Can a RAM issue cause a freeze w/o an accompanying kernel panic?

topic.

I'm wondering if all memory issues are accompanied by a kernel panic or if they can cause a computer to freeze without warning and with no error message? just a hard freeze with no visual glitches of any kind?

 

of course it can... along with another million things.

 

technically a ram "issue" (if we are leaving it that ambiguous) could cause ANY sort of behavior.

 

Yes. Had it happen myself with some no-name RAM, and also saw a lot of freezing with cheap/bad RAM at the G-Bar.

 

interesting.

thanks for the insight, guys. I've been having weird random freezing issues and the only piece of hardware in the machine that isn't stock is the ram. freezes maybe 2x/week, and for no apparent reason. no errors in the Console or anything.

I wish I could say the fact that I've never had a blue screen in Windows means something...but I've probably spent less than 4 hours total time in Windows thus far. I picked up some new RAM today. If there are no freezes over the next couple of weeks, I'll assume I found the culprit.

It's weird because it's something that didn't happen on my 2010...and without any way to consistently reproduce it, I've been at a loss. I feel like I've tried everything software-related. I'm to the point where I think it's either (a) something OS X-related or (b) hardware-related.

Needless to say, I hope it's the RAM if it has to do with the hardware.

 

There is a version of memtest (not memtest86) that works in OSX. If your ram passes than it is unlikely that the ram is the problem. If you have other ddr3 ram you can also try switching it to see if the same problems are still there.

It is very hard to diagnose with certainty. Failing memtest can also be due to defective motherboards and CPUs.

 

it could also be critical corrupted OS data on the hard drive. Have you tried a reformat + reinstall?

 

I did reformat once. A couple of weeks ago when I was trying to figure out the other freezing problem (the one that the 10.6.7 update fixed). It's weird. I don't have any software installed on this machine that I didn't have on my 2010. But yes, I've done everything from format & reload to Onyx and Disk Utility to some Single Mode memory test (can't remember which...but I let it run for maybe an hour with no problems).

Last thing I did (today) was boot into Safe Mode to see if it would flush things out. None of those are yielding any results (they're not showing any problems). And again...nothing in Console related to any problems.

:-/

If it were reproducible, I'd probably have figured out what it is by now. But it only happens once every several days...and never when the computer is under load or anything. I have new RAM on the way, so I'll keep observing the current configuration for the next several days and see what happens. if it freezes again, I'll swap in the new ram and observe.

idk.

 

I am having the same issue, but I get 3 beeps on boot which means it's ram, download: rember
you can use it to test ram

 

New ram installed on Saturday. Running all the apps that seemed to cause the freezing since then. No freezing yet. I'm going to monitor and work it hard, but if there's no freezing by Friday, I'm going to assume the problem was solved and that the issue was indeed the RAM.

for those who care: my original ram was G.SKILL (F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ, 1333MHz), ram. I replaced it with Kingston HyperX (KHX1600C9S3K2/8G, 1600MHz).

If the ram is the problem, I probably just got a bad chip. I'll be having it replaced, though I don't know what I'll do with it at that point since I'll be keeping the HyperX and have no other laptop to put the replacement G.Skill memory in.

Anyway, just an update 4 days in.

 

There is always the NBR Marketplace. 2x4GB DDR3 should sell pretty well at the right price. Good luck with your testing.

May all your problems be solved!