22 Aug 2009

Upgrading the RAM on the Dell Inspiron 530

Of late my old Dell Inspiron 530 has been feeling a bit sluggish, especially when I run memory hungry applications like SPSS, the statistical software. Starting up seemed to take ages and opening up several windows would cause the system to hang as well.

The PC only had 1GB RAM when I bought it and I deduced the low RAM to be the cause of these problems I had been facing.

The first place I went to look was of course, eBay. There were some great deals but I didn't have the patience to watch, bid and wait. I somehow got to the Crucial site. One of the problems with buying RAM is the fact that different systems use different types of RAM. Moreover, you should know the maximum RAM that your system can take. I really liked the Crucial site because you can use their System Scanner tool to scan your PC and get recommended upgrades. However, I used their 3 step Memory Advisor tool. I found out that my Dell can take a max of 4GB even though 3GB is more than sufficient.



In the end I decided on two 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM which cost me only £25.28

Opening up the Dell is really easy. All we need to do is unscrew two screws (purple arrows) and then slide out the cover.




The new RAM go into the two empty slots.



I can't believe what a difference upgrading the RAM made. The PC hasn't hanged even once and I have no problems running my statistical software - SPSS either.

I also had a problem with Firefox whereby it would suddenly hang. After closing it, I couldn't open it again and a warning would pop up "Close Firefox: A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time."

Apparantly this is a known issue in Firefox. I tried all the possible solutions given. I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling but the problem would not go away.

However, ever since I upgraded the RAM, I haven't had any problems with Firefox anymore. If you are facing a similar problem with Firefox on your PC, you might want to try upgrading your RAM.

5 comments:

More Gizmo! said...

man...if there's still warranty on the machine, you might just have break the warranty..that's the bad thing...

the things that i hate about branded computers are they're usually heavy and the casing are tricky to be opened. but once, you know the right way, it's all easy :)

Dilip Mutum said...

No! the pc has already passed the warranty date so no worries.

Brad Fallon said...

My only doubt is that if by any chance a PSU can affect my PC even if fits perfectly. What are the chances it will affect my components in my PC like mother board, DVD drive, hard disk etc.

Dilip Mutum said...

Bard, that's and interesting question. Just find out the power supply capacity required by using the eXtreme Power Supply calculator: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Anonymous said...

just purchased more ram for 530s system, not installed yet. is it possible to also upgrade video card?