iMac items: Dealing with defective RAM; No RAM Disk startup disk

Dealing with defective RAM One of the first things I did after getting my iMac was install an extra 64Mb of RAM. Compared to my 7500, getting in side the iMac was much more of a hassle. Still, it was well designed for end user access in some ways, with handles to pull to pop the case off and to pull out the logic board tray. I just wish they did not have holes right underneath where you unscrew the screws. In one case, one of the screws actually fell through a hole (fortunately I could retrieve it).

It turned out that the RAM module I had was defective. In a bizarre way, this revealed a pleasant surprise. When I started up the iMac, an error message appeared stating that the memory test had failed. When I clicked the OK box, the iMac continued to boot as normal. When startup was over, I checked and only the original 32Mb of RAM was available. In all other aspects, the iMac continued to work just fine. The pleasant surprise for me was that the defective RAM did not bring down the entire system. I am not sure that this change is new to the iMac, but certainly in Mac models of years ago, defective RAM would inevitably either precipitate a Sad Mac or lead to frequent system crashes. The iMac is an improvement. (Anyway, I got the RAM replaced and all works fine.)

No RAM Disk startup disk Speaking of RAM related changes: in looking over the documentation that came with the iMac, I noticed something that had not caught my attention before: you cannot set up a RAM Disk as a startup disk on the iMac. The RAM Disk icon does not even appear in the Startup Disk control panel window.