I need to know if there is any way to disable (either through software or hardware tinkering) a dimm slot (specifically dimm0) on a mac (ibook 800) running osx panther or tiger.

basically, to make a long story short, the built-in ram on my ibook is shot and instead of replacing the entire motherboard (which would make no sense economically) i just want the computer to forget the built in ram on dimm0.

i have posted this question on many, many forums and no one seems to know. but, there must be a way...

please, help me... my computer is my job and i can't afford to completely replace it at this time...

any thoughts?
thanks.

You have proabely checked but you ibook isn't covered under the logicboard replacment program is it?

http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/

yeah. i checked. mine is a UV405 and the coverage ends at UV342. i guess apple must have completely fixed the problem with the poorly manufactured logic boards by that time... NOT!!!

but thanks.

c'mon people put your heads together. there must be a simple hack for this...
YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

perhaps777 wrote:

Guess what?
The problem was that the video chips fell off. It had nothing to do with the RAM. Calm down there partner. Unless your video chip is falling off, you wouldn't be covered anyway.


Sure, it's simple. Take the logic board out and using a solder pump, desolder all of the connections and remove the chip. It's just incredibly time consuming and unless you are skilled you will probably destroy your logic board.

How do you know that the problem is a dead DIMM?
It seems highly unlikely.

To check if the dimm is dead, remove all added ram and boot computer. It will tell you with
a number of beeps that it will not recognize the ram. If it is in fact damaged, desolder it. Just
take your time and use the right tools. If you damage it, it wont matter, its broken anyway.
There is no software hack to speak of, so its hardware all of the way. Good luck and keep us
updated on your progress and diagnosis.
-maestro

Have you even taken it to a repair shop yet?

Not wanting to hijack or nothing but I'm curious if it is possilbe to solder a larger memory chip. so like take the 256 MB out and install a 512 or Larger. that would help him in the long run to just replace the chip

i guess in theory you could put in a larger chip, the problem is that the chip is not a standard ram chip, It is custom at least to some degree, a replacement would be very hard to find.