Quick question about Dell's

[Hawk1]

My brother-in-law needs more memory for his Dell desktop, as he got an out of memory notice in XP. Don't know the model etc. but its about 5 years old with 1GB of memory. I'm assuming its DDR, but I'm going to check what he has with CPUZ and order him another 1GB of whatever his MB supports.

I've never dealt with Dells and just want to make sure they don't have any proprietary BS for memory (Like I know they do with the PSU/MB connectors), and that I can just get whatever is the cheapest/best bang for the buck memory. Thanks.

 

[nflesher87]

I'm 99% sure there's no rule about memory with Dell, though either way it's not going to matter, at 5 years he should be completely out of warranty

as for the DDR, it almost has to be, there's usually some nice DDR kits in the B/S/T forum for sale, mrw1986 has a nice PQI kit for sale at $25 shipped and he's a good guy to deal with http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=31455

 

[AsRock]

I was able to get some for a 4550 some years ago made by PNY from CompUSA had no problems what so ever with it. IF they offer you a rebate on PNY you may not receive it

 

[Hawk1]

Thanks for the quick reply nflesher. I'll be checking his system tomorrow and see what speeds his MB supports, then see whats available here. Who knows, it may be just a bunch of bloatware/malware on there, as all he pretty much does with it is surf/check e-mail, so I cant see what would eat up that much memory. I'll do a cleanup of his system while I'm at it and see what he has.

Cheers

 

[nflesher87]

for sure, I can almost guarantee all it needs is a good clean up if not a fresh OS install
either way, an extra gig for 25 shipped would probably be worth talking to mrw, who know maybe he'll do a little lower since it says OBO

 

[Hawk1]

Yeah, I'll get him the extra gig just to make him feel better, and I can see his Norton or whatever AV he's using (he buys off the shelf) chewing it up anyway.

 

[nflesher87]

lol yeah, but for sure do 2 scans of each: AVG, Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D
that'll clean it up real good, and of course the usuals, defrag and such

 

[Hawk1]

lol yeah, but for sure do 2 scans of each: AVG, Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D
that'll clean it up real good, and of course the usuals, defrag and such

Yeah, shouldn't take too long, as I cant see his HDD being that big if its 5 years old. He also asked me will more memory speed up his system. I was like it will if it was always running out of memory. But now that I think about it, he probably has a 4200 or 5400 rpm HDD. Hmm, might get that for him also to speed things up (assuming he still has/got the oem install disk).

Edit: and now that I further think of it, even if he does have the OEM OS, it will be a PIA since it probably doesnt have SP2 (or one maybe) on it.

 

[nflesher87]

cool, well I have a Hitachi 80GB 7200rpm SATA2 drive with about 5 hours use on it if you're interested, just shoot me a PM it's ready to ship Monday

 

[Hawk1]

cool, well I have a Hitachi 80GB 7200rpm SATA2 drive with about 5 hours use on it if you're interested, just shoot me a PM it's ready to ship Monday

Did they even have SATA back then on the MB
Cant wait to open his case and see exactly whats in there (along with the ton of dust I'm sure).

 

[nflesher87]

Did they even have SATA back then on the MB

I meant to mention in the post about checking for SATA haha, it might have a couple SATA ports...though the more I think about it probably not

 

[Hawk1]

I'll be sure to check, but I'm not too hopeful. Anyway, thanks again for all the help. Off to bed for me.

Cheers.

 

[patton45]

they did have sata back then on certian high end boards but not more than 1 or 2 ports. socket a boards tend to have them more than dell/intel boards plus i would check to make sure its ddr and not stupid rdram i have a dell with ddr and one with rdram with almost the same manufacture dates go figure they used both

 

[sneekypeet]

Hate to be the guy to state the obvious here , but dont just go by CPU-z before you buy the ram you want. Make sure you open it up and at least make sure there is 4 RAM slots to begin with, if not you options will deffinately change as to buying a 2GB kit to replace the 1GB kit (if only 2 slots).

 

[strick94u]

Get the number off the sticker with the bar code(side or back) go to dell.com type it in and it will tell you everything you need to know build info upgrade info. And I have never seen a dell that would not run on non dell ram.

 

[Namslas90]

A lot of Dells require 2 matching sticks, also the memory architechture(sic) must match(ie; X64 or X128), just use the memory selector(configurator) on Newegg to figure out what kind you need then buy the kind you want that matches the specs. Some Dells require a "memory blank" to be installed if you switch to single stick. The blanks are like a stick of memory with traces to make connections for detection but no chips on the stick. (got a couple if anybody needs them)

 

[Random Murderer]

an out of memory notice in xp(maybe vista as well) could mean your hdd is full.
i'll not address the ram issue, as others seem to have that under control, but i would suggest checking the hdd before spending any money on new ram.

