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Souping up Dell Inspiron

E

echelonphoto

Member
OK...today's my day to get lots of info...the folks here are very nice and knowledgeable.
I am a photographer and therefore do lots of memory intensive operations in Photoshop, and other imaging programs including DPP and album compositing software. I have a pretty good (although older) workstation using an amd chip and raptor and 2gigs of ram.
I also like to edit on my laptop once my color has been established in my files using my regular system...this allows me to work on the road and also anywhere I feel like. I have a year old 17" Dell Inspiron 9400 dual core 1.7 GHZ processor with one gig of ram. I really like this machine, but it needs a little souping up...what ram would be good to upgrade to 2 gigs. Also...would it be feasible to upgrade to a core duo chip? I hear this can be a plug and play operation. Is it worth it?
 
If you're running Vista, you can 'soup up' your memory to 4GB by using a little known feature called ReadyBoost.

For instance, I have a Toshiba A215 Multimedia lappy with 2GB RAM, Vista Home Premium, and a built-in digital card reader...

All I gotta do is stick a 2GB SD card in the slot, enable ReadyBoost and Boom! 4GB memory! 😀

Anyway, that's an option if you need LOTS of memory...
 
yes and not the way you think. you still have 2gb RAM. readyboost does not add memory. it files directory information on flash ram so the system can retrieve it much much quicker then it would if it had to wait for the hard disk drive to seek and read. yes, it helps because things pop up quicker. but other then that, that one or two seconds a program might start faster, you wont see any other improvement. if a game needs more then 2gb of ram then readyboost is going to do nothing, anything over 2gb is still swapped on the harddrive (but that swapped directory info is still readyboosted)
 
You will not be able to drop in a dual core cpu.

What you may be able do is a "pin mod" or "socket mod" to increase the speed of your cpu. It all depends upon your fsb speed.

Google for Dell pin mod for the info.

Edit:
I just checked it out and you're already at a 166Mhz FSB, so you can't pin mod either.
 
Originally posted by: zig3695
yes and not the way you think. you still have 2gb RAM. readyboost does not add memory. it files directory information on flash ram so the system can retrieve it much much quicker... blah, blah, blah...
Click to expand...
Not picking a fight, but I suggest you go watch the Channel9 Michael Fortin interview a few times, and let it sink in...

Vista/ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive/SuperFetch use of non-volatile memory has tremendous implications and benefits for mobile performance, battery life, HD longevity! And, it will get better as time goes on, the algos are improved, OEMs start adding flash to mobos, et cetera.

It's NOT the way you *think* either... 😉
 
Right, see I fail to see how even flash memory across the USB bus is of much benefit. Sure, its better than a hard drive, even a 7200RPM drive with a 16MB cache on the SATA interface (well, maybe not much then actually) but as compared to RAM, it is pure trash. I can see how it can be beneficial, much like more cache on a hard drive is beneficial, but it is nowhere near as fast as RAM, so thinking that it is RAM is just plain silly.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
I can see how it can be beneficial, much like more cache on a hard drive is beneficial, but it is nowhere near as fast as RAM, so thinking that it is RAM is just plain silly.
Click to expand...

Sure it is... NVRAM. Hello?!?!?!

You guys REALLY need to watch the interview a few times! Michael Fortin addresses all these issues one-by-one, in a very logical manner.

I know it's hard to sit though a 48-minute video with no Homer Simpson elements or South Park characters, but it might keep you from looking like Beavis and Butt-head (respectively)... 😀
 
OK, see here is what I am saying. From a purely theoretical standpoint, the best numbers I could find for flash cards were Compact Flash which appears to have max R/W of 133MB/s, which is pretty fast, but slower than even SATA150 burst, however since that is flash, it can always put out those numbers. So, about the same, maybe quicker than a hard drive, which is what I said.

Now, as for comparing it to RAM... My MacBook has a Core Duo, the little brother of the much more common Core 2 Duo, but they use the same RAM. DDR2-667 which has a peak transfer rate of 5336 MB/s (not getting into the issue between MB and MiB)... so about 40 times faster than the CF card. And those are purely hypothetical numbers. Disregarding that the CF card has to go through more steps from it to the processor than the RAM, we get back to what I said. That they are not the same thing. Flash is not RAM.

And I watched the video for a 3rd time just now, all I really was able to hear him say was that using ReadyBoost, which (to my understanding) is an offshoot almost of SuperFetch, one has a large, faster than hard drive area, to store stuff once the RAM gets full. So, to my understanding, you go in order of where to store stuff RAM -> ReadyBoost -> drive cache -> drive. So, about that flash drive not being RAM...
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
OK, see here is what I am saying. From a purely theoretical standpoint, the best numbers I could find for flash cards were Compact Flash which appears to have max R/W of 133MB/s, which is pretty fast, but slower than even SATA150 burst, however since that is flash, it can always put out those numbers. So, about the same, maybe quicker than a hard drive, which is what I said.

