Memory upgrade query for laptop

J

Josey Wales

Registered User
Messages
101
Hi,

Does anybody know the best way I can check if my laptop can handle the addition of new memory?

I have a DELL Inspirion 5150 with the 3.4GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. I was wondering if an upgrade to 1GB would be okay for the machine. How do you check physically if there is room in the machine?
 
Log onto www.crucial.com They will scan your system and determine what memory slots you have, how many are occupied, and what chips are compatible with your system. You can then buy them online from this co or another if you make a note of the specs.

I've been doing this for years with 100% results. Would highly recommend them. (No connection)
 
AlastairSC said:
Log onto www.crucial.com They will scan your system and determine what memory slots you have, how many are occupied, and what chips are compatible with your system. You can then buy them online from this co or another if you make a note of the specs.

I've been doing this for years with 100% results. Would highly recommend them. (No connection)
Click to expand...

[broken link removed]also sell Crucial memory and use the same [broken link removed]. Not sure what the delivery costs when buying from Crucial direct (the site said "The Crucial Technology Web site is currently unavailable." when I clicked on Shipping! - but with Komplett you can order several products for the one shipping cost (from €13.50).

I find Komplett's customer service quite good and have returned several items for various reasons in the past without too much difficulty.
 
Just incase you have any further issues with it.....

Shipping Outside Mainland UK
European orders shipped outside the UK are delivered via UPS Express. Delivery to most European locations is within 3 days from dispatch.
UPS Express Shipping Rates for the European Union
Ireland €7.00
Click to expand...
I removed the additional EU countries as not needed and formatting was a bit crazy.
 
I used the function on www.crucial.com to check out what memory can be used in our laptop. It says that we have no available expansion slot though.

Is it possible to remove the memory that is there already and replace it with more memory? Or will we have to make do with what we have already?

Thanks.
 
Josey Wales said:
I used the function on www.crucial.com to check out what memory can be used in our laptop. It says that we have no available expansion slot though.

Is it possible to remove the memory that is there already and replace it with more memory? Or will we have to make do with what we have already?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can normally remove some memory and replace them with higher capacity memory boards.

For example, Dell laptops might come with 2 x 256 MB memory boards (DIMMs probably), totalling 512 MB - you can replace one of these with a 1 GB chip to give you a total of 1.25 GB but you will end up throwing away a 256 MB DIMM (or selling it on eBay). As such, it is not worth buying a smaller capacity memory upgrade as you will be throwing away some of the memory you already have.
 
MonsieurBond said:
Yes, you can normally remove some memory and replace them with higher capacity memory boards.

For example, Dell laptops might come with 2 x 256 MB memory boards (DIMMs probably), totalling 512 MB - you can replace one of these with a 1 GB chip to give you a total of 1.25 GB but you will end up throwing away a 256 MB DIMM (or selling it on eBay). As such, it is not worth buying a smaller capacity memory upgrade as you will be throwing away some of the memory you already have.
Click to expand...

Not certain about Dell computers but be careful doing this. Many computer manufacturers strongly recommend that when you have two memory slots that you have the same amount of memory in each slot. Having 1gig in one and 256mb in another may cause system instability.
 
tallpaul said:
Not certain about Dell computers but be careful doing this. Many computer manufacturers strongly recommend that when you have two memory slots that you have the same amount of memory in each slot. Having 1gig in one and 256mb in another may cause system instability.
Click to expand...

I've had exactly this configuration in my Dell Inspiron 510m for several months now with no ill-effects.

Although balanced memory is probably a good idea (to err on the side of caution) - if you can afford to buy 2GB.
 
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