 

[patton45]

and keep in mind check the case becuase you will find that most dell desktops of that age only have 2 dimms espically the early ddr and rdram boards

 

[Hawk1]

Thanks for the additional info. guys. I'll be checking it over tomorrow and post back what I find.

Cheers.

 

[Hawk1]

Well, I checked it out and wasnt as bad a shape as I thought. Its a Dimension 4550 (Bios dated 11/12/02) with a P4 Northwood (i845) 2.4Ghz, 2x 512 PC2700 (only 2 dimm slots) w/60GB HDD (20 free). His son has some knowledge (software wise) so it had Kapersky and Ad Aware on there already. They just did scans/windows defrag, so didn't find anything, even under safemode, but did a perfectdisk defrag for good measure, as well as ccleaner to clear the cache etc and registry (602 issues). Inside was way cleaner than I expected (esp. seeing some of the pics on here of older PC's). His memory problem stemmed from the fact he has 4 user accounts for himself/wife/2 daughters (son has own Pc) and that one would be running limewire and other things when he would swich to his own, so the other accounts were eating into the memory.

Lol, when I looked at CPUZ and saw the 18x multi I thought Hmm..OC? But then I remembered:
a. Its a Dell so everything is probably locked.
b. Its only used for surfing/email so what for
c. Its not mine to F@%@# around with


Anyway, he wants to get an extra stick of 1GB memory, but I just have to check with Dell that this will be ok on his system to have 1x1GB PC3200 and 1x512 PC2700 (he knows he wont get the performance of the PC3200, but wants for when he gets another stick next year).

Thanks, again, for everyones help on this. Much appreciated.

 

[Namslas90]

Anyway, he wants to get an extra stick of 1GB memory, but I just have to check with Dell that this will be ok on his system to have 1x1GB PC3200 and 1x512 PC2700 (he knows he wont get the performance of the PC3200, but wants for when he gets another stick next year).

Thanks, again, for everyones help on this. Much appreciated.

Interesting...I have a 4550 in front of me right now with a bad HDD. Will have it up and running soon.

This model doesn't need the "blanks", also does not need memory in "pairs",

Newegg will have a much better price than Dell. Dells prices are realy expensive.

 

[Hawk1]

Interesting...I have a 4550 in front of me right now with a bad HDD. Will have it up and running soon.

This model doesn't need the "blanks", also does not need memory in "pairs",

Newegg will have a much better price than Dell. Dells prices are realy expensive.

Oh, I definitely wasn't going with anything from Dell or the big box stores (they're ususually almost 2x the price), I just want to make sure I can mix & match the sticks. Thanks.

 

[Namslas90]

Oh, I definitely wasn't going with anything from Dell or the big box stores (they're ususually almost 2x the price), I just want to make sure I can mix & match the sticks. Thanks.

Yes, 1 X 1GB will work just fine. Yes, you can mix and match. Mine has a 512(PC 3200) and a 128(PC2700)in it right now. The memory speed will only go as fast as the slowest stick.

 

[keakar]

Anyway, he wants to get an extra stick of 1GB memory, but I just have to check with Dell that this will be ok on his system to have 1x1GB PC3200 and 1x512 PC2700 (he knows he wont get the performance of the PC3200, but wants for when he gets another stick next year).

well by replacing his ram with a matching set of 2x512gb to have 1gb of 3200 ram will be the best move.
he will find 1gb is all the ram he needs. (dont try to make use of his old ram just pull it and sell it if you can)

another problem is only having 20gb free hdd. with all those users available hdd space gets maxed out quickly. to keep your computer fast you should never have more than 60% of the hdd filled if you can help it.

if you increase the hard drive to 120gb along with replacing the ram with a matching 1gb set of pc3200 then he will get a nice increase in performance for only around $100-$150.

 

[Hawk1]

well by replacing his ram with a matching set of 2x512gb to have 1gb of 3200 ram will be the best move.
he will find 1gb is all the ram he needs. (dont try to make use of his old ram just pull it and sell it if you can)

another problem is only having 20gb free hdd. with all those users available hdd space gets maxed out quickly. to keep your computer fast you should never have more than 60% of the hdd filled if you can help it.

if you increase the hard drive to 120gb along with replacing the ram with a matching 1gb set of pc3200 then he will get a nice increase in performance for only around $100-$150.

Yeah, I know, I tried to convince him to get 2x512 of the 3200, but you know how people who don't know specs are: 1.5 GB is better than 1 GB. As far as HDD goes, he doesnt want to shell out for the upgrade/add on until next year. But it's not my Pc or money.