New Dell Inspiron 8200: How to upgrade RAM?

[Broohaha]

I just got my much-anticipated Inspiron 8200 and, frankly, I'm a little dissapointed. It's like molasses...

I'm hoping much of it is because I bought a stripped down version (full specs are at the bottom); namely, the following three items: 128MB,DDR,266MHZ (1 DIMM), 32MB DDR 4XAGP NVIDIA GEFORCE2 GO 3D VID, 20GB,HD,9.5MM,I8200,FACT ...

I want to upgrade the RAM but I'm not sure exactly how to do it. I know to use crucial but I don't know whether to buy 128 or 256 or what. The more I think about it and use the laptop, the more sure I am that the reason things are pretty damn slow (poor WC3 performance, crappy multitasking, and just overall general slowwwwwness) is because I only have 128 megs of RAM.

Come to think of it, there is also a lot of bloatware that Dell ships the comp preinstalled with. Do you think I should reformat the comp? Or stick with what they gave me? If I *did* reformat it, how would I get those laptop-specific items (i.e. trackpad and battery icons on taskbar) to come along after the reformat? Are they automatically installed with windows? Or is it Dell software?

Can somebody look at the specs and make some suggestions about the right RAM (# slots, # megs, etc...I don't really understand RAm at all) to purchase? Thanks for any help anybody can give me.



1 1 220-5168 I8200, 15 IN SXGA+,P4,1.6 GHZ
1 1 311-1350 128MB,DDR,266MHZ (1 DIMM)
1 1 320-0193 32MB DDR 4XAGP NVIDIA GEFORCE2 GO 3D VID
1 1 340-3446 20GB,HD,9.5MM,I8200,FACT
1 1 340-6352 NO FLOPPY OPTION
1 1 420-0744 WINDOWS XP HOME,ENG,INSP
1 1 313-1041 DELL RESOURCE CD,W/TOOLS I8200
1 1 412-0190 DELL SUPPORT 1.2,INSPIRON,TIED
1 1 430-0334 INTEGRATED NETWORK CARD I8200
1 1 313-0832 INTERNAL 56K MODEM
1 1 313-0924 8X FIXED INT CD-RW/DVD COMB DR,I8200
1 1 313-0833 IVI SW DVD SOLUTION
1 1 412-3806 DELLNET BY MSN VS,SPLASH SCREEN FOR XP
1 1 412-0173 AOL 7.0 CD FOR US
1 1 412-0134 MS WORKSUITE 2002,CDWD,OEM,US ENG,INSP
1 1 950-9057 NO WARRANTY,YRS 2/3(1-1-1RTD)
1 1 950-3820 RTD,INSP,SOL,INIT YR, BSD (HIGH-2)
2 1 461-0859 TRACKING,D AND C

 

[John]

Crucial has a memory selector on the front page that walks you thru and identifies the memory available for your laptop.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Dell%2BInspiron&model=Inspiron+8200+Series&submit=Go

Get the 256MB.

 

[zzzz]

for the laptop specific things..I have installed winxp on a dell and the trackpoint works. The battery diaplay works too.

 

[Broohaha]

Originally posted by: John
Crucial has a memory selector on the front page that walks you thru and identifies the memory available for your laptop. http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Dell%2BInspiron&model=Inspiron+8200+Series&submit=Go Get the 256MB.

A long time ago, when I upgraded a desktop's RAM, I remember a friend telling me to make sure all my slots had the same amount of RAM in them (i.e. they were all 64s or 128s or 256s or whatever). So I should buy the 256 even though I have 128 RAM as of now?

Also, how many 'slots' does my inspiron have? Should I buy 1 stick of 256 or 2? And when I finally get it, will it be a relatively painfree install?

Thanks for all your help.

 

[John]

Your i8200 has 2 dimm slots and you can mix the memory sizes.

If you want to get rid of the bloatware Dell ships on your i8200, reformat it and get the drivers from support.dell.com

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: John
Your i8200 has 2 dimm slots and you can mix the memory sizes.

If you want to get rid of the bloatware Dell ships on your i8200, reformat it and get the drivers from support.dell.com

or you can call up tech support and ask them what you can remove without royally screwing things up.

as for the RAM, check your task manager, i bet you're over 128 when the computer boots to desktop. winxp eats ram more than 2k does, and my 2k install is near that.

 

[MWink]

Only 128MB of RAM??? I thought my I8200 was bad with 256MB of RAM. Not that it has 512MB it flies.

 

[bacillus]

Originally posted by: MWink
Only 128MB of RAM??? I thought my I8200 was bad with 256MB of RAM. Not that it has 512MB it flies.

yeah, definitely at least 256Mb for xp.
personally I would ditch the 128 sodimm & get x2 pieces of 256Mb!
your hdd is also a bottleneck as it's only a 4200rpm one.

 

[AnMig]

Okay I have 8200 almost the same configuration as you except i went for the geforce 4 440 go .

