[Slay3r420]

Hello, First i need some basic help, This being a laptop from 2001 i can find alot of info for upgradeing and the dell support forum is the sorryest place i have ever been too.

First could someone help me out in terms of upgrades all i could find is the max ram supported is 512mb Im not sure if its pc100 or 133 ass it dont show in bios, could i put more in it with a bios update? And it has a mobile p3 800 mhz 478 pin whats tha max cpu i can get into this system and is it possible to put somthing better than a p3 in it maby with a mod would any other mobile intel cpu fit and work? Other than that Is it possible to do any sort of overclocking? Either a bios mod, certin software thats supports the 2500, or speedstep mod/hack that will allow it to raise the multiplyer higher?

One last thing, I have it runnng currently with this config, P3 800mhz 128mb ram win 2k with service pack 4. I have problems with it sometimes when it boots into windows the laptop just freezes and wont function and when it dose work at times it will work for hours on hours and sometimes will just freeze during simple things like listining to music etc. What can i do to fix this?

Thanks alot hope someone can help me in all theese issues thanks alot for all replys.

A little update i went to turn on the laptop now it "8 of 10 times" the screen will remain black. And within 5 to 10 mins max it will lock up i really need help.

 

[NOS---]

Laptops are NOT ment to be upgraded, IF you are lucky, they did NOT use propritary RAM(Only DELL ram) Take out the stick of ram and tell use what brand it is.

To the random lock up, Probobly heat, or a fan way be failing, of the HDD is dying...

 

[simon741]

get a desktop dont upgrade that crappy laptop. dont get a dell desktop

 

[Slay3r420]

I got plenty of desktops

And if its not ment to be upgraded or not i shall try. Ill go take the ram cover off and get the brand wont take but a few mins till i find my mini 4 way anyways lol. BTW my cuz upgraded his 2650's cpu ram and hd so why do you say there not ment to be upgraded? On ebay for instance i see the same model with 1.1-1.3 p3 cpu's so its worth uping a lil can get 300-500 mhz more just from that. Also im joebob420 ust to use the forum alot if anyone remembers me i just forgot the email i used for my old account its been a while well ill post the ram info soon thanks all.

Ok here we are, It has 2 sticks of ram here are the markings.
TOSHIBA <--Left side Right side ----> 8M X 64 SDRAM
THLY64N11A80 <--Left side Right side ----> PC100-222-620
IPC/PO/001- 7/0133AKC <--Left side Right side ----> ASSY IN MALAYSIA

Thats all its says on the left and right sticker on the ram i dont get the 8m x 64 if it mean mb that would be 512? I never had a laptop b4 this one and desktop ram i have and have seen normally say 128mb, 256mb, 512mb etc etc so im not sure in bios it says 128mb of ram.

 

[Slay3r420]

Any help?

 

[Thumper]

Well, it looks like it's PC100 from the markings.....that's pretty slow.

Quote:

Memory chips are normally only available as part of a card called a module. You've probably seen memory listed as 8x32 or 4x16. These numbers represent the number of the chips multiplied by the capacity of each individual chip, which is measured in megabits (Mb), or one million bits. Take the result and divide it by eight to get the number of megabytes on that module. For example, 4x32 means that the module has four 32-megabit chips. Multiply 4 by 32 and you get 128 megabits. Since we know that a byte has 8 bits, we need to divide our result of 128 by 8. Our result is 16 megabytes!

So it looks like you have 2 modules of 64MB each for a total of 128MB RAM.

Dell laptops are more open to upgrades than most, I know the new ones come with instructions on how to upgrade and it's easy.

I really think a memory boost would go a long way to solving your troubles. If you can get to the CPU also, that would be a good purchase also, at least get over 1Ghz clock speed. Of course, you'll have to find out your motherboard specs first........

The trouble comes in the motherboard. What can it support? It has PC100 in there, you'll want to go up to PC133, but does the board even support that? That's the tough question.

Corsair PC133 512MB

That would make a HUGE difference in your system, again, as long as your board supports PC133. Actually, even if it didn't, it would still work at PC100 and you would have 4 times the memory as you do now. It looks like PC100 is actually more expensive than PC133 anyway........

Windows 2000 requires at least 64MB RAm to run, you're not much over that requirment, and as with all "minimum requirments", you get minimum performance........What you're describing sounds a lot like a memory issue, so that would be my recomendation.

Just a note, I had this thought last night, check the configuration of your RAM....the one I posted is a 168pin module......on another thread here, someone mentioned their 2500 had 144 pin modules......obviously, they are not interchangable.

Newegg doesn't sell any of the modules that old, but if you do a Google search for Dell 2500 RAM you should be able to find some.....I'd recomend at least 256MB of RAM.........