-up my other Macs to keep them up-to-date.