My G4 Cube came with 512MB of RAM. It can take a max of 1.5GB. With RAM prices as cheap as they are, it doesn’t make any sense not to max it out. After all, these vintage Macs need all the help they can get! I hopped on eBay and ordered 3 x 512MB sticks for $15 bucks. I can’t believe when I shopped around for 512MB sticks for my PIII back in 1999/2000, they were $100 a pop.



3 matched 512MB sticks. Very nice.



I flipped the Cube over and disconnected all the cables.



I then pulled out the core and placed it on my desk.



I flipped it on its side and pulled out the 2 x 256MB sticks.



I installed all 3 sticks and buttoned it back up.



Silly me. I should have just powered up the core to make sure all the RAM worked before buttoning it up. Look at that, one of the RAM sticks isn’t being detected. The Cube is only reporting 1GB of RAM.



I opened it back up and reseated the RAM. Still no joy. I then pulled out the sticks and booted the Cube up with 1 stick at a time until I found the culprit. I even tried the faulty stick in all 3 slots just to make sure that wasn’t a factor.



The stick definitely doesn’t work, no matter what slot it’s in. Upon closer inspection, it appears that there’s some damage to the pins. There’s no way I did that. The sticks are old stock pulled from a working system and were supposed to be guaranteed to work. I guess this one slipped through.



With that, I popped one of the 256MB sticks back in for a total of 1.25GB. I can live with that. (For now).



I contacted the seller and asked for a refund, or a have a new stick sent. I’ll settle for either. I know it’s only $5 bucks and I’d sooner throw it out, but it’s the principle. The auction clearly stated that the sticks were tested and were guaranteed to work. How are you going to send a RAM stick with chewed up pins? If the guy gives me the finger, maybe I’ll have a go at re-tining the pins with my soldering iron.

Anyway, even with 1.25GBs of RAM, it’s still more than double of what it had. I can definitely tell the Cube is faster than it was. Surfing the internet is still brutal (even with wired Ethernet) but Tiger definitely has a little snap to it now.

It would be nice if the seller sends a new stick. I know I’m only 256MB shy of it being maxed, but it’s definitely nice to say “it’s maxed”.