Vostro 1000 and Memory Upgrades

[joe g]

Hello all, I'm looking to upgrade the RAM on my Vostro 1000. However, I've been reading conflicting information across the web (including some posts in this forum) which state that the maximum amount of RAM this system can take is 2GB.

I would like of course go for the 4GB upgrade (2GB x2), but I'd like to know for sure before I waste some time/money.

This is the info straight from my Dell emails:

-- Vostro 1000 --
-- AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 Dual-Core processor TK-53 (1.7GHz/512KB)
-- Memory --
-- 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 Dimm

and this is the memory i'd like to buy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145193

any input is appreciated, especially first hand experiences!

[joe g]

bump, anybody with some input?

[Commander Wolf]

Well, if you do a Google search, you get this...

I thought I would test 4GB of RAM on my Vostro 1000, and to my surprise, it posted and all recognized correctly! DELL claim a maximum of 2GB RAM on.

But the link is dead, so you can't really read anymore...

http://www.computerforum.com/146209-...s-4gb-ram.html

Vostro 1000 and the associated chipset are kind of rare, and people buying these machines aren't typically those who'd want or care to upgrade to 4GB. I'd say you should go for the 4GB. DDR2 is cheap enough that it's worth a shot.

[joe g]

what! i googled plenty before posting. i searched this forum as well. dang, i just bought the 2GB upgrade last night! i checked on Dell's, Corsair's as well as Crucial's websites and they all claim the max is 2GB for the Vostro. ARGH! do you recommend i try to return the incoming memory from newegg?

thanks for the info

[Gareth-Tpavra]

Hi there, I am the person who made the other post in the link a few responses up.

Although Dell do not officially say the Vostro 1000 supports more than 2GB of RAM, I have got it working with 4GB (3.87GB to Windows after graphics memory is deducted). The memory modules I used were Crucial SODIMM DDR2 800 PC6400 at $20.99 from Newegg.

I would like to add that on the 32-bit installation which was previously on the 1000, it would only support 2.6GB of RAM. However, after buying a copy of Vista Basic x64, it detected all the available RAM.

So I say go ahead, and get the 4GB kit. It works, and is MUCH faster on Vista than it was with 2GB.

Just for reference, my BIOS is 2.5.2

Edit:
Here is a picture of the System specs proving the 4GB of RAM installed and detected.

[millermagic]

Hah that's pretty cool.

I almost bought one of these but I was scared off by the 2gb limit ... which it does actually support.

[joe g]

whats up gareth! i can see that you signed up specifically just to post that message, i really appreciate your help!

based on your post in that other forum (and some friend's suggestions), i decided to just return the 2GB (2x1GBs). i made a trip to fry's today and bought Corsair's 4GB (2x2GBs) and it seems to work so far, the system properties show up with 4GB! i decided to run Firefox and Photoshop CS4 all while playing Street Fighter III on MAME32, works like a charm.

thanks again gareth, and thanks to commander wolf as well!

[Gareth-Tpavra]

Not a problem, glad it was a help, and hopefully these posts will help other users searching for 4GB of RAM on a Vostro 1000.

[shammy]

This has inspired me to upgrade my RAM to 4GB. I just purchased the kinston PC6400 DDR2 2X2GB RAM thanks guys. Quick question? Think the RAM has anything to do with screensaver initialization problems? Cuz my screensaver just doesn't work anymore.

[Gareth-Tpavra]

The screensaver should not be related to memory at all. Either something is running preventing the screensaver from running, or there is something on the trackpad? My laptop is running its screensaver perfectly fine now.