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I upgraded my Mid2012 MacBook Pro (A1278) with x2 Crucial PC3-8500 Unbuffered 204-Pin SO-DIMM 8GB Ram sticks. The Mac booted once, then blanked out with black screen, then would not boot even with ram sticks swapped back. Repair shop tested the motherboard and told me it’s fried. I am sure the A1278 can be upgraded to 16GB Ram with these Crucial ram sticks, even though Apple states the maximum is 8GB. There is a lot of info out there supporting this upgrade. I had also upgraded the Hard Disk to a Samsung SSD 850 Evo 500GB SATA III on this laptop without any issues. The laptop had run for 6 years without any dramas, was just getting slow due to OS upgrades. Can anyone tell me why? Was it likely to have been an overheating problem? Reason I want to know the cause is that I have picked up a new Mid2012 MacBook Pro and want to know if I can use those same x2 8GB ram sticks to upgrade this one? I really don’t want to fry another motherboard, so any tips would be appreciated. Thanks heaps for your answers
RAM sticks don’t fry motherboards, never experienced or heard of a similar occurrence and Crucial is regarded as a serious and reliable supplier. I don’t know what’s the experience level of the lab that declared the logic board “fried” but technically that doesn’t mean anything and sounds like an answer from someone who just doesn’t have a clue about the issue. Maybe your older board can be fixed but would need some testing and more info. However, to answer your question, a 2012 Pro can use 2 x 8 GB sticks without any problem, as you already read in other places around the net. I’m a bit puzzled about the reason for choosing a slower PC3-8500 though..
