Dell Inspiron 6000 RAM upgrade

Hi,

I've got a 4-year-old Inspiron 6000 with 256 MB of RAM. I really don't know the first thing about laptop hardware, so I have a few questions that I hope someone can help me answer.

My laptop has been running pretty slowly for a while now. I don't play video games or do much that would require a lot of memory, although I suspect that Norton AntiVirus slows things down a lot, and iTunes as well (although I don't know that for sure).

Since I only have 256 MB of RAM, I'm wondering if upgrading by adding 512 MB, 1 GB or 2GB would help much/at all. If so, my other questions would be: how much should I get? What specifically should I buy (brand name, model, anything--cheapest would be preferable)? And how do I install it?

That's a lot of questions, but I haven't really found any definitive answers to my questions online anywhere after a couple of days of searching. I'd be most grateful to anyone who could help.

 

I bumped my wife's 6000 up to 1.5GB and it helped quite a bit. When I removed Norton, it also helped. Norton takes up a lot of system resources. People claim that the newest version is better, but I have abandoned Norton.

Defragging the hard drive might help if you have not done it. You could also replace the hard drive with a newer model and faster speed. The newer 5400 ones are faster than they were when yours was new. A 7200RPM might even be faster-depending on the models.

I would get two 512MB sticks and that should be sufficient for XP as long as you do not do a lot of multi-tasking. Installation is very easy. There is a plate on the bottom to access the slots. You can download the service manual from Dell support.

Find out what services are running all of the time in the Task Manager and determine if you actually need them. They can slow things down.

Another program that can help clean things up is Ccleaner.

Lastly, you could do a clean install which could also help speed it up.

 

I forgot to mention spyware. On my wifes computer, she had quite a bit of malware which was slowing it down, also. She has a bad habit of clicking on everything.

I used Malwarebytes to remove nearly all of it. A couple of other programs to finish. I have installed a few programs on her new computer to prevent this from reoccurring.

 

Thanks! Can you recommend any specific products? I wouldn't know the first thing about which RAM to buy.

 

For the most part, RAM is RAM; there's not too much difference between brands, especially for a system as old as the Inspiron 6000. Kingston, OCZ, Crucial, Corsair, G.Skill, and Mushkin are all pretty good memory companies.

 

Here is a link to some that will work. As noted, RAM is RAM. I have used PNY, Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, Hyundai among several. Just has to be the right kind. As cheap as it is now, you could easily go two 1024 sticks (2GB).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ryConfigurator&CFG=CFG003Inspiron 6000&DEPA=0

 

My buddy got 2 1GB sticks for his 6000 and a new 7200rpm HDD 16MB cache for like $50 bucks. And his machine is blazzing fast like a good trooper. Before with a 4200rpm or 5400rpm and 256MB it crawled. For $50 its a new machine.

 

I have one 512MB stick I can pull from an old Inspiron 6000 that I have. You can have it if you want, I'll just charge you to cover the shipping.

 

Your lucky your particular RAM is only 13 bucks for 1GB. For my Inspiron 9200 its 30 bucks just from upgrading from 512 (what I currently have) to 1GB.

 

Thanks! I think I'll go with a couple of 1 GB sticks from this page.

Xiphias, thanks anyway for the offer!