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Model A1297 Unibody: Early 2009, Mid 2009, Mid 2010, Early 2011 & Late 2011

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I installed one 8GB RAM, do both slots have to be filled?

Hello,

I just installed the two fans and one 8GB RAM chip.

Your site did not say that there were TWO RAM chips.

I had to leave the other 2GB RAM chip in the second spot.

I don't know how to tell if I now have just 2GB of RAM or now 10GB.

I want to also know will this machine support 16GB?

I would have ordered two of the same had I known.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Ok thanks to both of you. The system says it now has 10 Gigs of RAM but not seeing much of an improvement. I will order another 8. I should have done Moët research but the fan failure noise needed to be quickly addressed.

My machine is the early 2011 17" unibody.

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Sorry - No

The Max memory this system can support is 8Gig using Two 4Gig memory modules (1 per slot),

You'll need to return your 8Gig module and get two 4Gig modules.

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Dan - I think it will use 16GB

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Your model only supports 8Gig, The newest version does support 16Gig. Review this Mid '10 model and review this: Late '11 model. Also note: if you do have a newer system you really need to populate both slots with matching modules 4 or 8Gig (Matched Pair). I have encountered many problems when people mix sizes and/or vendors causing odd OS/App crashes.

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Yes - doing research before buying anything is always a good idea. From About this Mac from the Apple Menu you can see how much RAM the machine recognizes. Also Applications->Utilities:System Information will do that and more.

Since you provided a rather generic description of your machine - I'll do the same (there are four different machines in the MacBookPro8,3 series) 16GB is the maximum amount of RAM your machine can recognize. It's best to have two matched pairs, but it is not necessary for the machine to work... You'll take a bit of speed hit - but one that is not recognizable by humans in most situations.

If this Answer is helpful please remember to return and mark it Accepted.

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maureeneritter will be eternally grateful.
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