White Powder on MacBook RAM

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I replaced the stock RAM in my girlfriends black macbook last night and the original ram had a white powder on it, mostly near the contacts. Is this normal. I have replaced the RAM in my macbook, mbp, and old powerbooks and have never seen this.













Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    ANTHRAX



    Almost looks like corrosion, what do you guys think is going on?
  • Reply 2 of 11
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    ANTHRAX



    Almost looks like corrosion, what do you guys think is going on?



    I would say the same thing. That's weird tho...
  • Reply 3 of 11
    It is clearly MaCrack, which Steve like sto sprinkle on to get you hooked.He has been working with the CIA and Afghan fighters to develop a highly potent strain of the stuff.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    Gold doesn't oxidize, and copper corrosion isn't white. The only other metal heavily used in PCBs in tin for the solder. If that's the case, then it would appear that this DIMM was improperly masked during the assembly process. Otherwise, I'm not sure what it is. I was going to say coke.



    But yeah, send it back if you can. It might be some FR4 dust (PCB material) that got locked in during the conformal coating process. I didn't think RAM DIMMs were conformally coated, though.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    zandroszandros Posts: 537member
    I believe I read something about thermal paste on the memory sticks, but it sounds silly.



    That is Micron memory?
  • Reply 6 of 11
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zandros


    I believe I read something about thermal paste on the memory sticks, but it sounds silly.



    That is Micron memory?



    It does appear to be the micron logo.
  • Reply 7 of 11
    gnomgnom Posts: 85member
    To me it seems like all those little capacitors have blown and the white stuff is the dielectricum (insulation fluid), might be wrong though.

    Does it still work?



    cheers.
  • Reply 8 of 11
    I guess it is Micron, it is whatever apple put in it.



    They still worked but the computer was running VERY VERY slow, even for just 512mb RAM is was slow.



    I bought 1GB and put it in, so the computer works fine now. Nothing to send back, unless I want apple to replace 2 256dimms, which I won't use.
  • Reply 9 of 11
    i also notice the same whitish material when i changed out my 256 mb for a new 1 gb.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    That IS corrosion from the RAM using cheap assed aluminum alloys for the traces and only gold plating the alloy for the contact patches. Aluminum traces are a lot cheaper than copper or gold ones.
  • Reply 11 of 11
    I heard somewhere that the slots were particularly tight in the Macbook, and that this non-conductive stuff was being used to make installing the RAM easier.



    David
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