dell inspiron 9300 help upgrading ram (laptop)

[LyNX31]

im more of a desktop guy myself, but my friend got in on the dell inspiron 9300 deals. i was about to cry for her when i saw that it only had 256 mb of ram in it! talk about a bottleneck! anyway, i was wondering how difficult it is to upgrade the ram in these suckers. if she wanted to keep her stick of 256 then she would have to go 512 or 2 gig correct? otherwise if she wants 1 gig of ram then there's no point of the 256 stick staying there?

where's the best place to buy this ram? as u see im clueless when it comes to laptops and all help is appreciated! thanks

 

[Deinonych]

It's not difficult to upgrade the RAM. The instructions are in the 9300 manual.

You can order memory from Dell, but you'll probably pay more. A better bet is to purchase a third-party module like those from Crucial.

 

[murph1437]

The 9300 is a very nice system that Dell offers, I hate to hear that you only got 256 mb of RAM in it though. To upgrade the memory in it all you have to do is swap the memory modules and do a BIOS flash to recognize it.

 

[great fool]

Get a 1GB stick of Transcend from Newegg and stick it in the free slot for 1.25GB, no need to flash BIOS. I just did it with mine. Apparently there is almost no performance benefit to running dual channel with the Pentium M architecture.

 

[LyNX31]

thanks for the help and links guys.. ive done bios flashes before through winflash so that should be no problem. has anyone used these crucial modules? any other recommendations? if she has one 256 stick in there now can i add another 512 stick to make 768? or do the sticks have to be equal? and will the crucial work with the 256mb dell module?

 

[LyNX31]

Originally posted by: great fool
Get a 1GB stick of Transcend from Newegg and stick it in the free slot for 1.25GB, no need to flash BIOS. I just did it with mine. Apparently there is almost no performance benefit to running dual channel with the Pentium M architecture.

oh thanks for this recommendation! seems like alot of ppl went this route from the comments and reviews

 

[kitkat22]

If I remember right all that is involved are two screws and a plate at the bottom of the laptop and you have quick and easy access to the modules. You don't need to flash the BIOS to upgrade the RAM and if it's new there probably aren't much in terms of updates anyway. Stick with the Transcend.

 

[imported_Pablo]

Yeah, I haven't had to flash bios for any of the inspirons I've upgraded memory on... I ordered crucial RAM from buy.com i think...