I just got some new memory the other day. This is a big deal. It isn’t like a trip to Fry’s where you can see everything behind a glass case. In Taiwan it has more to do with who you know and who referred you to the store.
So anyway, I had a 200 pin PC2700 333 Mhz DIMM and an iBook G4 just waiting to be upgraded. Steven and I went to the local authorized Apple dealer and asked them for help installing the memory and they said “You can’t, you need a 184 pin PC2100 266 Mhz DIMM, the one you have has 200 pins”. (A pin is referring to the gold connector on the memory.)
So Steven thought we were screwed and I thought that I should check online with Apple first. I thought Apple was trying to get away from using non-standard components in their hardware, and the PC2700 DIMM is the standard today.
I went to the Apple website and searched and found a page that stated the iBook only uses PC2100 DIMMs. This means according to Apple my PC2700 DIMM is incompatible. I still did not trust what I was reading though, my gut feeling was telling me that they are interchangeable.
I searched and searched on the internet and this is what I found : the 200 pin PC2700 DIMM is backwards compatible with PC2100. PC2700 memory is faster, but it slows itself down to the speed of PC2100 memory if a machine only accepts PC2100. The memory companies are making memory this way now so that a company only needs to stock one inventory of memory and so that they can discontinue older/slower memory.
So right now my 184 pin iBook is running 200 pin memory just fine. Go do it yourself. Your machine won’t run slower. Apple (and Apple dealers) want to sell you slower memory at the same price as the faster memory because they can say “its compatible, and you are paying for the more compatible memory.” My advice, go for the cheapest DIMM – PC2100 or PC2700, whatever is on sale. If you have memory laying arround that is deemed incompatible, try it out. Slower ram in a faster motherboard will run the normal 266 mhz speed and faster ram in a slower motherboard will run as fast as the slower memory at 266 mhz.
If you are still worried about your iBook, I found this online at Other World Computing:
512MB PC2700 DDR 333MHz CL 2.5 200 Pin Low-Profile (non-stacked!) Memory module for All PowerBook G4 17″ & 12″ Models; Apple PowerBook G4 (15-Inch FW800 1GHz-1.5GHz), iMac G4 1GHz-1.25GHz, iBook G4 Models. New, Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty. (OWC2700DDRS512A)
Please leave a comment if you have anything to say concerning Apple’s business practices concerning components or if you found this information helpful.
