DIMM and New Computers

Buying the RAM outside (not from manufacturer)

[Visit Thailand]

I am looking at buying a new Dell Inspiron 8600 as i think my 7000 is about to give up and die.

Dell charges quite a lot if you want 2 GB DIMM memory.

As the system I want to buy comes with 2 DIMM slots I am thinking of choosing their 256KB option and then buying two 1GB DDR Memory PC 2700 SDRAM to put in the machine myself.

Has anyone ever done this and had any problems? Also is there anything I should consider when buying such RAM any manufacturer to aim for etc?

The guy at DELL said it is advisable to use two DIMMs from the same company if I buy that externally. Any thoughts please?

[Frank_Rizzo]

Agreed that Dell are very expensive for memory upgrades. This is how they make their money.

You've probably checked the prices and worked out that you can make vast savings by upgrading it yourself.

The downside is that you "may" invalidate your warranty as you will not be an authorised dell engineer.

I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Go ahead and order the ram from a major supplier such as the memory supplier which is quite Crucial. Use the configurator to identify which ram you need.

If you are not adept at handling or installing the memory (and to be fair, 2Gb is quite a purchase) then find a small independant hardware repair shop to do it for you.

[Visit Thailand]

Thanks Frank_Rizzo,

Yes that is what I was thinking of doing getting a little shop in Panthip Plaza here in Bangkok to install it for me. You are also right about the warranty.

The difference though with Dell's RAM is HK$ 7,500 from 2 DIMM slots with 1 256KB and 2 DIMM Slots with 1GB in each.

[Raymond]

Hmm, I have a few laptops, 2 Toshiba, 1 Asus, 1 Sony. None of which has any "protective stickers" that blocks you from opening the slot for installing RAM. Your warrantee will be void for sure if you attempt to open the main case though.

[bill]

I did exactly this with a Inspiron 8200 a couple of years ago. It does not void the warranty. I got the smallest chip possible from Dell (128MB at the time) and purchased 2 512MB chips from Crucial for a fraction of the cost from Dell. You simply open a panel in the back and pop out the old chip and insert the new. The entire operation took less than 5 minutes.

[Visit Thailand]

Thanks all. I had not noticed the capitalised C in Crucial in Franks post so appreciate you putting it in bold bill!

Will go ahead and take the smallest. Thanks again.

[danieljean]

Hmmm... same here, an Inspiron 8200, though with 256M. With several local servers running (Tomcat, Apache, MySQL...) and loads of software, it's getting pretty slow at times. For about $100, adding 512M would probably be a very good boost in performance.

[idoc]

Cr*cial is where I look first as well for memory. I get the D*ll servers from the specials in the ad's plain vanilla with minimal ram and buy ram from cr*cial and have *never* had any compatability issues from it at all. I also get the raid cards and hard drives aftermarket as well.