# What's wrong with my Mac? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577 "2004-01-09T04:00:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/1 "2004-01-09T04:00:28Z")
I’m using a four year old dual G4 running 9.1. I rarely turn my computer off, I put it to sleep. I turned it off this evening and then back on a half hour later. I hit the keyboard power key (which I’ve never done before) and it started for a bit and shut itself down. I waited a bit, turned it on by the tower switch. I got a message saying the built-in memory test has encountered a problem and I should contact an authorized service technician. I clicked “ok” (what else could I do?) and everything loaded up fine. I checked some things in profiler, and everything looked okay. I shut down, restarted and everything’s okay. I went through many many weeks of pain a few years back with a bad video card shutting my computer down every 30 seconds so this scared me. Was this just a glitch or something I should worry about? ---
**Author:** ![dakravel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@dakravel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dakravel)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/2 "2004-01-09T04:32:19Z")
I don’t know macs too well, but if your computer says it failed a built-in memory test, you may want to replace your memory. [/Master of the Blindingly Obvious] Otherwise, I’ve no clue. ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/3 "2004-01-11T01:00:18Z")
One bump to see if Mac people know. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/4 "2004-01-11T01:14:56Z")
Never seen that myself. How much memory is there in the computer? Is it just the memory that came with the computer, or was there more added? At some point over the past few years (can’t remember when) Macs became a little more picky about the quality of RAM installed. Have you tried over at [www.macfixitforums.com](http://www.macfixitforums.com) ? ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/5 "2004-01-11T02:58:00Z")
I’d never seen it before either. It’s all apple installed original ram. I’m thinking it was just a glitch as I haven’t seen it since. Thanks for the link, I’ll try it. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/6 "2004-01-11T21:30:55Z")
When you restarted from the tower, did it run Disk FirstAid automaticly? That may have fixed it. ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-wrong-with-my-mac/223577/7 "2004-01-11T22:22:06Z")
Disk First Aid (or any other disk utility) has no effect on RAM, it repairs hard disks and the like only.