Dell PC questions

[SamuraiInBlack]

For the following I need to know two things. I wasn't sure if this belonged in the Memory forum because I'm not even sure if memory will resolve this issue, hence why I am posting it here.

1. I want to know if this can be resolved by adding more RAM
2. If Dell PCs use any kind of 'proprietary' ram modules that you have to get specifically through them or if any will do. (I've heard some horror stories that some pre-builder companies make certain parts proprietary so you -have- to go through them for it.)
3. If anyone happens to know the expansion limit on the boards, or if there's a general rule of thumb I can follow.

My girlfriend's sister has a computer that is suffering from being a slug and a half. It's semi old. It's a Pentium 4 running at 1.7GHz and has 128MB's of RAM. I'm not sure what kind though, but I'm betting it's SDRAM though I could be wrong. I haven't popped open the case to find out and they just moved back here, and like all things that get sucked into the oblivion when one moves, the documentation's gone. It's running Windows XP, with Service Pack 2.

They called me over to try and see if I could get their computer back up to speed. Here's my checklist that I completed:

- Dusted out fairly well. About as good as it'll get without busting out a brush to get every last spec of dust/dirt on the components.
- Ran Ad-Aware with updated references, removed 48 bits of spyware
- Ran Spybot S&D with updated references, removed ~ 100 bits of spyware
- Ran AVG Free Edition with updated references, removed 4 viruses embedded in a .jar file
- Ran RegscrubXP, removed 94 dead registry entries
- Installed Opera and Mozilla, configured to what they have in IE/MSN browser (they had dialup before moving back) or as close as I could get it to that.
- Ran CWShredder, found nothing
- Ran Hijack This! and removed bad/questionable entries
- Resized pagefile and shutdown processes as per this tweak guide
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1590
- Disabled indexing as per the guide above.
- Uninstalled no longer used/unnecessary stuff

It seems to run a little bit faster, but I think I can squeeze more out of it. Though it's hard to say just how much more, considering it's Windows XP and 128MB's of ram. To my knowledge that's a combination just asking for trouble. The desktop loads a little faster on startup. Shutdown time doesn't seem to have improved much. It still hangs for at least thirty seconds if not longer. But overall it still feels sluggish. Even toning the themes and what not down to optimal performance settings doesn't seem to do much in terms of freeing up power when I go to access the Start menu. It still semi hangs a little. The hard drive is relatively free in terms of space, as in well over 80% of the disk space free.

 

[SmokeRngs]

It is definitely in need of a RAM upgrade. 128 just is not enough to run XP worth a damn. It needs at least 256 to run it decent and I would suggest 512 for optimal performance running everyday stuff. Personally, I probabaly wouldn't put more than 128 in it unless they actually use RAM gobbling software. Browsing, Word, Excel and running stuff like that will be fine with 256 meg.

What you need to do is either open it up (which is sounds like you have already done) and look to see what kind of RAM it has. There is a change is had RDRAM which will not be fun to upgrade since the stuff can still be pricey and I'm sure needs to be installed in pairs. You will also have to check to see if it has any free RAM slots. Places like that like to use a couple smaller sticks of RAM and fill as many of the RAM slots as they can. If it is RDRAM, has four total RAM slots and it looks like all are filled, you will want to double check it. A pair of what looks like RAM sticks could just be fillers as many RDRAM systems had to have something in all slots. As far as picking up RDRAM, I can't help you there. I've never really had to mess with it so I don't really know a whole lot about it.

Besides opening up the case to check what kind of RAM, you may want to get the model number and look it up on Dell's site. You should be able to find out what kind of RAM it used and how many RAM slots it has. You can also go to www.crucial.com to find out what RAM is compatible with the system if it is SDR or DDR DIMMs. You can also buy RAM from them. I haven't bought directly from them in a long time but they were usually decently priced for good RAM.

Make sure you find out if the system has open RAM slots. After that you'll be able to buy the needed RAM and install.

 

[SirKenin]

XP needs at least 512 MB of RAM to run properly. Consider it like pigeon holes on a desk. The more pigeon holes there are, the less has to be taken out before more can be put in. Right now you are very limited. That little amount of RAM is going to beat the hell out of the harddisk. It is the constant disk operations that is slowing down the computer, not the browser. Adding Opera in there was useless. All that did was fill the harddrive up with more junk but doesn't solve the root problem.

That computer is almost certainly SDRAM. You can probably put after market RAM in it without trouble, although I am aware of one Dell that I have run across where the guy couldn't do that.

 

[SamuraiInBlack]

I installed the other browsers because I wanted to eliminate the spyware issue and I also wanted to see if the fact that they were using the MSN browser was slowing things up. (for some reason actual IE doesn't work. It does an illegal error and shuts down. They specifically need to go through the MSN browser that one signs in to use in order to browse the web)

All i need to know now is what that computer will be able to handle as far as memory. I'm not gonna buy a 512 stick or two 256 sticks and find out later I can't even install them because the board can't access that much. And that i'm probably gonna have to go through the usual steps either online or by phone to find out.

After that I'll just readjust the pagefile accordingly.

 

[..:: KitteN ::..]

Ram definetiley seems to be your best option. I have a dell and if you just call them up they will tell you what RAM you need. They might "suggest" that you get it from them so if any thing goes wrong they supplied it all and they can't blame it on the RAM that you brought yourself... phone call won' take long

 

[IanG]

Definately get more RAM - SP2 seems to like 512MB the best, SP1 will get by with 256MB. If you do run 256MB, try switching to the windows classic theme (win 95 look) and turning off any unneccesary services (google for a guide).

 

[tazzmissionx]

More memory definitly. When IE crashes, what is the filename that it displays? And it might be a good idea to checkout your startup config, services and the Prefetch folder and see if there is anything odd going on or something that's not getting detected.

 

[Sobek]

I was able to install another 128mb of SDRAM in my Dell PIII L733 a couple of years back. I think you should be able to do the same. I just went to Best Buy and picked up a stick of Kingston Value RAM. You may want to run SISoftware Sandra 2005. It should be able to tell you exactly what kind of RAM the PC has and can diagnose it for you. I agree with getting 512mb as well.
Thanks for posting the list of stuff you did to try and fix the problem and actually try to fix it first. Far to many people come here whinning about their PC without actually troubleshooting it themselves first.

 

[Heliocentrical]

It is definitely in need of a RAM upgrade. 128 just is not enough to run XP worth a damn. It needs at least 256 to run it decent and I would suggest 512 for optimal performance running everyday stuff.

QFT.

Minimum for XP SP2 is 512mb. I have a compaq presario thats about 3 months old that came with 256mb. The first thing I did was pull out that ram and drop in 1gig of PQI dual channel ddr. The difference was like night and day.