new dell pc

vinnyutd6899

when i get it on Monday can i open it up and add another 2 gb of ram? or will this void my 1 year warranty?

Reluctant_spender

Read the warrenty that will come with it.

If it were mine I add would additional memory - you can always remove it.

alared

As far as I know you have to add memory to a Dell equally.
In other words if there`s two memory slots you must add,for instance,two 512mb chips,one to each slot.
You cannot put a 512 in one and a 256 in the other.

By all means open it up and add the memory and if something happens at a later date,under warranty,you can revert back to how you got it.

buses7675

Hi All,

AFAIK with Dell PCs, opening them doesn't invalidate the warranty, as on some brands this is the case. The one I have with the older case (new in 2006) even has the pull latch on the top to remove the side in one go, newer Dell cases IIRC do require the usual screwdriver to open, but as the manuals (you can read the pdf online) give a full list of how to make internal changes to the, I'd think that that opening them up is still quite okay!

Cheers

Steve

BillScarab

alared wrote: »

As far as I know you have to add memory to a Dell equally.
In other words if there`s two memory slots you must add,for instance,two 512mb chips,one to each slot.
You cannot put a 512 in one and a 256 in the other.

By all means open it up and add the memory and if something happens at a later date,under warranty,you can revert back to how you got it.

Generally it is better to add matched pairs of memory in modern machines as it then runs in dual channel mode and is a touch faster. However there should be no reason why odd amounts shouldn't work.

Most manufacturers let you upgrade memory without invalidating the warranty.

buses7675

BillScarab wrote: »

Generally it is better to add matched pairs of memory in modern machines as it then runs in dual channel mode and is a touch faster. However there should be no reason why odd amounts shouldn't work.

Most manufacturers let you upgrade memory without invalidating the warranty.

Hi All,

I think with Dell you 'have' to use matched pairs, according to the manual for this Dell Dimension 5150 anyway.

With this the original 1024MB RAM is two sets of 512MBs (in slots 1 and 3), whilst the additional 2048MB RAM I bought is two sets of 1024MB (in slots 2 and 4).

Good plan though buying your own memory, Dell PCs seem to be cheap, but any upgrades and accesories seem a little overpriced!

Cheers

Steve

chuckles1066

buses7675 wrote: »

Hi All,

AFAIK with Dell PCs, opening them doesn't invalidate the warranty, as on some brands this is the case. The one I have with the older case (new in 2006) even has the pull latch on the top to remove the side in one go, newer Dell cases IIRC do require the usual screwdriver to open, but as the manuals (you can read the pdf online) give a full list of how to make internal changes to the, I'd think that that opening them up is still quite okay!

Cheers

Steve

My Dimension 9200's (only a couple of months old) are both tool-free and open as you describe; namely, you pull the latch on the top and the side pulls away.

As for warranty issues, Dell will honour the warranty on the machine as it shipped. So, if something goes wrong, you'll need to remove the added memory to get it back to the original configuration.

weegie.geek

buses7675 wrote: »

Hi All,

I think with Dell you 'have' to use matched pairs, according to the manual for this Dell Dimension 5150 anyway.

With this the original 1024MB RAM is two sets of 512MBs (in slots 1 and 3), whilst the additional 2048MB RAM I bought is two sets of 1024MB (in slots 2 and 4).

Good plan though buying your own memory, Dell PCs seem to be cheap, but any upgrades and accesories seem a little overpriced!

Cheers

Steve

This will be down to the actual motherboard/type of memory needed rather than being a Dell thing.

I believe RD-RIMMS used to have to be matched pairs, and old EDO simms did as well iirc.

Not sure what specs the 5150 has, but judging by the amounts of ram you're talking about it's definitely not EDO simms, so if it does need to be inserted in matched pairs it'll be an early pentium 4 using RD-RIMMS most likely.

BillScarab's right enough that it's usually a good idea with modern pcs to use matched pairs to make use of dual channel, but the benefits of using dual channel aren't anywhere near double the memory performance, so if it's a choice between dual channel or single channel but with more ram, I'd choose single channel.

BillScarab

weegie.geek wrote: »

so if it's a choice between dual channel or single channel but with more ram, I'd choose single channel.

Definately agree with that. I can't imagine any Dell someone is buying now being anything other than DDR2 memory or for an XPS possbily DDR3.

Once you haev your Dell just go to Crucial and scan it to see what your options are.