Gadgetory

adding more RAM to your MacBook is the easiest way to give your system a little boost especially if you want it to be able to handle a lot of tasks at once the first thing you want to do is find out how much RAM you can fit in your macbook and what the requirements are so you can do this by visiting Apple's website or you can head on over to a ram manufacturer like crucial and use their tool to find out what your computer needs in my case I have a mid 2009 MacBook Pro with two gigs of RAM but I can fit up to four gigs in each of the two slots giving me a grand total of eight gigabytes that's going to help a lot when I'm running heavy programs like Photoshop or I have like 20 tabs open in my browser okay to get started all you need is a screwdriver that fits the screws on the back of your Mac plus your RAM so the first thing you want to do is make sure your macbook is powered off then flip it over and on the back there are ten screws that need to be removed for that I have my Phillips screwdriver and you'll notice that three of the screws are longer than the others so just remember exactly where those go once they're out the back cover should lift off really easily and at this point you might notice that the inside of your computer is really dusty you can use it as an opportunity to clean it and if your harddrive looks different that's because I replaced mine with an SSD so the RAM goes right here and it's held down by two levers that you need to pull apart once you do the old RAM should pop out really easily so there's one and we'll do the same thing for the second one so now we're ready to install the new Ram there is a short side and alongside so make sure it's aligned properly and go ahead and make sure that the gold strip is completely in the slot now push down and you should hear a click we'll do the same thing with the second one put it in the slot make sure the gold strip is completely covered and then push down and there's that click our ram is installed now we're going to put the computer back together and start it up we'll put all the screws back in the three long ones go up here by the hinge and we're set now let's turn it on and see what happens I don't expect to see a serious improvement when I'm booting up or when I'm performing regular tasks when the new RAM kicks in is when I'm running a lot of heavy tasks at once I'm also hoping for fewer slowdowns and less of that spinning beach ball which usually happens when the system is trying to manage memory all right if you have any questions or tips of your own hit me up on Twitter and check out cnet.com / how to for more tips like this for CNET I'm Sharon Profis you