I have an early 2011 13″ Macbook Pro Laptop. Great piece of kit, but now i’m getting more into photography, and I like playing with my toys. Therefore I decided the 4GB factory RAM had to go, and £60 to crucial.com/uk got me 16GB of the finest DDR3 1300 Mhz RAM. Fitting it was quite easy, but slightly different from a PC, therefore I thought I’d document it here for anyone whose not sure. Although Apple don’t like you in their mobile kit, this generation is the last one where you can get in, so lets do it. First, make sure it is switched off and not plugged into a power source, then flip it over onto its front, so the base is in the air. Like this:
You need to remove 10 screws with a small phillips screwdriver (I used one from a Jewellers set). WARNING: these fellas are small so be careful. There are 4 at the top, 4 at the bottom ,and one in the middle of the left and right hand side. There are two types of screw. So I could get them all to be in the right place for screwing back in, I put them down about 3 inches away from the hole perpendicular to the case. This means they end up surrounding the case. Once they are all off, you can just lift of the thin base cover. Once off, you should see the picture below:
The small green rectangle in the piccie above is the memory. This has to come out. In order to remove a memory stick, apply light outward pressure to the small grey plastic clip which is holding in the the memory stick. Once the holding clip clears the stick it should pop up to about 30 degrees. You should then be able to gently pull the stick out. It is held in a slot, with a key about 2/3 rds from the left, so some firm pulling but no yanking should get you the first stick.
This is where the Mac differs from a PC. Normally on a PC, the RAM slots are next to each over, not on top of each other, but as you can see, its not exactly empty in there!. Pop out the next one using the same method. I was concerned that this may need removal of the battery, but it didn’t. Slightly tight to get out, but not too much trouble.
Then get your new RAM. Once you have them to hand, reverse the process. Pop back in the first stick. The key to this is to make sure the stick is fully in the slot, and then push down from 30 degrees back to flat. You should hear the click, as the clips secure the chip.
Then pop in the second. Because the slots are off centre, this is impossible to get round the wrong way.
Once they are both in, pop the lid back on (with all the screws !). Tip for putting the screws in. Due to the “industrial design ” of these products (see awkward), the screws go in at a slight angle so they are flush with the case.
Thats it! Switch on, and if all goes well (it may take longer to boot, as it needs to check more memory on startup), login, and click the apple icon on the top left of the screen. Click About this Mac. You should see something like this:
Well done !
Mrben09 