advice, please...

[hyderabadi]

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop (actually, it is so huge it is appropriately called a desktop replacement) and it came with 256MB RAM but can take up to 1 GB RAM (of coruse, if I upgrade to 1 GB, I understand the current 256MB will be useless for me in this system). I am hoping to get advice from you as to where I can get compatible, inexpensive RAM (512 MB module) for this system. I have ECC SDRAM on my desktop. Does ECC make sense for a laptop?

Please, please, please ignore this note if it doesn't belong in this forum.

Thanks in advance.

 

[foofoo]

hi,
ecc sdram doesnt make sense on a laptop for almost all laptop applications, i dont think that you will be using your laptop for a high reliability server or something like that (correct me if i'm wrong).
the best place that i know of is
crucial
use their selector and get your ram.

good luck

 

[SXMP]

First, no ECC is not a good idea for this laptop. (ECC is basically error-correcting ram used in Servers).

Second, Crucial memory is probably one of the easiest ways to go. www.crucial.com plus they have plenty of great deals, (check the hot deals forum, or possibly the banners on this page). My vote goes there for ease of use.

Third, I definatley agree with your decision to throw in an extra 512mb of ram to augment your current 256mb. This should provide a very good mix of ram/cost efficiency.

Also you mention that your desktop has ECC SDRAM, I am curious to why your desktop needs that, but thats another topic. For your laptop, if I remember correctly, and fairly certain, its running DDR memory at 266mhz. Meaning that any DDR memory (pc2100) or above should be fine.

 

[bozo1]

That laptop doesn't support ECC anyway.

 

[hyderabadi]

Thanks, foofoo, for a pointer to crucial.com
On that site, for Inspiron 5100, it says:
======================================
System Info:
Maximum memory: 1024 MB
Standard memory: 128, 256 or 512 MB non-removable
Slots: 2 (2banks of 1)
...
======================================
Maybe I should read the documentation that came with Inspiron 5100 to figure out more but could someone quickly confirm whether or not I can upgrade to 1024 MB despite the mention of "non-removable" in the above piece of information. I saw on Hot Deals forum that Fry's is selling "512 MB DDR Memory PC 2100" for $49.xx and I am tempted to run to my local (San Jose) Fry's...

FYI, I would like to run Oracle 9i database server with JBoss and/or WebSphere on this Dell laptop.

(I have 1 GB ECC SDRAM on the box (a dual-boot(RH 7.3 server and WIndows XP Pro), dual-p3 7xx MHz machine) at home where I have Oracle 9i running for academic purposes. I also run JBoss or WebSphere (but not both at the same time) and a bunch of other software on it.)

When I upgrade memory on my Inspiron and finish installing RH 9.0 (?) Linux on it, I will have to find a new home for my ooold IBM ThinkPad (Pentium 133, 2GB HD, 72 MB RAM running Linux RH 7.0), probably on eBay.