[Ti] freeze and then three beeps

[Kynan Shook]

3 beeps means the computer found no good RAM installed in the computer. 
  Somebody else suggested that it wasn't seated properly; this is 
possible, but fairly unlikely.  In my job as a repair technician, I see 
a fair amount of RAM go bad; sometimes it can be from something like a 
lightning strike (in which case, you'll see at least 2 or 3 other bad 
parts in the same computer), but most of the time it's just because you 
bought whatever was cheapest.  The more expensive RAM comes from 
companies that do better testing, and have better quality control, 
meaning less RAM of marginal quality is sold.

That said, let me guess where you bought your memory...  18004memory?  
(aka Coast to Coast)  Just a wild guess, but I've heard of so much bad 
RAM coming out of that place that I wouldn't want to touch a computer 
that's got their RAM installed.  They're also usually the cheapest 
around.

My personal recommendation would be to use Crucial (crucial.com).  They 
have excellent quality; Apple even uses their RAM, and it's the only 
major company where the manufacturer (Micron) sells directly to 
customers.

Another thing to note; you can try using Apple Hardware Test or other 
software tools to figure out which stick of RAM (or both) is bad, but 
if they say everything is OK, don't believe it necessarily;  Those 
tools are generally 100% accurate when they say a component is bad-if 
the RAM fails, the RAM needs to be replaced.  But it is impossible for 
those tools to catch even half of all RAM that is marginally bad.  In 
that case, you have to install one stick of RAM at a time, and see if 
you still have problems while using the computer (crashes, kernel 
panics, failures to boot, etc.).  Crashes (hard lockups, not just 
application crashes) in OS X are more often a sign of bad hardware than 
those crashes were in OS 9.

Eric <EricDD at myrealbox.com> writes:
> thanks john: the ram does have a lifetime guarantee.  it's a 512 chip
> (for 768 total - and I'm running 10.2.6)  but interestingly, this is a
> replacement chip- the first one caused complete system freezes
> constantly.  i've had this one for i'm guessing about 6 months now with
> no problems.  so the question then is can ram go bad?  i should note
> that in the last couple weeks i've had a few freezes.  thanks again.


Kynan Shook
kshook at mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/kshook/index.html