[acabtp]

Maxing out the memory (RAM) on your Dell Mini is easy, cheap, and effective. Do it today!

Frequently Asked Questions
I thought the max was 1 gb? Why doesn't Dell offer it with more? - In order to ship the Mini with Windows XP instead of Windows Vista, there are...

Click here to read the entire tutorial

[Fallstar]

I just upgraded my RAM yesterday (from 1 GB to 2), and I wondered the same thing...but I went ahead and removed the battery anyway, since it is just a matter of moving the lock sliders and sliding it out. Also after you remove the battery, turn the Mini back upright and press the power button once, to drain any residual power from the system. The process only takes a minute to do, then you can continue with the memory upgrade.

[timfitz]

Thanks I guess your probably right taking out the battery won't hurt. What about saving any files when you upgrade is that nessarry? As you can tell i'm not high tech but am working on that.



Thanks TimFitz :idea:

[yakker.yak]

Yup, as a general rule of thumb you want to disable all power going to a system if you're poking around inside.

That includes the battery ...

Also, make sure you're not full of static, ground yourself (and don't take apart your Mini on a carpet )

[Fallstar]

Originally Posted by timfitz

What about saving any files when you upgrade is that nessarry?

You don't really need to worry about that, although it is not bad to backup your data regardless of whether you are doing any upgrade or not. My Mini is relatively new, so I don't have anything of grave importance on it.

[taffypride]

If the Dell version of Ubuntu is limited by the kernel to 1Gb RAM, can we not just reinstall Ubuntu from a different source? Or does the Dell version contain all the correct drivers?

[yakker.yak]

Originally Posted by taffypride

If the Dell version of Ubuntu is limited by the kernel to 1Gb RAM, can we not just reinstall Ubuntu from a different source? Or does the Dell version contain all the correct drivers?

Yes, Dell's version includes everything that you should need, including the drivers. But it does currently have the 1GB limitation bug that will hopefully be fixed soon. Not sure why it hasn't been fixed and updated yet.

If you need your 2GB, you could try installing the regular 8.10 or recompiling your kernel with the Dell version to include the 2GB memory support.

[ruis1288]

Originally Posted by mark62

nothing... if say you already have 1 gig and have plenty of headroom... then absolutely nothing... but i installed 2 gigs any way :ugeek:

you do have to remember that one of the main things that most pplz forget to do when installing ram is upgrading the virtual memory of the system after the installation of the stick. This allows the system to speed up much more efficiently.

The stock virtual memory is 200mb and when I upgraded the virtual memory to 1000mb (a little under half of total potential virtual memory for 2 gigs of ram) it made my system literally 2-3 times faster when it comes to internet browsing and overall program performance.

with that said it could be determined that when you have either 512mb or 1g installed from the manufacturer, being that the virtual memory is default to 200mb, the virtual memory could be increased to closer to the total ram available to increase speed.

what baffles me is the fact that dell only put a baseline 200mb of VM when the lowest possible RAM available at purchase is 512mb.

from what i have found is that either the bios/processor/mobo will not allow me to increase the VM higher than approx 2 gigs, when XP is telling me that I have headroom from a 2 gig stick to increase the VM to almost 3.5 gigs.

when working at geeksquad our improvements to customers systems would almost always consist of increasing the VM to 1.5 times that of the total ram available. (the safest level reachable before it becomes unstable)

not trying to step on toes, but with this said it IS a general upgrade with actual improvements...

[jefito]

Sorry, but since when does running with virtual memory make your system faster? Doesn't virtual memory only allow you to run more programs than can fit into your available RAM? But keeping part of your program on a slow drive rather than RAM is going to necessarily slow your system down. If you aren't overloading your available RAM, why would you need to use VM? A number of us here on the forums have it disabled altogether.

~jeff

[photon]

Originally Posted by jefito

. . .since when does running with virtual memory make your system faster? . . . ~jeff

I turned off VM when I installed a 2GB RAM card. Then I discovered Outlook 2000 would stall frequently. I found it behaves normally when I configured XP with as little as 2 MB of VM.

I can upgrade the complete office suite for $60, but Outlook 2007 also has problems on devices with SSDs.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940226

[jefito]

Originally Posted by photon

I turned off VM when I installed a 2GB RAM card. Then I discovered Outlook 2000 would stall frequently. I found it behaves normally when I configured XP with as little as 2 MB of VM.

I can upgrade the complete office suite for $60, but Outlook 2007 also has problems on devices with SSDs.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940226

Hmmm, that's very interesting. I'd sure like to see some technical documentation that explains that phenomenon.

~jeff