aemsee Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 Bought a used Dell Inspiron to replace my Macbook for now. Had one 256 stick in it. Bought a second 256 and installed it. How do I know that all is well? The computer turns on and runs fine, but when I check "properties" under "my computer" it still shows 256 for RAM? Where can I check for sure? It is XP by the way. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 sounds like its either not seated or you have a bad stick, I just bought two 512 sticks for my desktop g4, one stick turned out to be bad.....oh well, thats what happens when you spend $15 for ram. I also just got two 512 sticks for my dell inspiron 1100(which also happens to be running the intel version of OSX 10.4) lets hope they are both good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted December 19, 2008 Author Share Posted December 19, 2008 So I am right in assuming that it should show as 512 under properties of my computer? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLHTAZ Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 Yes...it should show 512 if it's working. You either have the problems already stated...or...the new stick you have is not compatible with your system. Did you check to be sure that it is the same "type" of RAM that is installed on your system? The other thing is...512 total is not near enough for todays world. It takes nearly that just to run XP. My laptop had 512 and I just upgraded it to 2gb. I bought 2 1gig sticks on eBay and maxed it out...man what a difference. :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperWade2 Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 Yes...it should show 512 if it's working. You either have the problems already stated...or...the new stick you have is not compatible with your system. Did you check to be sure that it is the same "type" of RAM that is installed on your system? The other thing is...512 total is not near enough for todays world. It takes nearly that just to run XP. My laptop had 512 and I just upgraded it to 2gb. I bought 2 1gig sticks on eBay and maxed it out...man what a difference. :thumbsup: NewEgg.Com Often has great Prices on RAM and I think they have a configurator where you put in your Make/Model and it spits out RAM that will work with your system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLHTAZ Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 I had to do a little searching to find it again, but this is the one I used to be sure I got the right stuff... http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx?gclid ... 1219193932 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted December 19, 2008 Author Share Posted December 19, 2008 Thanks guys. I'm going to pull out the original ram and try to boot it with just the new ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted December 19, 2008 Author Share Posted December 19, 2008 OK. Swapped RAM around. Appears that the new RAM is fine, the problem is that one of the RAM sockets doesn't read or something. It will only boot with RAM in DIMM socket B, with or without RAM in socket A. Any idea if there something I need to toggle in the BIOS or something? Boy I miss my Macbook. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted December 19, 2008 Share Posted December 19, 2008 How old is that model? Some of the memory sales sites also tell you how much RAM your motherboard can recognize. My desktop at home is a Dell Dimension 4100. It has two RAM slots and came with only one 256 MB DIMM. I was going to kick it up to 2 Gigs, but the site I found for memory said the Dimension 4100 will only accept up to 512 MB. I asked around and several sources confirmed that, so I just bought a second 256 MB DIMM and maxed the box out at 512. Interestingly, my computer at work is also a Dell, several generations newer, that has 1 GB of RAM but runs significantly slower than my desktop at home. Too much network overhead. But 512 is plenty of RAM to run Xp if you don't try to do too much multi-tasking. It's enough for "work," but probably rather limiting if you're a gamer (I'm not). See if you can find out what the maximum configuration is for that motherboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted December 19, 2008 Author Share Posted December 19, 2008 It says that 1 gig is the limit. It also says 512 is the limit per slot. I'll just get a 512 stick and be done with it. 512 is plenty for what I do. This machine is just to get me through until I get another job anyhow. Thanks guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted December 20, 2008 Share Posted December 20, 2008 Boy I miss my Macbook. :( i was wondering how long untill you said that. FYI in the future you could install OSX onto a PC, just need to be willing to spend an evening getting it all setup right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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