That thing was sluggish from the start. I blame the bloatware dell had in it so I resized the hd (presizer exe) reinstalled windows xp.
All the drivers and utilities you need are in the driver cd that came from dell. Its not like compaq that will give you a rescue cd.

The laptop flew after the re-install.

I then bought a 256 mb stick from crucial $60-70 shipped and installed it. Crucial has nice pictures showing you how to install the soddim (very easy). Removing the memory cover was a little hard just follow the manual on how to remove it.

I bought the generic memory and opted not to get the memory seleted by crucial wizard, price difference was 20-30 dollars for the same stick.

Also if you notice stuttering during dvd playback dell has a firmware upgrade for the hardrive that will correct this. I hope you bought a floppy drive since the firmware only works off a floppy.

Also if you are planning to dual boot windows 98 /XP. Send nvidia tech support an e-mail and they will kindly send you the video drivers for windows 98.


good luck it is very easy to upgrade the memory.

my next project is to get a 5200 rpm hard drive. Word is this is the best upgrade you can get for this laptop.

good luck

 

[babyg722]

can you upgrade memory on all laptops?

the apple guy at fry's said the first slot is "soldered" but the 2nd one is open.

do u just pop open the hatch and slap in the stick of ram just like a desktop? does it work for pc and apple notebooks?
are the memory slots hard to get to?

thx

 

[Derango]

Depends on the laptop. The Inspiron 8x00 series memory is fully upgradable.

 

[Compuguru]

I just got an 8200 and the first thing i did was format it. Dell ships them with a disk that gives you all the drivers and proprietary applications so after the format you can install whichever ones you want individually. Ive got a 1700mhz p4, 256MB, the 64MB GF4go, and the 5400 60gig hd. This thing flies. The other guys answered your ram questions correctly.

 

[Broohaha]

Thanks to everyone for all the help and suggestions on this thread so far... I have three more questions, if anybody wants to drop some more knowledge on me:

First, I remember around the time I ordered the laptop, there was another thread on Hot Deals talking about the amazing Crucial memory deals and how a lot of people were jumping on cheap Inspiron memory. I put that on my things to do list but, like an idiot, forgot to order any RAM. I've tried looking through coupon sites but from what I can tell all the deals are over and done with by now. Does anybody know how/where I can find deals/coupons and/or if/when the prices will come down?

(like all those slashes? )

Second thing is WinXP. I've decided to go ahead and reinstall the OS after I get the new RAM. But I don't know if I should use my old copy of 2K or use this copy of XP Home they've given me or go out and get a new copy of XP Pro. What do you guys suggest? I'd heard bad things about XP so I stayed away from it for a while but then one of my friends told me how great it was so I figured I'd go with the flow. Any suggestions? Should I stick with 2K or go with XP and, if the latter, should it be Home or Pro. XP seems decent but all the little details those monopolizing SOBs at Microsoft go to great lengths to add to make sure that everyone and their grandma can use a PC really tend to get on a hardcore user's nerves after some time, you know?

I don't think I'll be upgrading the HD or video card anytime soon but if I do so, say, in a year or so when prices go down, will it be a difficult operation to pull off? Or fairly simple? This is a laptop after all...:|

 

[Derango]

Use XP for a little while...if you don't like it...go back to 2k.

Oh, and memory prices will drop a week after I buy memory. I'll let you know

 

[SteelCityFan]

None of the RAM is soldered in on the Dell. Both slots can be used. The 8200 can use 512MB sticks max in each slot. Check your manual... there is a cover with a couple screws on the bottom of the laptop. The cover just pops out and the Ram is right there. It goes in a little differently than a destop, but very easy. Push in at an angle, then snap down.

128MB of RAM for XP is severely holding you back. 128 is the minimum I think. When I first bought my laptop, I also bought it with 128 (2x64MB even) because Dell uses CL3 PC133, and RAM upgrades from Dell cost about twice as much as Crucial (at least at the time). Once I got it, I reformatted and started from scratch. Win XP dogged. 256MB Crucial CL2 helped big time.

The other reason it may seem slugish (if you have never owned a laptop before) is the Hard Drive. Laptop hard drives are either 4200 RPMs or 5400RPM's. I am almost positive that all of the 20GB hard drives Dell sells are of the 4200RPM variety. The 5400RPM drives kick in about 40GB.

You may also want to turn off WinXP's sytem restore...

As far as RAM prices.. I paid $45 for a 256MB PC133 stick in November... same stick is $90 now. Man do I wish I had bought two.

Just a tip... If you are going to sign up with the 6 months Free ISP you chose, do it BEFORE you reformatt. THen your account will be set up with the free months and be ready when you reinstall everything. If not, you will lose the Dell installed "code" to activate that particular deal. I learned this the hard way, and what a time I had getting them to fix it for me after they (MSN) assured me all I had to do was fax a copy of the invoice.

 

[SteelCityFan]

As far as the battery icons etc. The battery icons are a OS thing. The touchpad / video / sound drivers can be found on Dell's page.