Now, as for comparing it to RAM... My MacBook has a Core Duo, the little brother of the much more common Core 2 Duo, but they use the same RAM. DDR2-667 which has a peak transfer rate of 5336 MB/s (not getting into the issue between MB and MiB)... so about 40 times faster than the CF card. And those are purely hypothetical numbers. Disregarding that the CF card has to go through more steps from it to the processor than the RAM, we get back to what I said. That they are not the same thing. Flash is not RAM.

And I watched the video for a 3rd time just now, all I really was able to hear him say was that using ReadyBoost, which (to my understanding) is an offshoot almost of SuperFetch, one has a large, faster than hard drive area, to store stuff once the RAM gets full. So, to my understanding, you go in order of where to store stuff RAM -> ReadyBoost -> drive cache -> drive. So, about that flash drive not being RAM...
Click to expand...

Exactly, it's just another step in the memory hierarchy. It's not RAM, but it's a lot better to swap to (fast) flash than to an HDD. The performance increase is marginal, but so is the price of flash these days.
 
Which is all I was saying, but VinDSL seemed to be convinced that ReadyBoost is just as good as RAM, which frankly it isn't.
 
Which is all I was saying, but VinDSL seemed to be convinced that ReadyBoost is just as good as RAM, which frankly it isn't.
 
Heh!

Okay, you're still not getting it... You're hung up on the way it used to be... so be it!

Let's forget it for now. I'll bring it up later when Win XP & Mac OS X have left the premises... 😉
 
vindsl- what did i say was wrong? readyboost is not ram and if there is an interview that says so then its flat out wrong. and if you would like to come over to my house and see readyboost in action on any four of my systems you will not be able to tell a difference because i wont even let you in the door, but from my word i will give you that it doesnt make a huge difference. it helps marginally (like said above) and thats it. its not ram. link that interview please, i actually do have an attention span longer then bevis and butthead 🙄
 
Originally posted by: VinDSL
Heh!

Okay, you're still not getting it... You're hung up on the way it used to be... so be it!

Let's forget it for now. I'll bring it up later when Win XP & Mac OS X have left the premises... 😉
Click to expand...

The way it used to be? You mean 5 minutes ago, when Flash memory wasn't as fast as RAM? Which is all I have been saying. Sure, there is a benefit, but no, that benefit is not a 1:1.

You could hook up a 16GB jump drive to your system, and guess what, it is not like getting a 16GB RAM chip. And I have no idea why you are so smug about the fact that you are running Vista. Did you help design the OS? If that is the case, good for you, getting to work on a project that size. But if not, shut the F up, you just sound like a condescending pr!ck that only sings 2 songs "My Toshy Lappy and why I love it" " My Vista rocks, yes it does, your OS is pure Sh!t"
 
LoL! Quit being so thin-skinned! I was just pulling you leg. We're all friends, right? 😀

I stole the 1GB Memory Stick out of my wife's Sony, plugged it in the media slot on my lappy, disabled the page file system, and enabled ReadyBoost (850MB).

After a few minutes of running Firefox, disk I/O is down to practically nothing. The memory stick is busy as a beaver, however! And, that's the whole point of ReadyBoost!

ReadyBoost creates a caching layer that sits between system memory and the disk. The less spin-up, spin-down, reading, writing, and so forth that takes place, the longer your HD will last, and less battery power it will consume...

Since this seems to be working out great, so far, I guess I'll go buy a bigger stick, and put this one back in the camera where it belongs.

Heh! Dude, this HD isn't doing jack now! It was lit up all the time before. Always wondered what it was doing in there...

Anyway, I'll let you know if I notice any performance enhancement, as time goes on. This feature is definitely a keeper... 😉
 
Let's try it again... 🙂

Originally posted by: TheStu
I can see how it can be beneficial, much like more cache on a hard drive is beneficial, but it is nowhere near as fast as RAM, so thinking that it is RAM is just plain silly.
Click to expand...

I would now say: Windows Vista HP with 4GB RAM & 4GB ReadyBoost is the way to go!

IMHO, that would definitely 'soup up' the OP's Dell Inspiron...

BTW, Belarc Advisor & PC Wizard are both seeing 4096MB RAM installed (3454 MB available). System is showing 66% free (2261 MB) with all my usual stuff open, so I got plenty of breathing room now. Highly recommended!
 
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